Right Here

An interesting, although not the least bit shocking, quote buried in a story in the Sunday New York Times on Fox News's intensifying public battle with Barack Obama:

"Certainly, Fox continues to aggressively bolster its on-air talent, most recently with the hiring of John Stossel, the libertarian investigative journalist from ABC News, for its spin-off channel, Fox Business. The business channel is also keen on another administration critic, Lou Dobbs, who met for dinner with Mr. Ailes last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the meeting."

Dobbs at Fox? Is there anyone out there who doesn't see this as the obvious fulfillment of some kind of demagogic destiny?

Last month I cranked out a quickie piece on Stossel's decision to make the right turn toward Fox and this morning I'm bringing it back because with the acquisition of Dobbs -- if it in fact does end up happening -- Fox News's idealogical purity would be nearly complete and all but unquestionable.

And believe it or not, in the big picture that's very bad news for viewers.

"Across the Great Divide" (Originally Published, 9.10.09)

Well, here's the least surprising media-centric news item ever: John Stossel is leaving ABC for Fox News Channel.

For the uninitiated, Stossel is a multi-Emmy-winning investigative reporter with an amusing Harry Reems moustache. He calls himself a libertarian -- a designation which these days, unfortunately, is almost exclusively the property of the right -- and has spent the past several years doing his best to debunk manmade global climate change, bolster the notion of the wonders of unfettered greed and the ultimate good of the free market, and assail anyone who complains about the current health care model. His slot on 20/20 has been little more than his own personal Hyde Park-style soapbox ever since his conversion from serious journalist to silly dogmatic populist.

Stossel's been a regular guest on Fox for some time now; he generally appears as an analyst (which at Fox is code for someone who has even less obligation to the truth than the correspondents in the general assignment pool). Given his tendency to egomaniacally showboat, his departure probably isn't much of a loss to ABC. But it does underscore in no uncertain terms just where the business of journalism is heading: Hume, Beck, now Stossel -- they all skew hard to the right and they've all wound up at Fox. At this point, Fox is the bright light on the porch that attracts all the insects. The problem is that what we're witnessing is the homogenization of the news media. It was admittedly inevitable. With so many choices out there, narrowcasting was always the future. But the fewer dissenting opinions at each outlet -- with Fox essentially saying, "If you're a conservative, this is where you belong" -- the viewers, readers, and people simply looking for a well-balanced vision of the world will suffer.

Then again, the battle lines are so clearly drawn these days, with people believing only what they want to believe and refusing to hear any evidence to the contrary, that it probably doesn't make any difference anyway. For God's sake, last night a congressman stood up and shouted that the president is a liar (a lie itself, at least insofar as what that congressman was protesting at the time). The damage is done, and we may never reach a point again where this country's various political factions listen to each other without prejudice, let alone treat each other with respect.

The people who like what Stossel has to say are already waiting for him at Fox.

Welcome home, John.