Tag Archives: Erick Erickson

January 31, 2013 · 4:04 AM

Fox News’ plummeting ratings: Why the network is struggling

Many Fox News viewers probably weren't eager to tune into President Obama's inauguration — which was a ratings bonanza for liberal MSNBC.

The Week

The conservative news outlet is suffering its worst ratings in 12 years

In January, Fox News had its worst primetime ratings since 2001 in the all-important age demographic of 25-54, according to new Nielsen data. Furthermore, its total day ratings for the age group fell to their lowest levels since 2008. The grim news for the conservative cable network was gleefully publicized by liberal rival MSNBC, which boasted a 20 percent boost in the 25-54 demographic from the previous year, and an 11 percent climb in primetime.

What happened? While some liberal commentators would like to see Fox’s decline as evidenceof a leftward shift in public opinion, coinciding with President Obama enjoying his highest favorability ratings in three years, the truth is probably simpler. Conservative viewers in January — participating in a collective version of see no evil, hear no evil — likely passed on watching President Obama’s inauguration, a ratings bonanza for MSNBC. Fox has suffered similar ratings declines during other big Democratic events.

It’s also important to keep the latest development in context. As Katherine Fung and Jack Mirkinson at The Huffington Post note, “Fox News still had nine out of the top 10 programs. It has spent 11 consecutive years as the top-rated news channel. Its 6 a.m. show drew almost double the ratings of CNN’s top-ranking primetime show.”

Ouch. However, while Fox may not feel the need to shake up its lineup a la CNN, the house that Ailes built is making a few changes. Sarah Palin was recently let go as a commentator, while Red State editor Erick Erickson, a recent refugee from CNN, was brought on board.

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September 6, 2012 · 9:27 PM

CNN Condones Erick Erickson’s Hate Speech Against Women

I recall reading something yesterday regarding a petition against CNN’s Erik Erikson because he said something derogatory about women.  When I read about this yesterday, over that over 30,000 women had signed the petition signed…

Politicususa

If you missed it, Erick Erickson is at it again. This time, the CNN contributor tweeted, “First night of the Vagina Monologues in Charlotte going as expected” on day one of the DNC.

You might recall Erickson from his Limbaugh-esque “FemiNazi” references to women who speak their minds without his permission.

Erick was hired as part of CNN’s “balanced” approach, meaning they went to the dregs of the allegedly conservative movement (actually quite a radical anarchist movement, but that is for another day) and plucked two know-nothing rudesters out of obscurity in order to appeal to the “heartland” of America.

In response to CNN’s continued refusal to deal with Erickson’s inexcusable conduct, the Ultra Violet team started a petition calling for Erickson to be fired. According to Ultra Violet, 64,000 people signed it in under 24 hours. That’s what happens when you insult social media savvy women like Ultra Violet founders Nita Chaudhary and Shaunna Thomas, who are funded by the progressive nonprofit Citizen Engagement Lab.

Erickson’s non-apology apology read like the typical bully’s apology: “My apologies to those offended by my tweet. Wasn’t my intention.”

Continue reading here…

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May 31, 2012 · 12:16 AM

CNN Moves To The Right and Loses 52% of Its Viewers

PoliticusUSA

CNN’s abandonment of news to climb in bed with the tea party has turned into an epic disaster as the network has lost 52% of its viewers.

In a month where all three cable networks had ratings declines, no one did as badly as CNN. The network lost 52% of their total viewers (Run, Anderson, run. Imagine what a Cooper/Maddow primetime could do for MSNBC). Wolf Blitzer’s The Situation Room was down 46% in total viewers and 61% in the demo. How bad for have things gotten for CNN? In my recent travels, I passed through four airports, and not a single one had CNN on. The channel that I have been seeing more public televisions tuned to is The Weather Channel. Yes, even the weather is more interesting than CNN.

CNN’s problems started when the network bosses got the bright idea that they should try to copy Fox News, and move to the right. After climbing into bed with the Tea Party Express and hiring far right wingers Erick Erickson and Dana Loesch led to the current ratings disaster, what would you expect CNN to do?

If you said hire more right wingers and conservatives, congratulations, you are qualified for an upper management position at CNN. The network’s latest hire, Fox News cast-off Margaret Hoover,  let the cat out the bag, “Executives at CNN have been looking for fresh faces and new talent with conservative perspectives, and in the end, offered me an opportunity that was too good to pass up. Indeed, competition, that sturdy pillar of capitalism, is alive and well in the cable news industry.”

Despite the fact that their network is dying because they hired a bunch of conservatives, executives at CNN are looking to hire… more….conservatives.

