Faux News As Tea Party’s popularity fades, is edging back toward the mainstream

[RamboLiberal]

In Newsweek this week, Howard Kurtz has another of his occasional chats with Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. The message Ailes and Fox are sending via the article: change is in the air.

Kurtz notes early on that Ailes’ contract ends in 2013, and says that the TV executive is embarking on his “last hurrah.” Part of that hurrah, according to Ailes, is tweaking the FNC message to try and maximize its audience:

But as President Obama’s popularity has plummeted and the country has grown increasingly sick of partisan sniping, something unexpected happened. Roger Ailes pulled back a bit on the throttle.

He calls it a “course correction,” quietly adopted at Fox over the last year. Glenn Beck’s inflammatory rhetoric—his ranting about Obama being a racist—“became a bit of a branding issue for us” before the hot-button host left in July, Ailes says. So too did Sarah Palin’s being widely promoted as the GOP’s potential savior—in large measure through her lucrative platform at Fox. Privately, Fox executives say the entire network took a hard right turn after Obama’s election, but, as the Tea Party’s popularity fades, is edging back toward the mainstream.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/roger-ailes-last-hurraha-course-correction-for-fox-news-and-friendly-talks-with-shepard-smith_b89222#more-89222

Fox, of course, still has its share of Obama bashers. Hannity’s show uses a logo that asks, “Can You Afford Four More?” Ailes calls him “predictable,” but Hannity says he’s not a party man: “I’m a registered conservative; I’m not a registered Republican.” O’Reilly, who chatted up Obama during this year’s Super Bowl, occasionally defends the president against harsh attacks. Ailes says O’Reilly has “moderated” his views and that “Beck scared him”—meaning Beck was so popular on the right that O’Reilly had to find a different niche.

For his part, O’Reilly says he supported most of George W. Bush’s policies and gave Obama’s economic plans a chance for 18 months—before opposing them as unworkable. “I took flak from the far right all day long. They attacked me viciously,” he says. He waves off any talk of moderation and insists he never worried about the now-departed Beck: “He’s a performer, I’m a journalist.”

(Ailes seems to relish the feuding among his stars, saying, “O’Reilly hates Sean and he hates Rush because they did better in radio than he did.”)

Ailes keeps a wary eye on anchor Shepard Smith, who occasionally backs aspects of the Obama record: “Every once in a while Shep Smith gets out there where the buses don’t run and we have a friendly talk.” And Ailes likes to tease O’Reilly: “You gonna suck up to Obama so you can get another interview at the next football game?” Democrats have noticed the change. Says former Obama aide Anita Dunn: “You have the sense that they’re trying to at least appear less of the hyper-partisan political network they had been.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/09/25/roger-ailes-repositions-fox-news.html

[av8rdave]

1. How can they "edge back toward the mainstream?"

They were never there!

[lob1]

2. "(Fox) is edging back toward the mainstream."

Maybe, but Fox's mainstream is still to the far right of Hitler.

[RamboLiberal]

3. +1 Beat me to it

[WilliamPitt]

4. They want Romney

The "useful idiots" of the Tea Party have played their part.

[Kennah]

5. The Earth is flat, and Faux News has fallen off the far right edge

[Turbineguy]

6. I doubt it.

They have not yet completed fully their mission.

[madamesilverspurs]

7. O'Reilly: "...I'm a journalist."

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hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha((gasp))hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha((gasp))hahahahahahahahahahahahaha . .