A Place of Their Own

One of the most interesting and useful developments that the internet has brought The Common Man in recent years is wikipedia, the on-line, community authored and regulated encyclopedia that is, apparently, just as reliable (and far more topical) than the vaunted Encyclopedia Britannnica. Now, wikipedia has its faults and no one should consider using it for, say, a graduate level research paper. But to do quick, dirty, and informal research, it's hard to imagine a more convenient source. Want to know more about the wackiness of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard? Wikipedia's got you covered. Want to explore Kevin Federline's exploits as a professional wrestler? It's got that too. Burning to read more about Edward Said, Orientalism, and the West's romanticized portrayals of Asia and the Middle East? You're in luck. I mention all of this because wikipedia has a new competitor.

Now, the Common Man makes no secret of his own liberal bias. He does not wish to go into the intricasies of his beliefs here, but he feels the need to get this fact out of the way before he begins. For, you see, there are those in this world who would claim to be unbiased, to present their views before you as the literal, God's honest truth. In the spirit of these people, The Common Man presents The Conservapedia.

Claiming that Wikipedia was "6 times more liberal than the American public" (note: They base this claim on the rather spurious reasoning that "Polls show that about twice as many Americans identify themselves as 'conservative' compared with 'liberal', and that ratio has been increasing for two decades. But on Wikipedia, about three times as many editors identify themselves as 'liberal' compared with 'conservative'." Apparently somebody took 3rd grade math but skipped logic classes), the founders of Conservapedia have written off the Wiki as a lost cause and started their own site. And good for them. After all, they have every right to start their own site. But let's not pretend that theirs is some great storehouse of truth that is denied by the crazy liberals at Wikipedia, particularly as it "gives full credit to Christianity and America" and "concise, clean answers free of 'political correctness.'"

These concise and clean answers involve its entry on Fox News, which sarcasically notes that "The network has come under attacks from all sides of the political spectrum since its inception, largely for its uncritical and blatantly partisan support for the Bush administration and for the fact that it has consistantly failed to hand over Bill o'Reily to the Hague like all the other Fascists." Also, the site defends Ann Coulter as "a bestselling author of books that present conservative views in a direct and forceful manner" and is popular for for what many believe is her patriotic stances against liberals, her outspokenness against all those who wish to hurt America, and her strong defense of family values against abortion and same-sex marriage." It backs her up when she claims that her now infamous John Edwards comment "isn't offensive to gays. It has nothing to do with gays. It's a schoolyard taunt, meaning wuss," saying, "This explanation is consistent with the use of the term in American and British schools in the 20th century, and is supported by its etymology as a term applying to someone who does duties for others more senior. Edwards, whose public service consists of merely one term in the U.S. Senate, fits that meaning." Finally, the site reduces the career of Hillary Clinton, one of the most important and polarizing women of our era into health care failures, travelgate, Vince Foster, and running for President as a mom. Her legislative career? "No major legislation has been credited to Hillary Clinton."

Will Conservapedia make it in the long term? The Common Man doesn't know. He hopes not, but acknowledges that it's important for everyone to have a place to vent. After all, The Common Man has his blog in which a rather poorly written entry can get published about something that annoys him but may ultimately be of no consequence.

Fox Out of the Henhouse

A short post today from The Common Man, who is under the gun to produce a massive amount of work in a short amount of time (largely because he forgot he had a movie he had to watch by this evening):

The Onion's A.V. Club provides a daily ranking of the most popular online videos on the net. Sometimes these are amusing. Sometimes they suck (never underestimate the stupidity of 13 year olds with DSL). And sometimes they are just interesting. For instance, take this video about Fox's coverage of Barak Obama. Fox has worked itself into a frenzy as it has picked apart Obama's parentage (mixed-race, his dad was Muslim), his middle name (Hussein), his schooling (four years at a Indonesian day school that has been gleefully misrepresented as a madrasa), and his apparent smoking habit. Meanwhile, I don't think they've talked much about whether they can vote for a man who admits to cheating on his wife and who publicly ridiculed a man with Parkinson's Disease (though, in all honesty, he couldn't have known that the man had Parkinson's unless he let him actuall get a sentence out) on live radio (Giuliani). Anyway, as a result of Fox's irresponsible and malicious "journalism", the Obama campaign has "frozen out Fox News", refusing to grant access and interviews.

All of this has gotten The Common Man thinking about why Fox spends so much time on its attack journalism, and why they focus on who they focus on (I never hear a bad word from them about Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich (who Sean Hannity describes as "a nice guy."), or Tom Vilsack. However, Hilary and Obama get raked over the coals on a regular basis (to the point where, three times an hour, Hannity bills his radio program as the "Stop Hillary Express"). And I've decided that it comes down to this issue of access.

Over the past 6 years, Fox has gotten access to the President and his administration that no other network has gotten. Interviews, behind-the-scenes pieces, etc. This has helped allow Fox to become a leader in cable news, despite its snearing, pandering, and sycophantic approach to the news. Fox has created a niche for itself, and it is a profitable one. It is likely that, with another Republican win in 2008, this unfettered access and preferential treatment will continue. Without it, the station could be in danger of being (at least partially) frozen out. Indeed, even if a Democratic President refused to play favorites, Fox's lucrative access would slip.

As such, The Common Man expects Fox to go out of its way between now and November of '08 to tarnish the reps of both Hillary and Obama (as if you couldn't figure that out), who they think are the only Dems who have a chance to unseat a Republican nominee. And it will not so much about political ideology as it will be about economics and maintaining a tenuous position in a competitive market. After all, exclusive interviews with former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert just don't have the same marketability as hour-long exclusive interviews of Chris Wallace blowing Vice-President Cheney.

3 notes on this entry:
1) The Common Man is not, in any way, endorsing either Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton.
2) This does not mean, however, that CNN and CNBC do not do their share of crappy journalism. Thank God for NPR.
3) The Obama video does suffer from selective editing. Fox obviously had some of these talking heads on with someone "defending" Obama, and those parts have been conveniently removed to tell a better story. That said, c'mon, is Obama's middle name and smoking habit really news? Has he ever sued a tobacco company? No? OK, shut up then.