I have somewhat mixed emotions about John Stossel's announcement that he's leaving ABC for Fox.
On the one hand, it sounds like Fox is giving him the sort of creative control that journalists crave (and ABC can't or won't give him).
I plan to do a one hour prime time show every week on FBN, the Fox Business Channel, and contribute to various existing programs on Fox News Channel...
I’m still considering what I will do with my own show, one hour each week. Economics certainly. Exercises in understanding libertarianism. My “take” on the issues of the day.
But there's the other part of me that says when conservatives cede the airwaves to liberals--such as leaving a liberal network for a conservative one--it decreases the knowledge and diversity available to all. Conservatives watch Fox. Liberals watch MSNBC and the networks. And now, Stossel's work will be seen by fewer liberals, presenting fewer opportunities to confront those on the fence with the facts.
That's not how Stossel's departure is being spun by liberal nutters.
Every homeless pigeon has a home somewhere. Thus, John Stossel joins his clones at Fox. How nice. Too bad that the other side of the political aisle never takes care of its mouthpieces. Nooo, we are supposed to sink or swim in the cold waves of the free market, while the free market acolytes are tucked into safe beds at conservative think tanks and Fox News and Washington Times. I have never quite understood that.
Notice the assumption that Fox News, conservative think tanks and the Washington Times only hire like-minded journalists, but that other organizations do not. Of course, the truth is that most journalists are liberals, not conservatives, and most news organizations lean to the left. But that's an inconvenient truth for the liberal nutters.
The other statement Echidne makes, that Fox News, conservative think tanks and the Washington Times are uniquely unaffected by the free market. I suppose it's too painful to realize that the free market loves conservatives, not liberals, and that the problem liberals have in the free market is that people reject their ideas. It's not Fox News' fault liberals can't take competition.
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