Parsons Takes Shot at Fox
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 8/6/2004 8:22:00 AM MT
Time Warner Inc. chairman Dick Parsons Friday described Fox News Channel as "crazy people exchanging views," telling a group of minority journalists in Washington he felt that the channel and his own Cable News Network are two different services.
When asked by Univision Anchor Jorge Ramos why CNN was losing the ratings battle with Fox, he was not ready to concede that. He said that Fox was more like talk radio on TV, which meant that its viewers stayed longer because people tended to "come and sit down for an hour or two and listen to crazy people exchange views." CNN actually draws more viewers, he said, but said they were grazers who didn't stay long.
Parsons said he did not feel CNN was liberal, but instead has a bias for the truth. He conceded that journalists are often perceived as liberal because they tend to challenge the establishment. He did not make an overt comparison with Fox, but he did say that his news operation "does not give a corporate slant to its journalism. We don't tell them how to report."
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