The Week: Most Recent media

Glenn Beck after Fox: More powerful than ever?

The Week — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:25:00 -0400

"The conventional wisdom: Fiery cable news host goes off the rails, loses his highly influential platform, and is forever forgotten to history," says Dylan Byers at Politico. But that doesn't appear to be the case for Glenn Beck, who left Fox News in 2011 amid declining ratings and fleeing advertisers. Forbes has named Beck the 23rd-most powerful celebrity in America, and claims he makes $80 million a year, which means he's much richer than Tom Cruise, Donald Trump, and Rush Limbaugh, his rival for conservative hearts and minds. Here, a guide to Beck's media empire:

How did Beck make so much money...

Why Univision's new Hispanic cable channel is in English

The Week — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:05:00 -0400

This week, ABC News and Univision announced the creation of a cable news channel for Hispanics. The twist? All the programming will be in English, which is a departure for Univision, the dominant force in primetime among Spanish-speaking viewers. The new channel, which doesn't have a name yet, will debut in 2013, and a companion website will appear this summer, just ahead of the November elections. Here, a guide to the latest addition to the cable news family:

What kind of programming will the network have?
Besides news, the channel will feature lifestyle, health, and entertainment...

Does CNN need to lean further left to win back viewers?

The Week — Fri, 04 May 2012 12:59:00 -0400

CNN's ratings slipped to a 10-year low last month, renewing concerns that the channel, which has positioned itself as nonpartisan, can't compete against its hyper-ideological cousins to the left and right. Liberal-friendly MSNBC is the greatest beneficiary of CNN's decline, and consistently enjoys double the number of primetime viewers. Fox News, the favorite cable network of conservatives, outpaced CNN long ago, and its primetime audience is four times as large as CNN's. Does CNN need to get in on the partisan shouting game?

Partisanship certainly worked for MSNBC: While CNN is sticking...

The latest insane conspiracy theory: Obama plotted Chelsea Clinton's murder

The Week — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 18:20:00 -0400

Fox News anchor Heather Childers caused quite a stir Tuesday night when she tweeted links to stories alleging that President Obama once threatened to kill Chelsea Clinton. "Thoughts? Did Obama Campaign Threaten Chelsea Clinton's Life 2 Keep Parents Silent?" she tweeted, linking to an article on the birther blog Godfather Politics that spun up an "insane conspiracy theory." Supposedly, the story claimed, during the '08 campaign, the Clintons unearthed proof that Obama was Kenyan and Team Obama threatened to murder Chelsea Clinton in order to silence them. Here, a guide to the madness:

The...

Will anyone hire Keith Olbermann?

The Week — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 11:40:00 -0400

Well that didn't last long. Current TV, the languishing cable channel co-founded by Al Gore, fired liberal firebrand Keith Olbermann this week, ending a rocky, eight-month marriage. While Current claims the mercurial Olbermann flouted its values of "openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers," Olbermann is lamenting his "foolish" decision to join Current, and says he'll sue. It's not the first time that Olbermann, a veteran of ESPN and MSNBC, has left an employer on spectacularly bad terms. For all his popularity with liberal viewers, the latest divorce is cementing the perception that...

America's most loved and hated news personalities: A slideshow

The Week — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:48:00 -0500

Once upon a time, a handful of genial anchors dominated television news. Now the media landscape offers picky viewers dozens of options, spanning both the ideological spectrum and the likeability spectrum. Here are the country's favorite and least favorite news personalities, according to a new poll from Harris Interactive:

Was MSNBC right to fire Pat Buchanan?

The Week — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:49:00 -0500

MSNBC announced Thursday that it was dropping longtime political analyst Pat Buchanan, following a bitter controversy over his book, Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? The cable news channel had suspended Buchanan four months ago after critics said the book — with chapters such as "The End of White America" — was homophobic, anti-Semitic, and racist. Buchanan called the decision "an undeniable victory for the blacklisters" who lash out at anything challenging liberal orthodoxy. Did MSNBC make the right move, or was it wrong to silence Buchanan?

It's about time...

Is Fox News shifting to the Left?

The Week — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:13:00 -0500

Fox News chief Roger Ailes ordered a "course correction" at the network last year, parting ways with Glenn Beck and telling the rest of Fox's conservative talent to tamp down the rhetorical heat and extol the Tea Party movement less avidly. Conservatives aren't loving the change, says Keach Hagey in Politico, and some are tuning out. Fox's apparent shift toward the center was widely discussed and lamented at last weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). "I've gone from all Fox to no Fox, and replaced it with CNN, which I think right now is giving me a much fairer analysis of what...

Did MSNBC fire Pat Buchanan?

