Why Rush Limbaugh and Fox News Are So Popular

I can't get this video to embed here for some reason. But check out HotAir that has a CNN video explaining why people listen to Rush.

Here CNN attempts to explain why people listen to the likes of Rush Limbaugh. This is the usual absurdity from the "real" news channel that facts checks SNL skits.

If anyone is really interested, I thought I might explain why I think Fox News is the number one rated cable news, and why Rush is so rich and talk radio so popular. And it has nothing to do with us going along with the so called "bully." If anything, Rush is the kid on the playground keeping the bully (govt) from beating up us.

In the early 80's I couldn't wait to get my issue of National Review. I would sit down and read it cover to cover. I knew that I would get "the other side of the story" there. I was just becoming a conservative and I was young. But I knew already there was a liberal slant to the news because I used to believe in that slant. When I read the National Review, I just couldn't believe what the mainstream media had left out of any given story.

During the Reagan years the media turned even farther left. Reagan had the communication skills to overcome that, but for conservatives and libertarians watching the news became downright painful.

This, quite simply, is why Rush began his incredible rise to the top of talk radio. Finally someone was speaking to the conservative values that we embraced. It's almost like when someone lives in a foreign country and you miss America terribly. Then you find a radio station that is American based. You turn it on every day to hear your native language and hear the news from where you grew up. You didn't feel so alone. That is what listening to Rush was like in the '80's.

But even with talk radio, the evening news and CNN still drove us crazy. We would listen to a news story, and we knew the rest of the story that was being left out. We would yell at the TV, "Show some objectivity for heaven's sake! Tell us both sides!"

Then came Fox News, who promised "fair and balanced." And that is what they gave us. The hard news at Fox is as fair and objective as it gets. It doesn't get better or more objective than Brett Baier, Major Garrett, Shepard Smith, and Bill Hemmer to name just a few. The left and the White House sees it as right leaning simply because the news had never shown the right side AT ALL. So naturally hearing it as well drove them insane. Which is where you find the White House today, stomping their feet like a toddler with a temper tantrum, and refusing to go on Fox News. It's petty and it diminishes the office of the Presidency.

The White House's fight with Fox News is also a warning to the other news organizations. In the interviews with the rest of the mainstream media on Sunday, the White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN that President Obama does not want “the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox." In other words, don't pick up their stories that make us look bad. As Greta Van Susteren points out, it's not like the White House has been sending people to Fox News and now suddenly stopped. She says they haven't sent people sent January and obviously it hasn't effected their ratings or how they do their job.

But there is another reason Fox News is so popular. Obviously it isn't just conservatives watching Fox News. So why do people watch Fox News more than the others? Every day news organizations have editorial meetings. They get together and they decide which stories are interesting and important and should be on the air. Fox News is genius at this. While ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and CNN dismiss stories because they let their political bias get in the way, Fox News seizes upon them, and Fox is always right on the money. They are the stories that people want to see. That is why their ratings are so high. Many times the other news organizations are forced to follow because of the obvious interest in the story, like the Rev. Wright story. Other times they refuse to follow Fox News and get embarrassed. For example, when Van Jones resigned over his controversial past. They had to report that one of Obama's Czar's had quit over stories that they had never even bothered to cover.

We on the right have no problem with the left's point of view. We have never been afraid of debate. What we had a problem with was having our point of view ignored. With Fox News and talk radio, it isn't ignored anymore. And that is why they thrive.