FOX News - you either love it or hate it. People on the left decry their obvious bias and loose journalistic standards. Those on the right like being told the things they want to hear, all the while believing that what they're watching is "fair and balanced". FOX's biggest problem is that they blur the line between news and commentary. Keith Olbermann at MSNBC is unapologetically to the left, but when he makes his "special comments", it's clearly labeled as "Commentary".

Apparently, though, the folks at FOX don't really care. Their current bad boy Glenn Beck showed a moment of honesty when he proclaimed that FOX News is an entertainment company:

Well that's nice. The problem is when people take what they say seriously, as if it IS news. I'm talking about the Tea Party folks that are actively supported and sponsored by FOX. I'm talking about people like Gregory Giusti who threatened Nancy Pelosi, whose mother blames his radical ideas on FOX News:

Naturally, that's just her opinion, and his mental illness is certainly the biggest factor in his actions. However, the problem is when you peddle propaganda as truth to those who are mentally unstable. How many other mentally unbalanced people out there are hearing FOX News "analyst" Sarah Palin say "reload", and think she means literally?

A new poll sponsored by FOX News themselves seems to be showing, however, that they may be hitching themselves to the wrong wagon. The poll shows that the IRS is viewed more favorably than the Tea Party. If Glenn Beck is shooting straight, and it really is all about entertainment for money, than perhaps they shouldn't be such cheerleaders for the Tea Party.

Rupert Murdoch - the Aussie at the head of FOX - is possibly beginning to see the light. In an interview where he claimed that Democrats were equally represented in employment at FOX News (and then was unable to name any), also stated that they should not be supporting the Tea Party:

We'll see how that works out in the reality-based world. Considering that Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity pretty much breathed life into the Tea Beast, it will be difficult for them to extricate themselves, especially when Hannity covers their events with such breathless admiration. Btw - is Hannity supposed to be considered "News" or "Entertainment"? It would be helpful if they cleared that up. Perhaps they should change the name of the channel to "FOX Infotainment".

The problem with FOX News being taken seriously as a news channel is just one leg of the tripod of media (print and radio being the other two). Conglomerates gobbled up radio long ago, which is why Rush Limbaugh and his hateful lying dreck is spewed out of radio stations nationwide. It gives the hard-line ideologue at the top of the corporation a venue to influence millions of listeners with a monopoly on the airwaves.

The print media - despite the notion that newspapers are all independent - are following the same model. Ogden Newspapers owns numerous small town papers, and has been shown to "astroturf" the opinion pages:

This sort of insidious monopoly over media is troubling, because it puts concentrated power to sway public opinion in the hands of just a few people. Whether it's newspaper or radio or TV, a diversity of voices, ideas, and analysis of the facts is vital to an informed populace. Monopolies are very hard to break up once they're created. The proper approach is to prevent them from occurring in the first place.

Of course - FOX and Rush and Ogden Newspapers will simply report that as "Big Government" trying to interfere with the "Open Market", which we all know is "bad for business", right?

Right.