Bret Baier Gets New FNC Deal…
The Baltimore Sun’s David Zurawik reports that Bret Baier has signed a new deal with FNC…
Fox News is expected to announce later today that it is signing anchorman Bret Baier to a new multi-year deal.
Baier is on a roll, having recently co-anchored the highly-rated and journalistically-sound election night coverage for Fox as well as finishing second only to Bill O’Reilly in overall audience for the month with his “Special Report” nightly newscast. (Baier’s co-anchor on election night was Megyn Kelly.)
December 14, 2010 at 2:21 pm
He is the honorable successful grandson that
grandmothers all over the USA wish they had.
December 14, 2010 at 2:43 pm
?
December 14, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Lyons, is Bret Baier your grandson? He’s done a very good job filling the shoes of one of the best ever in the business.
December 14, 2010 at 3:40 pm
I think Zurawik has a little bit of a man crush on Baier… and a regular crush on Megyn Kelly. Somebody pass the vomit bag, please.
December 14, 2010 at 3:48 pm
The ratings his show gets and the election coverage with Megyn Kelly is an objective confirmation that they’re doing something right. Special Report is a fantastic programme.
December 14, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Megyn Kelly isn’t objective… just watch her afternoon program, which is supposedly straight news. She goes on several opinionated rants throughout the show. She’s also an immature, unprofessional and egotistical host yelling over her guests and cutting them off every 3 seconds. That’s not even based on ideology… anybody can gather that from watching her. She’s just Bill O’Reilly with blond hair.
December 14, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Al’s comment was focused on Special Report, and the election coverage Baier did with Kelly. Special Report is great up until the mostly rightwing panel segment, and even that is informative as long as you know what you’re getting into. The midterm election coverage – including Megyn’s work – was excellent..quite unlike the daily trainwreck her own show is.
December 14, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Even the first 30 min of Baier’s program has a rightward tilt. It’s not fairly objective, but it’s not exactly opinionated, either. It has a news show feeling, but it’s basically reporting on the same thing the rest of the network puts out.
It’s also important to emphasize that Baier’s program, a supposed straight news show, was involved in the internal memos situation, where Fox’s Managing Washington Managing Editor Bill Sammon told anchors (including Baier) to call the “public option” a “government option”.
How can anybody take Fox’s news division seriously after that debacle? What other amount of evidence do we need?
December 14, 2010 at 7:25 pm
It is what it is, Proglib. Obviously FNC is a right-leaning network, and obviously it’s going to bleed through Special Report sometimes. Egregious BS like “government-run” aside, I don’t think you can watch the first 40 minutes of Baier’s show every day (like I do) and claim the whole thing is a right-wing whitewash. We have America Live for that..
December 14, 2010 at 8:14 pm
“How can anybody take Fox’s news division seriously after that debacle? What other amount of evidence do we need?”
You call that issue a debacle? What world do you live in? The world I live in does NOT call that a debacle. A debacle is the crap that the Democrats are trying to pull right now about funding the government is a debacle. Over 6000 earmarks – for God’s sake did no one hear what the citizens of this country were saying at the last election? Obama said a mistake he made was signing the last bill like this because he needed to – well – he does not need to sign this bill now. he could veto it and the morons we have in Washington could just do a continuing resolution to continue spending at the same level we are now which is still a sin but la lesser sin than the “debacle” they have proposed now.
I am upset and sad that my country just can’t seem to get its head screwed on straight. I’m doing ok right now but I tell you I worry about my young adult children and the country they are going to have to grow old with. Probably by the time the s**t hits the fan I’ll be old and senile and won’t have a clue anymore about the sad state of affairs.
December 14, 2010 at 8:19 pm
ProgLib, you should change your name to MediaMattersFan cuz you’re as nonsensical as those people. The whole “govt run” vs. “public option” was a ginned up controversy not given any serious thought by any serious person.
Oh, & it seems like you watch as much FNC as mediamatters does. There doesn’t seem to be a show that you can’t recite what they do wrong throughout every program.
December 14, 2010 at 8:22 pm
I consider myself a serious person. “Government run” was “fear the government” Fox News BS.
December 14, 2010 at 10:14 pm
Government-run = wasteful + ineffective = fear government-run… Which is not the same as “fear government”.
December 14, 2010 at 10:25 pm
The governmment gets the mail on time extremely effectively. The standard right-wing creed that “all government operations are bad” is simplistic and ridiculous.
