Topic: Newsmax
Ronald Kessler's Dec. 15 Newsmax column throws a big ol' Heathering fit at David Frum for supposedly not being a real conservative. Kessler is particularly put out that Frum criticized Fox News, something a real, orders-following cosnervative like Kessler would never do:
The latest example came on Sunday when Frum took a shot at Fox News viewers. Frum told Howard Kurtz on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” that “people who watch a lot of Fox come away knowing a lot less about important world events.”
In a recent New York magazine column, Frum accused the conservative media of running an “alternative knowledge system” of “pseudo-facts and pretend information.”
Frum offered no specifics on CNN to back up his claim, and Kurtz, a solid media reporter, said, “You’re tarring with an awfully broad brush there.”
As noted in my story 'The Five' Spotlights Why Fox News Is a Success,” there are good reasons why Fox News blows away the other cable networks in ratings and is more trusted as a news source, according to polls, than any other television network. One is Fox News’ rule that in any political discussion, both Democrats and Republicans must be represented. In interviewing Republicans, anchors constantly play devil’s advocate and confront them with Democrats’ rebuttals.
Thus, if Frum is right that Fox serves up “pseudo-facts and pretend information,” it comes from the mouths of Republicans and Democrats alike.
As we've previously detailed, Kessler is simply wrong about Fox News having any hard-and-fast "rule" about fairly representing both conservative and lilberal views. It unmistakably leans to the right -- which Kessler presumably prefers.
Kessler also demonstrates his hypocrisy in attacking Frum as "pretends to be a conservative but makes a habit of bashing them." This is something that Newsmax does on a regular basis, except from the other ideological end:
We've documented how Newsmax repeatedly gave space to Jerry Zeifman, who repeatedly insists he's a Democrat but regularly bashed Democrats. Similarly, Newsmax hasgiven a regular column to former New York City mayor Ed Koch, another self-proclaimed Democrat who attacks Dems.
Newsmax also loves to promote the musings of Doug Schoen, regularly presented as a "Democratic pollster" but who does nothing but attack Obama. Schoen's musings is occasionally promoted with his fellow pseudo-Democratic partner, Pat Caddell.
If Kessler thinks the media should not identify Frum as a conservative but instead as "a centrist who is usually wrong," shouldn't he prevail upon his employer to honestly label Schoen and Caddell?
The rest of Kessler's column is catty sniping at Frum, most notably complaining that Frum dared to contradict Kessler's hagiographic portrayal of President Bush by calling the former president "uncurious and as a result ill-informed."Kessler dismissed Frum as nothing but a "low-level speechwriter" who "hardly knew Bush" and was consistently "wrong" about the president.
Very Heather-y of Kessler.
