Fox News Sunday’s 10th Anniversary: Take 2
The New Jersey Star Ledger’s Matt Zoeller Seitz writes up the landmark for Chris Wallace’s show…
On first glance, Wallace might seem an unlikely advocate for Fox News. He’s a bred-in-the-bone mainstream journalist. His politics are pretty much a question mark, a fact that led some conservative bloggers to tag him as a liberal fifth columnist. Plus, Wallace doesn’t re-frame the news in terms of a conservative world view, as Hume does virtually every single night.
Yet Wallace argues forcefully for Fox’s value — not as a primary news source, but as one voice among many. According to this interpretation, “Fair and Balanced” doesn’t mean Fox News is unburdened by preconceived political notions. It just means that if you set Fox alongside a news source that’s often unfriendly to conservative or right-wing thought, the complete picture becomes more balanced.
“The only thing Roger ever said to me was, ‘Treat everybody the same, be equally tough on everyone.’ Forget the conservative bloggers, just go do it,” Wallace said. “A lot of shots that are taken against Fox are cheap shots. I know the way we treat Republicans as well as Democrats on ‘Fox News Sunday,’ and I don’t know anyone in the political community, Republican or Democrat, who thinks I pull my punches.”
FNS is appointment viewing for me.
When they replaced Tony Snow with Chris, I was so disappointed. But I have warmed to Chris. The panel is great.
Comment by Cara — April 28, 2006 @ 10:09 am
I really enjoy FNS and Chris Wallace. And, I agree with you about the panel being great.
Comment by Christine — April 28, 2006 @ 11:18 am
I really liked Tony (and still do) but Wallace has done well in that slot - and I look forward to that show every week.
Comment by Skippy — April 28, 2006 @ 6:36 pm
I find FNS and Tim Russert’s “Meet the Press” to be the best 2 Sunday morning news hours. However, I saw on the TV Newser (at least I think it was TV Newser)that FNS still runs a distant 4th in the ratings. Does anyone know if there are still not a lot of Fox affiliates not carrying the program or carrying it at hours of low viewership? It should be doing much better than it is.
Comment by Scott — April 29, 2006 @ 1:29 pm
In Los Angeles, one has to choose between MTP, This Week, and FNS at 8 AM on Sundays. MTP almost always wins. And the panels on MTP are much better than on FNS because they are more center-right, as opposed to FNS’s, which skew far to the right (two neo-cons, one tabula rasa [Mara Liason] and one Fox Democrat). This Week’s tend to be the most centrist, but the dwarf who hosts the show wastes too much time on interviews I don’t care about, like celebs and sports stars.
Comment by moi-meme — April 29, 2006 @ 7:10 pm
No. 5,
“tabula rasa”. Interesting, I would not have thought of it.
But it is true!
However, I still prefer the crew at FNS.
Comment by Cara — April 30, 2006 @ 6:47 pm