What's the matter boys... Afraid of a little fox?

As an information junkie and a former broadcast major, I enjoy monitoring the competitive bickering among the national news "professionals." I can recall when CNN originally laughed with disdain at poor little upstart FOXNEWS. Not to mention the general liberal newspaper media who also quickly sought to dismiss FOXNEWS as nothing more than some high school-level attempt at news coverage.

And of course, as FOXNEWS began to make advances in the all-important nightly ratings, the competing networks began to sharpen their claws. Now that FOXNEWS has actually surpassed CNN with no slow-down in sight, CNN is howling and scowling. Case in point:

CNN HEAD CALLS FOXNEWS COVERAGE 'MEANINGLESS NONSENSE'
Tue Aug 23 2005 20:34:26 ET

CNN President Jonathan Klein implies ratings news leader FOXNEWS is mired in coverage of "meaningless nonsense," claiming: "Fourteen Americans dead, and they have Natalee Holloway on," Klein says. "And they're supposedly America's news channel."

"It's easy and it's brainless," Klein charges in a telephone interview set for publication at the NEW YORK TIMES, explaining why cable news outlets are gravitating to the Aruba story. "They're looking for an ongoing drama" along the lines of the NBC crime show "Law & Order," he said, adding, "Except 'Law & Order' doesn't do the same plot every night.""There are an awful lot of things you can cover if you don't have people tied up with this meaningless nonsense," Klein says.

In early July, Klein pulled CNN's correspondent out of Aruba and dropped the subject from most CNN shows in the absence of new developments.

"If Jon performed as well as he talks, he wouldn't have to explain his network's dismal ratings," says Irena Briganti, a spokeswoman for FOXNEWS. "We have trounced him on every breaking news story from the London bombings and last week's events in Gaza."

Why is it that the elitist left-wing leaning news folks have no better action plan than to just attack FOXNEWS when FOXNEWS is clearly spanking them in the ratings? What do they stand to gain? Has this tactic ever worked in the history of warfare?

Will someone please explain to me why it is that when CNN (AKA the "Clinton News Network") was leading the ratings, viewers were apparently smart, but now that those viewers have migrated over to FOXNEWS, those same viewers have suddenly become mindless idiots (at least according to CNN)?

Folks, there is finite audience who watches cable television news--and they are either watching CNN or FOXNEWS. And the reason they choose one over the other is as clear and apparent as the 2004 red and blue electoral map.

Maybe CNN's execs should point that camera lens at themselves. Then they might see the real reason more viewers now watch FOXNEWS.