Fear and Loathing of Fox News

The runaway success of Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel, founded on the premise that other news outlets are biased, is the source of much anger to lefty journalists. Most elite journalists I've encountered hate the network and the fact that it's broken through the liberal glass ceiling of news.

A great example of this was a Monday column in the LA Times by Scott Collins which instead of leading with a 38 percent ratings drop at CNN (something that's causing turmoil and repeated personnel shifts), focused on a 17 percent drop at FNC.

Inside the article, Collins allows CNN president Jonathan "Pajamas" Klein to comment on why the rival network has fallen [by half the amount his has]. Perennial ratings dropout Keith Olbermann is also quoted.

The first few sentences tell the tale (see this Patterico post for more):

Some recent ratings news no doubt gladdened the hearts of Fox News Channel haters.

First, Nielsen Media Research reported that Fox News' overall prime-time lineup dropped 17% last month compared with a year ago (MSNBC grew 16% during the same period, while CNN plummeted by 38%).

The FNC drop is worth writing about but to focus on it exclusively is biased and inaccurate.

Related: Last night, Murdoch made a number of remarks about FNC's rivals. See Human Events for more.

UPDATE 13:31. Ace:

Maybe I'm just a big stinking Republican Eeyore, but I do sense that the wheels have come off the wagon on this administration, and that makes it harder to be interested in the news. Every day seems like more bad news.

Except as regards the economy. But, of course, that doesn't really make it to the news, now does it?

So... maybe Fox's droop shows that conservatives are dispirited, and MSNBC's Matthews-Olberman suckboy tandem shows that liberals are excited. (Hey, if America's doing poorly, and Iran's about to get the bomb and blow us all up, that's worth partying over, right?)