Continue reading here…

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April 11, 2011 · 5:57 AM

Bill Press Tells Howard Kurtz That MSNBC Hosts Are ‘Not Calling Anyone Nazis’

During a discussion of Glenn Beck’s departure from Fox News’ air on Sunday’s Reliable Sources, progressive radio host Bill Press joined host Howard Kurtz in pushing back against the idea that MSNBC’s opinion personalities are somehow equivalent to Beck. While Press and Kurtz were correct in their overall assessment, Press’ declaration that MSNBC hosts are “not calling anyone Nazis” isn’t quite true, and benefits from the fact that Keith Olbermann is no longer at the network. Oddly, though, Olbermann’s record of Nazi references only reinforces the contrast between Beck and MSNBC.

Sure, there are superficial similarities between Beck and Olbermann. Both are strongly opinionated, have extremely loyal followers, and neither is a stranger to the rhetorical use of the Third Reich. Beck rightly drew fire for accusing prominent Jew George Soros of being a Nazi collaborator, while Olbermann compared prominent Jew Floyd Abrams to Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling.

But the research for the “Top Ten List” of Keith Olbermann’s Nazi references, compiled by our own Matt Schneider, illustrates the fallacy of the comparison. Only six of those ten were from MSNBC’s air, and those examples stretched all the way back to 1998. Beck, by contrast, makes Nazi references with such comical frequency that during my one visit to Beck’s Mercury Radio offices, I could hear the word “Nazi!” wafting out of the studio into the waiting room. I half-expected “Nazi” to be an all-purpose, “Aloha”-style salutation at Beck HQ.

However, Press also illustrates the need for liberals to hold their figureheads to a higher standard. As I’ve said before, even if the score is 50 to 1 in Nazi references, or other crazy talk, isn’t it better to be able to say “We don’t do that,” and for it to be true?

Also lost in the Beck/MSNBC foodfight is the fact that CNN employs its own noted Nazi-bomb thrower, Redstate’s Erick Erickson.

Video here…

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February 11, 2011 · 4:09 PM

Koch brothers’ plan for 2012: raise $88 Million

Thanks to the SCOTUS ruling on Citizens United v FEC, the Koch brothers will once again wield their enormous power to influence the 2012 elections.   Democrats had a chance to pass laws to circumvent the power of the Citizens United decision when they had both houses, but failed to do so. 

Politico

In an expansion of their political footprint, the billionaire Koch brothers plan to contribute and steer a total of $88 million to conservative causes during the 2012 election cycle, according to sources, funding a new voter micro-targeting initiative, grass-roots organizing efforts and television advertising campaigns.

In fact, as the annual Conservative Political Action Conference meets this week in Washington and conservatives assess the state of their movement, the Koch network of nonprofit groups, once centered on sleepy free-enterprise think tanks, seems to be emerging as a more ideological counterweight to the independent Republican political machine conceived by Bush-era GOP operatives Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie before the 2010 midterm elections.

The aggressive embrace of political activism by the Koch brothers, Charles and David, has cheered fiscal conservatives, who hope they will reorient the conservative political apparatus around free-market, small government principles and candidates, and away from the electability-over-principles approach they see Rove and Gillespie as embodying.

But not everyone on the right is happy about the brothers’ increasing political profile. Some conservatives complain that the political operatives who work for the Kochs don’t play well with others in the movement and worry that their efforts to steer big money to favored groups undermines other, potentially valuable conservative efforts.

Among leaders of conservative groups “there is the impression that there is a lot of favoritism, not necessarily from the Kochs, but from those the Koch brothers rely on to administer the money, and there are concerns about whether the best groups are being helped, or whether it’s just the groups that they happen to play favorites with,” said Erick Erickson, founder of the influential Red State blog and a CNN political analyst.

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September 23, 2010 · 3:34 AM

GOP ‘Pledge’ Underwhelms

The GOP has released their new “contract for America” entitled “Pledge to America”.   Here is a look at what some of the news outlets are saying:

Newsweek 

The new “Pledge to America” is unlikely to inspire the nation, but Republicans will win big in November even without a coherent, forward-looking platform.

Huffington Post

The “Pledge to America,” circulated to GOP lawmakers Wednesday, emphasizes job creation and spending control, as well as changing the way Congress does business. It steered clear of controversial issues such as Social Security and Medicare, big drivers of deficit spending.

