What's Bad for the GOP Is Good for Fox News
Fox News posted an astonishing 50% jump in profit last quarter amid a disastrous advertising recession, and it's basically the only thing making money in Rupert Murdoch's empire. Why? Because the GOP has cratered. Fox News' viewership is up 45% over the last year, and it's easy to see why: The ascendancy of a charismatic black Democrat has driven frightened, paranoid, enraged, nativist zealots into the ideological embrace of an outlet that habitually reconfirms everything they already believe. Watching Glenn Beck's spell-binding sermons on Barack Obama's racism is comforting to people who believe that their way of life—namely, one in which fatherly white Christians protect us from danger both internal and external—is under attack. So they do it more frequently. Tuning into Hannity et.al. becomes a life-affirming political act. But while cable news is niche, politics is mass. The chart above shows GOP party approval in as reported by New York Times/CBS in national polls going back to 2006 and Fox News' total primetime audience, in millions, over the same time period. Fox News can and does thrive with a primetime audience of 2.5 million, many of which are the aforementioned zealots. The Republican Party needs more than that to function electorally. And the aforementioned angry zealotry that's in vogue on Fox News is distasteful to the independent voters that the GOP needs to court. Unfortunately for Republicans and fortunately for Roger Ailes, a feedback loop has been created: As disaffected conservatives turn increasingly to Fox News, Fox News caters its programming to keep them coming back, turning, for instance, the Tea Parties into a daylong televised festival of rage. But given Fox's well-earned brand identification with the Republican Party, and vice versa, that programming serves to promote a view of Republicans as angry white people who hate Puerto Rican judges. Which turns off independent voters, which further isolates the diehard rejectionist wing of the party, which increases the importance of Fox News in their lives as a reassuring voice telling them to be strong in the face of the barbarian hordes—or, as Glenn Beck puts it, "We surround them." The more viewers Fox attracts, the more voters the GOP repels. And the more voters the GOP repels, the more viewers Fox attracts. The most important part of the dynamic is that Fox News has no interest in doing anything other than attracting viewers. It will continue to ride this wave of anger and resentment irrespective of what impact it has on the Republican Party until it stops making them money. And yes, Barack Obama's popularity is dropping, and the bloom is beginning to come off the rose. But the GOP hasn't seen a concomitant rise in popularity: Just yesterday it hit the lowest approval rating it has seen in a quarter century, according to the New York Times. Graphic by Steven Dressler. MORE >>
How Insulting John Hughes, And Maybe His Family, Made Me a Writer
Richard Rushfield is still on vacation before joining Gawker, but he couldn't resist weighing in with another dispatch, involving dearly-departed director John Hughes, an LA-area deli, and some serious trash talk. It was somewhere around 1985'ish...Sometime post-The Breakfast Club, but pre-Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I was in my senior year of high school with a head filled with contempt for anything that brought joy and solace to my fellow man, especially to my fellow teen man. MTV? Fascism unleashed. Live Aid? A sign we were entering the final days. Shoulder pads? Might as well be stapling patches of asbestos under your jackets with IVs sending it directly into your blood stream. Yes, indeed. I wasn't in a mood to just sit quietly and go along with nothing. And least of all with John Hughes movies. So one Saturday morning, when my friends Will, Joey and I took a table in the now-demolished Marjan's Deli in Brentwood, our jaws dropped to see our arch-nemesis sitting at the booth just across the tiny aisle from us. There we saw the destroyer of teendom himself, sitting with what appeared to be his wife and two young children. While we stifled giggles and swallowed all the words we might have said to him, ("I guess this Breakfast Club will let anyone in") had we the guts, Joey peered closer and announced, that, in fact, although it looked almost like him, it was not the great auteur, just a guy who looked kinda like him. We all looked back and agreed, the man might be huge, but he was not Hughes. With relief we settled in, relieve that we wouldn't have to confront on that morning any dangerous moral questions like, "Do you sell your soul if you eat lox, eggs and onions three feet away from a director whose work you despise?" Getting comfortable again, we turned back to the work of le Hughes, talking over what bugged us so much about it. We discussed how he had ruined his brilliant subversive National Lampoon's Vacation short story, turning it into a mushy family film. We considered the racism of the Long Duk character in Sixteen Candles, Bender's laughable teen street talk in Sixteen Candles, the horrifying mock depth of the art gallery scene in Ferris Bueller. As we dug into the subject we grew more animated, more excited and, in the lovable manner of teen boys everywhere, incredibly loud We were just diving into the "Twist and Shout" sequence when we glanced over at the next table. Two children looked at us, their eyes pools of sadness deep as infinite space itself. Across the table, their parents gaped at us, their faces frozen in horror and rage, as though saying, What kind of monsters are you? The neighboring tables, too, glared with hatred. On closer inspection, taking a third look, perhaps, we realized, it was maybe John Hughes. And at that moment I became a writer. John Hughes made me realize then and there that if you were going to go around hating everything in the world, I needed to find away to express that that didn't shove it in... MORE >>
