Krauthammer: "How Fox News Opened America"

With Fox News Channel once again beating the competitors, it was interesting to read excerpts from remarks by Charles Krauthammer when he was presented the 2009 Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism.

In "How Fox News Opened America," Mr. Krauthammer commented on the good Fox News had done:

... there should be a special award for Fox News. Fox has done a great service to the American polity -- single-handedly breaking up the intellectual and ideological monopoly that for decades exerted hegemony (to use a favorite lefty cliché) over the broadcast media.

I said some years ago that the genius of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes was to have discovered a niche market in American broadcasting -- half the American people. The reason Fox News has thrived and grown is because it offers a vibrant and honest alternative to those who could not abide yet another day of the news delivered to them beneath layer after layer of often undisguised liberalism.

What Fox did is not just create a venue for alternative opinion. It created an alternate reality.

Fox News features Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Geta Van Sustern, their newest star Glenn Beck, Steve Doocey, Brian Kilmeade, Neil Cavuto, Mike Huckabee, and others. Personalities have included Britt Hume and the late Tony Snow. Their stable of talent continues to grow just as their ratings do.

Oh ... and another personality is Charles Krauthammer who is a syndicated columnist and Fox News analyst.