As Jon Meacham says in a recent Newsweek article, politically the U.S. is a center-right nation. Current political fancies notwithstanding, the U.S. remains essentially a center-right nation.
In spite of this fact, most of our mainstream media are overwhelmingly liberal; Fox News and The Wall Street Journal being notable exceptions. Not coincidentally, most of our mainstream media outlets are hurting. Newspaper circulation is down, viewship of the major TV networks is down. Ad revenues which pay for our news operations are down too. As a marketing guy would say, what they're selling, we aren't buying.
Here is a radical concept. Do you suppose there might be a market for newspapers and television news that share values with their viewers and readers? This is not rocket science.
Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report reports viewership at the various news and opinion programs on the cable news channels (Fox, CNN, MSNBC) and week after week Fox has the highest rated programs. Partially, one supposes, this is because they are the only news outlet that leans right, while the other two cable news channels have to share left leaning viewers with ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS.
I think that Murdoch fellow may be onto something; he owns the Wall Street Journal and Fox. That gives him a near-monopoly on providing news for the half or more of the U.S. electorate whose values place them on the right.
