Below The Beltway

I believe in the free speech that liberals used to believe in, the economic freedom that conservatives used to believe in, and the personal freedom that America used to believe in.

[powered by WordPress.]

Time To Get Ready For More Natalee Holloway And JonBenet

by Doug Mataconis @ 9:17 am on November 15, 2008.

The cable news networks ponder life after the election:

Over the last three months of the 2008 presidential campaign, ratings for the cable news channel MSNBC were up 158 percent over the same period a year earlier. They were up 101 percent for the Fox News Channel. On Comedy Central, “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” hit a record high of 3.6 million viewers for a guest appearance by Senator Barack Obama on Oct. 29.

For cable channels with strong points of view, it was a very good election.

But for all the news media outlets that set viewership records in recent months, the looming question after Senator Obama’s election is: what happens now?

In some instances — especially for the most partisan of outlets, like Fox News and MSNBC — the change may entail a role reversal like something out of a Shakespearean comedy, with characters changing costumes to be the opposite of what they were during the last act.

MSNBC, by taking on the voice of the hostile opposition, finally gained traction during the 2008 campaign after being, in the words of its president, Phil Griffin, “out of the discussion” for its entire previous history. But it now faces the prospect of changing into the clothes of the administration’s ardent defender.

At the same time Fox News, which had been the most significant media supporter of the Bush administration, is now expected to revert to the position it held when it first broke through during the Clinton years: the aggressive voice of the opposition.

“The administration has changed, but the politics haven’t,” said John Rash, an advertising executive who teaches a course in media and politics at the University of Minnesota. “The liberal and conservative commentators who dominate each news network will have to invert their roles.”

Or maybe they’ll just go back to showing car chases on Los Angeles freeways.