Your politics interrupted my reading.
What perturbs me more than having to hear what every Hollywood starlet thinks about the healthcare debate? It’s having to read what a branding expert thinks about Glenn Beck.
Seriously. May I have a brief word with you, Mr. Branding Expert? If you’re going to write a blog entry about Fox News and how its brand has been effected by President Obama’s campaign to “delegitimize” them, could you do it without the snarky comments?
You started out just fine, using this scenario to illustrate the “80/20 Rule”:
Fox’s success shows the rewards for cable networks of building engagement among a dedicated base of diehards, following the vaunted “80-20 rule” that says that 80% of a channel’s ratings comes from 20% of its audience. Keeping the core audience tuned in for repetitive programming that confirms their beliefs turns out to be the recipe for success.
That is an interesting point. One I was eager to read about. But then, out of nowhere, you sucker-punched my Conservative mid-section with this [emphasis mine]:
Still, delegitimizing a news organization risks a backlash. Obama and his team have been compared with Spiro Agnew and other right-wing politicians who have declared war on the press over the years. And while the buffoonishness of Fox’s lightning-rod host Glenn Beck is evident to all who disagree with him, conservatives see emotive liberal MSNBC host Keith Olbermann as equally unhinged.
So, why the reference to “right-wing politicians”? Why is it that “buffoonishness” is an appropriate adjective to describe Glenn Beck, but Keith Olbermann is simply “emotive”?
I must say, before I paid attention to politics and, by association, “The Media”, I probably would not have given a second thought to the passage above. But, now that I am paying attention, I see the bias that exists…and it’s everywhere!
The thing is, when I go to a website to read about branding, I just want to learn about branding. If you’re discussing politics to make a point, I don’t want to be able to infer from your language how you vote in the voting booth, or whether you prefer The Buffoon or The Emoter. Words have meaning. Language matters.
Just give it to me straight.
- tdc
