Saturday, October 23, 2010

When Media Centers Collide

A few years ago there was a brief flap in the media when Brit Hume openly scoffed at Juan's opinion on the air. Brit Hume spent days explaining that he respected Juan, liked him personally, etc. Juan's troubles with NPR may have begun around that time. He stayed with Fox as well as NPR.

Fox has always presented itself as "fair and balanced." That means providing equal time to people like Juan, and to Juan himself. Viewers may or may not think it's drivel, and fast-forward through his comments as I do, but part of the integrity of Fox is that they provide this equity of opinion.

On a financial level, Fox is responding with their hard-earned dollars to this week's contributions by notorious liberal George Soros to NPR and to Media Matters, and on another level the Huffington Post. Soros contributed over $2 million this week to the organizations, and that is the figure Fox is contributing to Juan. It is a tactical move, putting their money where their mouth is, to counter the Soros donations. I found this aspect to be a true shot-across-the-bow move by a media giant that has been falsely accused of a right-wing stance, when all accurate research has shown Fox to be the most fair of all news networks in the presentation of opinions.

The battle lines are drawn. This will be very interesting in the coming months. Maybe even Juan will be interesting.

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