Michael Cera's Arrested Development
Paper Heart comes out in limited release today, with Michael Cera playing — surprise! — an awkward teenager in a twee comedy. Satirists have already mocked Cera's typecasting; are they overstating things? Here's a side-by-side comparison of the actor's work. The attached video, assembled by Gawker video wizard Mike Byhoff, alternates between Cera's role as precious bumbler George Michael in Arrested Development and his work as precious bumbler in Paper Heart Superbad, Juno and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. At least his preciousness is getting more sweary, over time. That's a form of growing up, right? Another sign of maturation: Charlyne Yi has shot down rumors that she and Cera were real-life dating during the filming of Paper Heart, meaning Cera's been party to a cynical publicity stunt. How adult! MORE >>
NBC Lays Off Promo Staffers Nationwide; Makes Reporters Flack Their Stories
We're getting tips that NBC Universal is laying off the creative services staffs—the people that make those awful "news at 11" promo spots—at all of its stations nationwide, and will start producing all promos out of New York. NBC owns ten stations across the country, and each has its own crew of people to produce promo spots. But a tipster writes: Starting September 18th the layoffs will begin, and go through all the NBC stations, with a new group being dropped every two weeks. All marketing departments will be gone well before the end of the year. Logs, bag & tag, and all promo activities will be hubbed through a boutique agency in New York. News staffers will take over creation of all topical promotion in prime, and any promotion that requires onsite footage. Blogger Well Dunne caught wind of the layoffs at NBC's Dallas station, and has also heard that they will be repeated nationwide. And a TV news insider told us he had heard of imminent layoffs at WNBC's creative services department in New York. We called NBC for confirmation, and they released this statement: We're making some strategic changes to our Creative Services function, creating a new kind of marketing approach that better reflects the demands of today's local media marketplace. In the new organization, creative services executives at each station will determine their local market branding campaigns and promotion strategies, working closely with a newly formed media and planning strategy group, a division-wide sales marketing team, and an award winning outside creative agency. An NBC executive declined to say how many will be laid off, and said that creative services executives will remain at each station. News employees will be expected to produce promos for their own stories, meaning that in addition to serving NBC News' newsgathering function, they will also be required to flack for their stations and essentially work in marketing for NBC Universal. MORE >>
Olbermann Plays the Bereaved Son Card in the Richard Wolffe Fiasco
Tonight Keith Olbermann explained why he was ignorant of the fact that one of Countdown's regular political analysts/guest hosts is a working lobbyist — he's been too distracted grieving his mother's death. Boy, doesn't that sound familiar?! As you may recall, back in May Keith Olbermann lashed out at Cityfile, Wonkette and Gawker for reporting that he'd angrily walked out on MSNBC after losing a Ben Affleck booking to Rachel Maddow. Olbermann claimed that the reports of his hissy-fit were greatly exaggerated and that he'd actually taken a few days off to mourn the death of his mother, which had occurred two weeks prior. Now he's taking all kinds of heat from foe and friend alike over this whole Richard Wolffe situation, and on Monday he claimed that he was too busy in June and July fighting with Bill O'Reilly or something to pull Wolffe aside off camera for five minutes to ask a few questions about any potential conflicts of interest with the lobbying job he started in April. This led us to wonder, "Were Olbermann and his producers too bogged down dealing with other things' in April and May as well?" Well, tonight Olbermann offered up a familiar excuse to TVNewser in regards to why he didn't question Wolffe during the April/May time frame: The bloggers are leaving one component out, unfairly so: In April, I knew vaguely that Richard Wolffe had gone to work for a non-news firm, and that's about the last I heard of it. It was entirely concurrent with my mother's fatal illness, and I turned it over entirely to my management team. My first awareness that this was more than just a non-news job, was this week. If Jonathan Berr, whoever he is, does not like my prioritizing caring for my mother and dealing with her death, and then doing as many shows as I could, ahead of vetting the comments of our analysts and my management team, frankly, I feel sorry for him. Getting myself through those two months were, and are, more important than what is still being investigated about Richard. Now, besides the obvious, there are a number of disturbing things about this statement, the first being Olbermann's dismissive "whoever he is" tone towards Jonathan Berr. Who is Jonathan Berr and what did he do to spark Olbermann's ire? Well, he's a writer for Daily Finance who happened to write a eminently reasonable piece critical of Olbermann's recent actions from the perspective of an Olbermann fan. The points he brought up and the questions he asked in his piece were not irrational or inflammatory in any way and deserve consideration. As such, the "whoever he is" condescension is way out of line, and frankly it's quite ugly, seeing as how Berr was nothing less than respectful in his Olbermann article. Another disturbing thing about Olbermann's statement is the ease with which he seems willing to throw his staff under the bus for failing to do what he should have done in regards to a simple quizzing of Richard Wolffe. The title of the show is Countdown with Keith... MORE >>
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