And Fox News is borish, highly slanted, propoganda peddling and etc.

But Fox News is not what's wrong with journalism, it merely exemplifies the symptoms in a way that lefties and Democrats can get excised about.

The fact is that biased media--whether its O'Reilly or Olberman--is poisoning politics in this country and pushing people further and further apart.

People, the audience that is, needs to uniformly reject propaganda no matter its source or if it agrees with a preconceived point of view. Olberman and liberal bias gets us no closer to the truth and what needs to be done from a policy point of view to answer some very serious issues in this country.

If we don't have the right facts, we can't create the right answers.

To ascribe that much power to Roger Ailes is absurd. The country moved right because the left went too far: trying to reduce our military; paying single women to have babies without the presence of fathers; taking rigorous content out of public education; marching against the values of their parents’ generation (now called The Greatest).

Now the right has gone too far and those stupid voters who were led astray by the likes of Roger Ailes are coming back to the middle, now Democratic. Let’s see, Fox appeals to the right, MSNBC and CBS appeal to the left…..where’s the headline?

As a thinking voter I listen to all of them to try to figure out where the truth lies….not an easy task in this media environment.

For the life of me, I cannot understand nor have I heard a good explanation of why there hasn't been at least an attempt to establish a left-leaning equivalent to Fox News. Al Gore bought a cable channel I think (Current TV?), but it doesn't seem to be particularly political and is virtually invisible in any case.

"For the life of me, I cannot understand nor have I heard a good explanation of why there hasn't been at least an attempt to establish a left-leaning equivalent to Fox News."

Ummm, ever heard of CNN or Air America? Both shining beacons of liberal light. Well, one is. The other is broke. I guess you could tune in to Radio Cuba.

Because the left having our own slanted propaganda channel is not the solution. The problem is that insecure and frightened people don't like to think--they like to have clear-cut answers given to them, and not have to interpret information for themselves. We become part of that problem if we just adopt Fox's methods of pushing the other viewpoint.

To me, the whole premise of liberalism is that people deserve, and are capable of, being treated as more than controllable, insecure schoolchildren by our leaders.

So what are we if we treat people just as badly and stupidly as Fox?

How can anyone, after the Obama-Clinton primary fight, deny that there's a lot of leftwing bias in the media? It became so perverse that -- yes -- Fox! was the only place Hillary could get a fair shake. All this for the unpardonable offense of taking a middle-road approach to the issues along the lines of her husband, as opposed to the Kennedy-Pelosi-Dean-Kerry, etc. approach of unabashed liberalism.

Clearly Fox has an agenda -- no argument there. But it's disingenuous as hell to say that the others don't also have an agenda.

Yeah, the most hilarious part is how he had a direct hand in promoting people and ideologies that have destroyed our country for the past seven and a half years.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Perhaps this is another answer to the movie 'ABSENCE OF MALICE' - in particular when the the question is asked by MICHAE GALLAGHER(played by liberal-icon PAUL NEWMAN) "Do you have the obligation to print the truth?" And looney MEGAN (played by 'nutso' SALLY FIELD) answers:"Of course." The answer is that the NATIONAL ^SSHOLE MEDIA has decided not to print-or-show-video 'TRUTH' for a long time now. Perhaps just perhaps Mr. AILES has decided to highlight versions of the so-called 'TRUTH' on FOX NEWS. AND PERHAPS - THIS COUNTRY 'LIKES/ENJOYS' SOMEWHAT MORE OF THE 'TRUTH' THAN THE MORON DEMBHOLES AT THE NATIONAL ^SSHOLE MEDIA WISH TO 'SPIN' - WRAP ITS VERSION OF THE NEWS. DOES THE NYSLIMES REALLY THINK/ASSUMES IT PRINTS/PUBLISHES "ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO PRINT"??? Or does the NYSlimes 'manage/massage/spin' the so-called 'news' that fits its ediorial policies???

Interesting, isn't it, that three of the first four respondents to the Ailes piece are, shall we say, NOT the liberals we might expect to see writing in to Salon? Well, what are you gonna do? These other guys are afraid that if Olbermann and his ilk take over, all the "fair-and-balanced" types will be sent to concentration camps or something. Hmmm . . . not the worst idea I ever heard, but since we liberals are, uh, constitutionally opposed to gulags and such, I guess it won't ever happen. Shucks.

Yeah, I noticed that too. I seem to recall an interview a couple weeks ago with McClellen where he mentions there are WH staff devoted to working the blogs/comments sections on sites like Salon. I wouldn't be surprised if there really is some sort of internet campaign coordinated by the WH, Fox News, and conservative bloggers to post items like that. I mean, come on, this is Salon and more than half the comments are anti-liberal media...

Also, I'm willing to bet that the role Ailes is playing now will be that of Rove in years to come.

To describe Ailes as a "showman" does a disservice to Barnum and his "there's a sucker born every minute" cynicism. Ailes is a political propagandist who's adept at appealing to his audience's darkside--nativism, racism, to name but two types of irrationality--while simultaenously redirecting their attention from the the economic exploitation served up by their political masters. Unfortunately, a channel like CNN has cravenly taken its editorial lead from Ailes by providing airtime to the likes of that walking cliche of "conservatism," Glenn beck.

Some would argue that the ratings dominance of Fox demonstrates the popularity of Ailes' approach--the channel is addressing what's most important to more people and presenting it in a manner they find appealing. I suggest that a majority of those who would otherwise be inclined to watch the cable news channels see them for what they are--pale political imitations of the National Inquirer ("terrorist fist-jab" comes to mind)--and have simply walked away from them and toward the Internet. A Sunday poll from USAToday revealed nearly 30% of adults use to the Internet in their search for objectivity on important issues. That's a significantly larger audience than Fox, CNN or MSNBC will ever have.