As part of the discussion following my post, "What Liberal Bias?" Gossenius and I went back and forth over my classification of Fox News.

Gossenius argued that Fox News more logically should be classified with the MSM:

"My biggest disagreement with your list is in not putting Fox News in with the mainstream media-- they are simply a different infection of the same illness for which people berate those others. If conservatives choose to critique mainstream media as biased, why not include Fox in that critique?"

Gossenius asks a fair question. Why can't conservatives admit that Fox News is merely the flip side of the MSM coin (conservative-leaning versus liberal-leaning)?

In large part, I agree with the heart of his analysis.

It is similar to the point Joab made a few days ago:

"I stopped listening to Rush long ago as he is, IMHO, a Republican partisan hack. And as for Fox News, they are no more biased to the right than CNN, MSNBC and the 3 major networks are to the left."

So, why I am so stubborn in arguing the point with Gossenius?

The Fox corporate ethos is significantly different from the MSM culture. Here are the key distinctions:

1. Fox is an upstart swimming against the "mainstream." No instructive analysis can ignore the fact that Fox came into being (and succeeded grandly) as a counter balance to the MSM. Fox filled a vacuum.

2. Fox is not under the delusion of "objectivity." The liberal MSM labors under the self-serving certainty that they are reporting the news of the day in an objective way.

An aside: it does not really matter how genuine MSM reporters may be in their faith; for what it is worth, I think they are quite sincere (albeit self-deceived).

Has anyone ever seen this exchange on C-SPAN? A caller presses an MSM reporter to reveal his political affiliation; the reporter responds that his political affiliation is irrelevant. Pressed further, the reporter tells the caller that he is registered as an independent. Later, he will point desperately to the occasional left-wing wacko who accuses the MSM of a corporate bias and tell you that he gets hit from all sides.

Even as a study in the late-1990s showed that over 90-percent of "Beltway" reporters voted for Bill Clinton in 1996, MSM reporters continued to argue that their personal politics did not impinge on their ability to report the news in a detached manner.

As I asserted in the comments section of the first post:

the storied Fox News slogan, "fair and balanced," was partly a parody of the MSM tortured self-perception.

What do I mean by that?

Most of the Fox pioneers were veteran reporters and producers from the MSM (think Britt Hume formerly of ABC News). They had toiled in the fields of their oppressors for years. When they broke free and raised their own flag, they signaled their independence and defiance with a series of slogans like "We Report, You Decide" and "Fair and Balanced."

Moreover, they knew well that the competition would see Fox as conservatives reporting the news through a lens of conservatism. But they also knew that their liberal counterparts would not see Fox as their mirror image; the established media would continue to see themselves as faithful adherents to the sacred calling of objectivity; they would see Fox News as unwashed infidels desecrating the holy temple of objective journalism.

The Fox News brain trust fully expected that their conservative cable news network would make the MSM apoplectic. Pretty funny really. I bet Roger Ailes still gets a chuckle when someone like Keith Olberman, frothing, breaks a big story uncovering Republican bias at Fox News. It is a great joke that continues to pay great dividends.

By the way, I suggest that Fox News gladly would accept a statement from the MSM that read: "we charge Fox with being just as biased as we are!"

As for Gossenius's worry that the Fox viewers are not "in on the joke," he probably does not give the Fox regulars enough credit; they are not being misled. Most of them merely wanted a network to read the news in a way that did not make them feel stupid or evil for seeing the world the way they saw it. They are grateful.

I am glad that Fox News exists as a voice to speak "truth" to the power of the MSM.

For personal disclosures in re my viewing habits:

I don't watch Fox News on a regular basis. Why? I have the ultra-frugal cable package, which offers twenty-two channels; they include all the local stations (network affiliates as well as the local access channels), two PBS stations, two Spanish-language stations, TBS, the TV Guide Channel, a home shopping channel and C-SPAN I and II. I don't have any of the cable news networks.

I have seen Fox and CNN and MSNBC, of course, but only irregularly over the years. I do see Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace (formerly with Tony Snow). It comes on the local Fox affiliate here in Waco. It is one of my favorites; Wallace is terrific. The show has a palpable conservative ethos--but it is certainly balanced in terms of guest selection. Today Wallace interviewed Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer (more to come at some point on that interview). The panel is very good; it includes Juan Williams and Mara Liasson from NPR, both of whom I enjoy.

As I have said before, I get my news from NPR in the morning, NYT, Washington Post and various internet sites throughout the day, conservative talk radio and NPR in the afternoon and the Newshour with Jim Lehrer in the evening.

I should add that I watch C-SPAN throughout the day and C-SPAN II ("Book TV") on the weekends.