James McPherson's Media & Politics Blog

Observations of a patriotic progressive historian, media critic & former journalist


  • By the author of The Conservative Resurgence and the Press: The Media’s Role in the Rise of the Right and of Journalism at the End of the American Century, 1965-Present. A former journalist with a Ph.D. in journalism, history and political science, McPherson is a past president of the American Journalism Historians Association and a board member for the Northwest Alliance for Responsible Media.

  • Archives

  • September 2008
    S M T W T F S
     123456
    78910111213
    14151617181920
    21222324252627
    282930  

  • Categories

  • Subscribe

«
»

Now I’m as bad as Fox News

Posted by James McPherson on September 12, 2008

I did a sociological experiment with yesterday’s post, using a title and tags that I thought might draw a larger-than-usual audience. Somewhat sadly, I was right, getting about twice as many visitors as usual–and I know the topic, while important, wasn’t that that much more interesting than what I usually do.

I also suspect that post will continue to be the biggest draw via search engines for some time to come, and admittedly a number of the people who probably came here seeking more titillating fare then proceeded to read posts that they would not normally have seen. Maybe I educated a few people and/or changed some minds.

Still, the experiment is over. I’m not going to make a habit of doing the same thing that I regularly criticize Fox News and other media for. Sorry to say, the tags will go back to being more boring from now on. I hope you’ll keep reading anyway. Have a great weekend.

Next day update: OK, so maybe I’m not as bad as Fox News, judging by the Brave New World and Fox Attacks compilation of segments from the network now whirling around the Internet.

Next month update: The link to the compilation mentioned above doesn’t always work, so I’ve embedded the clip below:

This entry was posted on September 12, 2008 at 8:57 am and is filed under Journalism, Media literacy, Personal, Video, Women, Written elsewhere. Tagged: , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Now I’m as bad as Fox News”

  1. Mike Ingram said

    September 13, 2008 at 7:52 am

    Jim, I could not decide whether to title this entry “Jim means he is now as good as Fox News” or “College Professors Gone Wild.” It was a real toss up for me…

  2. James McPherson said

    September 13, 2008 at 10:54 am

    Hmmm, “College Professors Gone Wild”… would that mean staying up late enough to watch all of the Colbert Report on the night it first airs, rather than catching the rerun the next day?

  3. Web vs. bed: choosing surfing over sex « James McPherson’s Media & Politics Blog said

    December 16, 2008 at 12:47 am

    […] this mean–despite Fox News content on any given day–that we are less sex-crazed than Web-crazed (after all, another Harris poll […]

  4. Stimulus prompts cartoonish monkey business « James McPherson’s Media & Politics Blog said

    February 18, 2009 at 6:13 pm

    […] video quiz” titled “Wet hot swimsuit models”–those conservatives do like their T & A.) And while the first complainant about the cartoon was publicity hound Al Sharpton (and no, Rev. […]

  5. Pimping the blog, and flogging the chimp « James McPherson’s Media & Politics Blog said

    February 25, 2009 at 3:22 pm

    […] to something I think worth saying, anyway. I’d obviously never make it in advertising or at Fox News (and I am frustrated to see CNN, Sports Illustrated and the Huffington Post, among others, also […]

  6. ‘G’ whiz: judging Obama’s summit performance « James McPherson’s Media & Politics Blog said

    April 4, 2009 at 2:17 pm

    […] has his appearance (and O’Reilly’s question) on the front of its Web site–though of course both are posted below its daily “Pop Tarts” section and headlines about the “top […]

Leave a comment

«
»