The Week — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:38:00 -0500

The pairing of pundit Pat Buchanan, one of the nation's most recognizable paleoconservatives, and liberal-leaning MSNBC has always been odd. And now the cable news channel has put Buchanan on indefinite leave. The apparent trigger: Buchanan's rabble-rousing viewpoints in his new book Suicide of a Superpower, which has chapters titled "The End of White America" and "The Death of Christian America." Since the book's release, the former GOP presidential candidate has appeared on the network just once, a promotional spot on Sean Hannity's program. "Because of the content of the book, I didn't think...

Is Keith Olbermann on the way out at Current TV?

The Week — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:12:00 -0500

It sounds all too familiar: Keith Olbermann, who left ESPN in a huff in the 1990s and bailed on MSNBC last year after publicly feuding with his cable bosses, is at odds with network executives again. The newsman, who hosts Countdown and is chief news executive at Current TV, has been off the air for several crucial days during the network's coverage of the Iowa caucuses. Current's president says Olbermann chose not to anchor the election night coverage, with the cable star pushing back, claiming he was "not given a legitimate opportunity to host under acceptable conditions....

Rupert Murdoch's 'smashing start' on Twitter

The Week — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:26:00 -0500

The octogenarian behind Fox News has "thrown all caution to the wind and opened a personal Twitter account," says Steven Mostyn at The Tech Herald. Since Rupert Murdoch sent his first tweet on Saturday, the News Corp. boss has amassed more than 60,000 followers. And already, the scrutinizing glare of the Twittersphere has the controversial media executive, and his every 140-character dispatch, in its sights. Here, a brief guide to Murdoch's foray into social media:

Why is Murdoch tweeting?
The Australian-born billionaire has had a tumultuous year, fending off allegations that some of...

Fox's 'surreal' attack on The Muppets: The jokes

The Week — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:23:00 -0500

Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, and the rest of the Muppet gang may seem like innocent puppets, but according to one Fox Business Network segment, they're actually part of a liberal media plot to "brainwash your kids against capitalism." In the new Muppets movie, the villain is an evil oil baron — named, rather obviously, Tex Richman — who plans to tear down the Muppets' theater to drill for oil. Once again, Fox Business bemoaned on Dec. 2, Hollywood is "depicting a successful businessman as evil" and vilifying the oil industry. "It's amazing how far the Left will go just to stop...

Morning Joe's 'obnoxious,' 'sexist' promo

The Week — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:15:00 -0500

The video: "Sexist." "Icky." "Obnoxious." The reviews aren't good for a new promo for MSNBC's Morning Joe. (Watch it below.) The three-minute spot features the show's co-host, Mika Brzezinski, getting up early, making lunch for the kids, feeding the dog, then donning a skimpy running outfit before jogging to work through the streets of New York. Meanwhile, her male co-hosts — Willie Geist and Joe Scarborough — are shown drinking, smoking, gambling, and partying all night with young women. They just barely manage to put down the whiskey bottles and make it to 30 Rock...

Fox News' 'revealing' 'course correction': 6 talking points

The Week — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:50:00 -0400

In the latest Newsweek, media reporter Howard Kurtz gives us a "revealing" look at Fox News chief Roger Ailes, charting what Ailes calls the network's quiet, months-long "course correction" from its recent hard-right conservatism toward a more broadly appealing — and thus more lucrative — center-right posture. Of course, Fox News risks "alienating its most rabid right-wing fans," says Kurtz, but Ailes is spending his last few years at the network "acting not like a political operative but as a corporate chieftain," putting the bottom line first. Here, six takeaways from Kurtz's "glowing...

Tucker Carlson, Greta Van Susteren, and the 'Fox News civil war'

The Week — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:26:00 -0400

The video: Greta Van Susteren and Tucker Carlson had a cable news brawl for the record books Monday night, when they sparred over Carlson's decision to publish graphic, offensive comments made by Mike Tyson about Sarah Palin's alleged one-night stand with basketball player Glen Rice. The "Fox News civil war" began in earnest Friday night, when a story was published on Carlson's The Daily Caller website under the headline "Mike Tyson: Sarah Palin met 'the wombshifter.'" The article is packed with plenty of "repulsive" sexual comments from Tyson. On Sunday, Van Susteren attacked Carlson...

Proof that Fox News goes easy on Sarah Palin?

The Week — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 11:06:00 -0400

The video: A pair of Fox News personalities created a media dust-up this week, saying on the air that they use kid gloves when discussing Sarah Palin, who earns more than $1 million a year as a Fox News contributor. Greg Gutfeld and Bob Beckel, co-hosts of the Fox News program The Five, were discussing Palin's fierce defense of the Tea Party when Gutfeld said the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee is "like a coworker" and that "if I say something bad and I see her in the hallway I feel really awkward and wrong." Beckel agreed: "Many times, I'll be honest, I've pulled my punches." (Watch the...