I lost my dad to Fox News: How a generation was captured by thrashing hysteria - Salon.com:
I do not blame or condemn my father for his opinions. If you
consumed a daily diet of right-wing fury, erroneously labeled “news,” you
could very likely end up in the same place. Again, this is all by
design. Let’s call it the Fox News effect. Take sweet, kindly senior
citizens and feed them a steady stream of demagoguery and repetition,
all wrapped in the laughable slogan of “fair and balanced.” Even
watching the commercials on Fox, one is treated to sales pitches for
gold and emergency food rations, the product cornerstones of the
paranoid. To some people the idea of retirees yelling at the television
all day may seem funny, but this isn’t a joke. We’re losing the nation’s
grandparents, and it’s an American tragedy.
People talk about the
imminent “death” of Fox News itself, because of an ever-aging
demographic.
Again, Frank Rich makes this case, but I think his argument
is dubious. Certainly the audience is graying to oblivion, but it’s a
cold comfort to those of us who watch our parents or grandparents drown
in an incessant downpour of outrage. We will only see the “End of Fox
News” when my father and his contemporaries die. I do not want to watch
my father and his entire generation spend their remaining years enraged
at utter nonsense.