Daily Kos

Tonight, CNN contributor Erick Erickson of RedState, The Republican’s answer to the Daily Kos and its founder Markos Moulitsas just tore apart and ripped into shreds the House GOP’s new plan to be unveiled tomorrow… “Pledge To America.” This is the GOP’s pathetic attempt to recapture  Newt Gingrich’s 1994 “Contract With America” which failed miserably and has been aptly renamed “Contract On America.”          http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

Politico

Republican ‘Pledge to America’: Spending caps, tax cuts…

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September 16, 2010 · 2:26 AM

Right-Wing Media Turn On Rove For “Trashing” O’Donnell

Karl Rove Assistant to the President, Deputy C...

Image via Wikipedia

 

Media Matters  

Malkin: “Rove came across as an effete sore loser.” In a September 14 post, Malkin wrote that Rove “trash[ed]” O’Donnell during the Hannity segment and he “[m]ight as well have been [Keith] Olbermann on MSNBC.” Malkin later wrote that “Rove came across as an effete sore loser instead of the supposedly brilliant and grounded GOP strategist that he’s supposed to be.” Malkin, citing The Freedomist blog, also wrote that “Rove had met with Delaware 9/12-ers and Tea Party folks to try and convince them to back the ‘more electable’ candidate.”  

Warner Todd Huston: “The Veracity of Karl Rove’s Political Analysis is Suddenly Suspect.” In a September 14 Gateway Pundit post titled, “The Veracity of Karl Rove’s Political Analysis is Suddenly Suspect,” Huston cited the Freedomist post and wrote: “Rove is certainly entitled to his opinion and if he truly believes that O’Donnell cannot win in the general, then he should feel free to say so and we should accept it as such. But in this case we have a problem believing that Rove’s analysis is simply his honest opinion when we find out from The Freedomist that Rove was trying to cut a pre-primary deal to help Mike Castle to win the primary.” Huston further wrote that “Fox News should require Rove to answer to this charge”:  

Fox News should require Rove to answer to this charge. If he really did act as a helpmate for Rep. Mike Castle this damages Rove’s veracity as an analyst. He has just made himself suspect. You can’t be both a political player and an autonomous, disinterested analyst. Will Fox suspend Rove over this? They certainly should if he really did work to help Castle, in any case.  

Erickson: Rove “in full on meltdown” on Fox News. In a September 15 RedState post, Erick Erickson wrote: “It is a delightful morning. The National Republican Senatorial Committee and the GOP Establishment, including Karl Rove in full on meltdown last night on Fox News, has been beaten yet again in Delaware by the supposedly crazy girl from the fringe who could not possibly take out the 12 time elected Republican Mike Castle.”  

Levin says he will discuss Rove’s “war against the Tea Party movement and conservatives.” In a September 15 Twitter post, right-wing radio host Mark Levin stated he would discuss Rove’s “was against the Tea Party movement and conservatives”.  

Buchanan: Rove “trashing” O’Donnell is a “horrible mistake.” On the September 15 edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Pat Buchanan stated: “This is going to be a crucial test of how the Republican Party handles the tea party. And what we heard Karl Rove say, really trashing this woman, is a horrible mistake.”  

NewsBusters: “[P]essimisitc” Rove “continued to rip” O’Donnell. In a September 14 post, NewsBusters’ Mark Finkelstein wrote: “Even after Fox News called the Delaware GOP senatorial primary for Christine O’Donnell tonight, Karl Rove continued to rip the winner, questioning everything from O’Donnell’s ‘rectitude’ to her ‘character.’ ” Finkelstein further wrote that Hannity “defended O’Donnell staunchly, but was met with a litany of Roveian criticism.”  

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July 26, 2010 · 2:31 AM

RedState’s Erickson to GOP: ‘Stop lying’ and admit that you’re the ‘Party of No.’

Oh my…

Think Progress

Since President Obama first took office, Republicans have stood lock-step in opposition to his legislative agenda. In March 2010, Republican senators waged a record number of filibusters for a two-year term – after just 14 months. Given the GOP’s dearth of ideas, it’s understandable that Rep. Peter King (R-NY) told radio host Bill Bennett that Republicans shouldn’t “lay out a complete agenda,” because it could become “a campaign issue.”

Despite their blanket rejection of virtually everything President Obama has proposed, many prominent conservative leaders have urged the GOP to develop a substantive agenda instead of simply accepting their “Party of No” label.

Yesterday, ThinkProgress caught up with RedState founder Erick Erickson and asked his thoughts on the “Party of No” moniker. Erickson took the GOP to task for clouding the issue. He advised them to “stop lying” about being the “Party of No” because “everyone knows you are”:

TP: They are saying, if you accuse them of being the party of no or not having ideas, they will say “oh no!”

Erickson: That’s such crap. Say you’re the “Party of No.” Of course you are. Everyone knows you are. Stop lying

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