Category Archives: Fox News Viewers

February 7, 2013 · 5:08 PM

Fox Viewers: Fools or Marks?

Fox Bobblehead Idiots - Morris, O'Reilly, Hannity, Doocy : http://mariopiperni.com/

Mario Piperni

This take on the reason Fox let Dick Morris go is just about right.

Morris was so laughably wrong in almost everything he said that even many die-hard conservatives no doubt found him to be a buffoon. When he tells you over and over again that there’s no way your side can lose, and then they do, his credibility suffers even with people who want to believe him. But what really did him in, I think, was when it came out in December that he was, in all probability, running a scam on the Fox News viewers whom he implored to contribute to his super PAC to defeat Barack Obama. None of the money went to that cause, instead probably finding its way back into Morris’s pocket. It’s one thing to treat Fox viewers like fools—most of the network’s personalities do that every day. But it’s quite another to treat them like marks. If you do it as blatantly as Morris did, the entire brand is threatened.

In the end, it became too obvious that Dick Morris wasn’t working for the betterment of the conservative movement, or the Republican party, or Fox News. He was working for the betterment of Dick Morris. Once that became all too obvious, I’m sure Ailes had no qualms about showing him the door. After all, there’s plenty more where he came from.

Fox viewers – fools? Nah. Really?

Morris might have been more blatant in his ways than the many grifters who appear daily on Fox but there’s a fine line between Morris’ antics and those of say, a Bill O’Reilly. Truth and honesty would never take precedence over the $20 million O’Reilly pulls in each year in salary alone from Fox. Bill knows what his audience of low-information muppets wants to hear and he delivers without fail.

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December 9, 2011 · 1:20 AM

Why Fox News viewers don’t like Mitt Romney: 4 theories

Well, we already know that Fox News viewers are among the “low information” crowd, so one would wonder why their view on Mitt Romney is important or even relevant.

I’ve concluded that some folks may actually be interested…

The Week

Iowa Republicans are already partial to Gingrich, but Hawkeye State conservatives who get their news from Fox are especially likely to favor Newt over Mitt

A new CBS/New York Times pollfound that nearly 40 percent of Iowa Republicans get most of their updates on current events from Fox News. Among those voters, Newt Gingrich is beating Mitt Romney by a mile.

Almost 50 percent of the Fox viewers say they would vote for Gingrich if the Iowa caucuses were held today, while only 12 percent would back Romney.

Why the big gap? Here, four theories:

1. Gingrich used to work at Fox
It helps that Newt was “on the Fox payroll,” says Prairie Weather. Gingrich only signed off as a well-paid “contributor” when he entered the presidential race, so he’s fresh on the minds of Fox’s viewers and hosts. That makes him “a made man in the Fox family,” while Romney is the outsider trying to push Fox’s guy aside.

2. Gingrich loves granting Fox interviews, Romney doesn’t
The “Fox News effect” comes down to simple math, says Libby Spencer atThe Impolitic. Gingrich has made 52 appearances on the network since entering the race. Herman Cain, another favorite until his recent flurry of sex scandals, was interviewed on Fox 63 times. That Fox love helped Cain do well “until his transgressions were too large for even Fox to spin away.” Mitt, on the other hand, was essentially a stranger to Fox until he recently expressed “new interest in deigning to be interviewed there.”

3. Romney dropped the ball
“Mitt Romney has done a great job of nailing down support from wealthy donors,” says Jed Lewison at Daily Kos, “and he’s got a virtual monopoly on support from the GOP establishment.” But he seems to have overlooked the need to “reach the people who actually vote.” Fox is a ready-made megaphone for Republican leaders like him. ”The question is: Will he be able to take advantage of it?”

4. It’s the debates, stupid
Fox viewers’ preference for Gingrich might be connected to another factor fueling his popularity, says Don Surber at the Charleston, W.V., Daily News. Seven in 10 of the Republicans polled — a crowd that obviously includes many Fox viewers — had watched some of the recent televised showdowns among the GOP candidates. “This shows the power of the televised debates,” in which Gingrich has really shined.

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August 19, 2011 · 5:52 PM

Fox Viewers Overwhelming Think We Should Prepare For Alien Invasion Before Fighting Climate Change

No surprise there!  I suspect the intelligence quotient of the majority of Fox News lemmings is in the double digits…

Think Progress

A new (supposedly) NASA-funded study postulating that aliens may attack humans over climate change had all the ingredients for a perfect Fox faux controversy — it bolstered their anti-science narrative, painted their opponents as clownish radicals, and highlighted wasteful government spending on a supposedly liberal cause. Fox reported the “news from NASA” several times several times today, presenting it as official “taxpayer funded research.” A chyron on Fox and Friends read: “NASA: Global warming may provoke an [alien] attack.”

But as Business Insider pointed out, they’re “wrong” — “That report was not funded by NASA. It was written by an independent group of scientists and bloggers. One of those happens to work at NASA.” NASA distanced itself from the report as well, calling reports linking the agency to it “not true.” Kelly finally corrected the record this afternoon, saying, “I was making that up.”

But before she did, she was so bemused by the study that she directed her viewers to completea poll on her website which asked how we should respond to the study: “Immediately increase efforts to curb greenhouse gases,” “Develop weapons to kill the Aliens FIRST,” or “Gently suggest scientists research how to create job.”

Not surprisingly, most suggested they research something else. But more than six times as many respondents (19 percent to 3 percent) said we should focus building weapons to kill aliens before curbing green house gases.

Watch a compilation:

The poll is of course not scientific, but you can hardly blame the viewers who did respond, considering Fox’s constant misinformation about climate change. For instance, as she presented the poll, Kelly said of curbing climate change, “just in case right?” — as in, “just in case” the science is right. She did not make a similar quip for alien attack. Numerous studiesconsistently show that Fox viewers are among the most misinformed of news viewers, while at least one study has shown that — perversely — watching Fox actually makes people lessinformed than they were to being with.

“Trust me folks, this story is hard to understand,” Fox and Friends host Gretchen Carlson said of the “NASA study.” Indeed.

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