The Fox Nation is still here -- dressed up perfectly for the 4th of July Independence Day Celebration.
Yes, all the stars of Fox News -- Glen Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, among others -- are here for all Americans "who believe in the United States of America, and its ideals, as expressed in the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence," so says the Fox commercial promoting the new online site. Beck, in kind of the same way that Barney Rubble outshines Fred Flintstone, is the star of the video above Mike Huckabee, and proclaims that America is "a welcoming country for legal immigrants."
The actual Web site is colored in red, white and blue, and oozes patriotism. The site, Media Matters, News Hounds (which, to be fair, exists to criticize Fox News), and liberal blog site Daily Kos. But perhaps some of the criticism is fueled by sour grapes.
The bloggy, opinionated site, much like conservative talk radio, takes advantage of the lack of other institution-backed conservative outlets. It seeks to draw an audience from the Republican-minded that feel there are few online options that mach their ideology. Many believe that other mainstream outlets, such as CNN and NBC, are liberally biased. In practice, Fox Nation seems to be much like The Huffington Post; the site mostly acts as an aggregator of opinion and news stories found around the Web. It also similarly plays up news of the day with provocative -- and perhaps misleading -- headlines.
Among the lead stories on Thursday have headlines of "Obama Busted Stacking Town Hall... What If Bush Had?," and "Networks Obsessed With Sanford... Ignore Democrat Scandals."
There's terribly blurry photo of U.S. Supreme Court Nominee Sandra Sotomayor alongside a headline of "Sotomayor Says SAT Is 'Culturally Biased.'" Nearby there's a photo of President Obama with a headline of "Obama Stands With Tyrants."
While many pundits believed that the Obama Administration would spell the demise of Fox News and affiliated properties, which are criticized for having a conservative bias, the opposite is true. Fox has picked up momentum in recent months and challenges to Obama's administration have become the cornerstone of the network's news coverage. The acquisition of the highly opinionated Beck has also provided a spark for the network.
