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Thread. @ThePlumLineGS has a lot to say about #BothSides media coverage of Trump, his #shutdown and his stupid wall. I’m not an assiduous consumer of cable TV news, and so am prone to dismiss the influence of this on public opinion. Perhaps I am wrong. But here’s a thought...
2. There’s a part of major electronic media where #BothSides coverage doesn’t happen. As @ThePlumLineGS points out, this is FoxWorld. In FoxWorld, airtime is devoted to Praise-for-the-Leader, every day and nearly all the time. It’s a business model as much as anything.
3. The FoxWorld audience wants affirmation and storylines more than information. No tweaking of news coverage or commentary from other outlets (or print media) will make up for that. What about an attack on the business model?
4. Is it time, I wonder, for a coordinated boycott of Fox sponsors? A propaganda news network is not, after all, in the modern American journalistic tradition. There’s no reason companies that support it should be patronized by those who object.
5. Also, Fox has advertisers who could be hurt by a boycott, conventional businesses that depend on customers with all sorts of political views. There’s a polite fiction - news media outlets are more alike than different - that some journalists have a stake in maintaining.
6. Perhaps it shouldn’t be up to them. I don’t like #BothSides news coverage any more than @ThePlumLineGS, but maybe complaining about this is not the most productive thing we could be doing right now. [end]
