Let loose the dogs of war

There is nothing I like more than a good old fashioned media war.

On June 28, The New York Times published an opinion piece by Jacques Steinberg that discussed the ratings advantage that cable news networks like CNN and MSNBC are slowly gaining on Fox News.

I wouldn’t see it as an attack piece personally, it was simply discussing the fact that while Fox News is still winning the ratings war, CNN and MSNBC are closing the gap.

Steinberg didn’t burn an effigy of the media giant; he didn’t preemptively dance on their grave. He presented a reasonable, fact-based viewpoint. Some people think that Steinberg’s editor, Steven Reddicliffe, holds a grudge against Fox News’ parent company because of his previous tenure as editor of their TV Guide publication. This might just be true, but this particular story didn’t seem like it was fueled by some irrational grudge.

The firestorm brewed silently for a couple of days, and by July 2, a couple of Fox News personalities decided to retaliate against what they saw as an attack. Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade accused Steinberg and Reddicliffe of being “Attack Dogs” on their show, Fox and Friends.

Doocy and Kilmeade presented us with pictures of the two “attackers” that had been heavily edited. They made Steinberg’s nose bigger, and they gave him yellow teeth. Reddicliffe suffered a forehead stretching and a couple of huge bags under his eyes. To finish off this cavalcade of immaturity, they presented a photo where Reddicliffe’s face had been edited onto the head of a man holding a poodle with Steinberg’s face.

The poodle picture could be seen as a joke, but they were presenting the fake head shots as real. They didn’t do a very good job of making them look real, but most of their viewers wouldn’t take the time to consider the validity of a photo presented by a news channel.

Do I think that what they did was wrong? No, I think it was funny. I wasn’t watching Fox News when it happened, but I have seen it, and it was hilarious. I don’t think it is reasonable to attack the reputation of anyone who is slightly analytical of the station that you work for, but it is probably fun.

Maybe Steven Reddicliffe really is bitter at his old employer, and sent Steinberg to viciously rip apart the noble journalists over at Fox News. Doocy and Kilmeade might have been completely justified in what they did, but they went about it all wrong.

Attacking the person on the other side of the issue instead of arguing his points is not the way to win an argument. Even if you don’t have a good explanation for why the ratings gap is closing, make one up. At least with false facts, you can look like you are putting a good argument for a little while. Presenting a doctored photo of your opponent, however, will quickly make people think that you have exhausted all intelligent responses and have stooped to the level of a grade-school bully.

Calling out another media personality is the fastest and most efficient way to feign relevancy. I have always wanted to get in a war of words with someone; I could insult another columnist, or a local disc jockey. We could go back and fourth, exchanging hilarious quips until we forget completely why we were fighting in the first place. I’ll be accepting applications for an opponent, and the only qualification is that you have a relatively far-reaching medium in which to complain about me.

Eventually, our contempt for each other will spread to the other people who work for our respective outlets. It could even lead to a full-blown, action-packed media war. We can have full-page attack stories, and the audio-based mediums could have hour-long rants.

It would be a good, entertaining scam for the folks. We could both be in on it, and touch base consistently about the next hilarious twist we should add in. Instead of being two C-level media celebrities, we could become famous and well known because we are having a big fight. “Who is Travis McMullen? Oh, that person who hates that other person? Man, I love that guy.”