December 15, 2010 at 1:09 am
The government contracts with Federal Express to get its packages delivered on time effectively. Note their “Express” is advertised as “2 or 3 day delivery, one low price”. As a quasi-private enterprise, the USPS is desperately in the red. What they do, and you can argue whether it’s effective or not, is deliver mail and packages to remote places that UPS won’t deliver to.
Seems to me… just sayin’… maybe the USPS should just concentrate its efforts on those remote places and let the private couriers handle the rest as they’re probably considerably less expensive when both postage and taxpayer funding are factored-in together.
December 15, 2010 at 1:29 am
Federal Express built a new substation (or whatever they call it) a few miles away. It’s a nice, relatively inexpensive steel building that seemed to go up and into operation very quickly. I’m sure it cost Fed-Ex hundreds of thousands.
The USPS built a new post office in my town five/six years ago. It’s ornate inside and out. Took months and months to be built, and there was a big hoopla and ribbon-cutting when it opened. Bears the name of a big-shot congressman who, ironically, is no longer the congressman for this district due to redistricting in ’01. It cost us millions.
December 15, 2010 at 9:01 am
I’m letting you have the last word, Joe, cuz I don’t want to get into it. But, I think you know that I don’t quite agree.
December 15, 2010 at 9:23 am
^ There is nothing new under the sun. I’ve spent two years here having the same debates over and over again. I don’t care anymore.
December 15, 2010 at 9:48 am
^ It tends to be that way when you debate facts with feelings.
December 15, 2010 at 10:21 am
Joe, most government run programs are abysmal. While your mail might arrive on time, try going to your local post office this time of year and clock how long it takes to get to the front of the line.
Meanwhile, you have workers milling around doing nothing. Some are on their government mandated “break” and won’t lift a finger to do anything until their break time is over. Even if the line is running out the door.
For that matter, visit any government run office and see how efficient it is. 9 times out of 10, it’s not efficient at all.
December 15, 2010 at 10:35 am
^ My post office has a line out the door right now because it’s Christmas. I’ve done plenty of buying and selling of bike parts through USPS, and am very happy with the service. The ‘lunch break’ argument is ludicrous. Everybody needs a break, and it’s not safe or efficient to push people without one.
My feelings about government-run programs are the same as my feelings about private ones: some work, some could work better. Unlike the far right, I do not have complete faith in either. You guys have a “private sector always better” concept I simply disagree with. That’s how I FEEL.
December 15, 2010 at 10:44 am
– That’s how I FEEL. –
Exactly.
December 15, 2010 at 2:54 pm
And I’ll call you NewsBustersfan for ginning up the same type of controversies and pointless stories that Bozo the clown and his gang of misfits complain about. Wasn’t it you who linked to a few stories from NewsBusters on here? Maybe, maybe not.
Spare me the rationalization and acting like using specific rhetoric makes no difference in the simple minds of Fox News viewers, LS. I’ll always count on you to downgrade a Fox controversy, but the second MSNBC does something like this, I GUARANTEE you’d be throwing your arms up in outrage. Just watch… I’ll look back on this specific posting, and show your rationalizing of Fox if MSNBC ever becomes like the propaganda outfit Fox News is.
Nice try… I watch more Fox News than you think, pal. Don’t worry about what I do. In fact, I first started watching Fox before I even knew what MSNBC was. As soon as I got sick of them, I moved networks. I’d love to see the day that you actually watch MSNBC and say something remotely complimentary. You’re so cynical that you can’t even seem to find any reason to compliment on the former GOP congressman who has a daily 3-hour program every morning. I’m sure you claim him to be a RINO, which a typical person who doesn’t watch the show would call him.
December 15, 2010 at 3:49 pm
-Postal workers-
Just like with any organisation they have a few who don’t care, but the problems with the postal service have nothing to do with its workers. Like with all federal agencies, it’s extremely difficult to maintain efficiency and cost-effectiveness when, a) There’s no profit incentive pushing constant improvements and, b) When your board of directors is essentially the US Congress. Private companies that can’t keep both their customers happy and stay in the black go out of business, replaced by another that can. Government agencies are almost perpetual entities regardless of performance.
Put another way, if you don’t like Fed Ex you can go with UPS, DHL, etc. But if you don’t like the USPS then too bad – the law says I must use them for letter correspondence in commerce unless it has to be there tomorrow.