Don’t Menshn Fox News Job Application

The imminent departure of Piers Morgan from his 9pm Eastern Time slot at CNN may have been a signal for some to report, and in a few cases, rejoice over, but for one self-promotion specialist and all round know-all, it was an opportunity to remind a prospective employer that they were missing the services of someone they had not even thought about employing.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

No prizes for guessing that the one trying to “leverage” Morgan’s bad news to her own advantage was former Tory MP Louise Mensch, now representing the distant constituency of Manhattan Upmarket. Ms Mensch wants a job – any job – with Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse). Her campaign is not going well at present. So out comes her knowledge of cable news.

“Problem was, as ever, CNN can’t step away from the left which is why Fox News buries them day in, day out” she offered, thus showing she knows sweet jack about CNN. Perhaps she should Google names like “Tucker Carlson” and “Glenn Beck” to see where they started out in the cable news world. CNN’s problem is not in leaning one way or the other: in a partisan market, they don’t lean at all.

Still, she was undeterred: “Until CNN and MSNBC get some balance, Fox News will continue to bury them. Roger Ailes is a genius and his rivals don’t come close”. As someone nearly said once on the Goon Show, this person is a bit of a crawler. Otherwise the sentiment is meaningless: the only reason Fox comes out with the “fair and balanced” shtick is because it isn’t.

But do go on: “as a Fox anchor once said to me, years ago: ‘We balance CNN’”. And Ms Mensch was stupid enough to believe it. What she also manages not to understand is that, for advertisers, overall ratings are not everything: the prized number for them is “the demo”. What that? Well, this is how many viewers the channel gets in the 25-54 age range. And Fox isn’t quite so dominant there.

When she trills “Fox beats both ... MSNBC and CNN together”, she forgets Fox’ ageing audience. January 8 saw Rachel Maddow beat Megyn Kelly in the demo, although the latter scored double the overall audience. The following evening, MSNBC beat Fox across the whole of primetime in the demo. Advertisers want to see those 25-54 demographic numbers.

“There’s a great piece of long form journalism crying out to be written on why, after years of burying by Fox, CNN and MSNBC refuse to switch” announces Ms Mensch triumphantly. MSNBC beat Fox in 3 out of 4 primetime slots on February 4 in the demo – another case of why Phil Griffin ain’t switching anything, and showing that Louise Mensch once again hasn’t bothered researching before sounding off.

That, of course, could stand her in good stead with Fox News.