The Left and Laughter

When they say the Left has no sense of humor, and is addicted to lawsuits & government intervention, I'm pretty sure they're talking about stuff like this:

Yesterday, MoveOn.Org and political watchdog Common Cause filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission claiming that Fox News Channel's slogan "fair and balanced" violates the federal agency's prohibition against deceptive advertising. At the same time, the Independent Media Institute, an advocacy group for alternative journalism, announced it had filed a challenge against Fox News' trademark on the term "fair and balanced."

Next up: Activists point out that the New York Times can't possibly consist of all the news that?s fit to print?.

There's a telling moment at the end of the new MoveOn-distributed Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, in which Air America executive David Goodfriend shares his dream that one day our nation's capitol will swell with patriotic tourists who will visit the Lincoln Memorial, the National Mall, and … the FCC. (To do what? Complain that conservatives and Republicans finally have a friendly cable-news outlet? Must ? eliminate … now!!) Sometime around this heart-tugging speech we see some protester holding up a sign that says "diversify our media." The central irony of Outfoxed -- which is an interesting and entertaining look at Fox News' politically motivated practices, sandwiched in between wholly unconvincing far-left prescriptions for Taking Back Our Media -- is that Murdoch actually represents diversity, and has in fact paved the way both for unsuccessful partisan media outlets like Air America, and wildly successful partisan media like the Michael Moore industry. (For more on this, read Ben Compaine's terrific January 2004 cover story.) There is a healthy and probably underdeveloped market out there for politically slanted news, and the less the government gets involved in dictating what that will look like, the more likely we will see more documentaries like Outfoxed.