Tue Oct 14, 6:00 PM Pacific • posted by Jed Lewison

ACORN-Mania: FOX vs. The Middle Class

Media Matters notes that FOX News has mentioned ACORN on 342 occasions since Friday. Media Matters uses the tveyes.com service, but I actually get different numbers using a raw feed of the transcript as recorded by my SnapStream Enterprise Server, a fantastically cool product that allows me to record up to 4 channels simultaneously, including live searchability of closed caption data.

Here's the numbers I get (since Saturday):

  • FOX: 609 mentions
  • CNN: 90 mentions
  • MSNBC: 30 mentions

But that only tells part of the story. Look at how infrequently both FOX and CNN discuss the middle class:

  • FOX: 113 mentions
  • CNN: 107 mentions
  • MSNBC: 151 mentions

Here's another way of looking at it:

  • FOX mentions ACORN 5.4x more often than "middle class"
  • CNN mentions "middle class" 1.2x more often than ACORN
  • MSNBC mentions "middle class" 5.0x more often than ACORN

So what is the lesson here? Well, if you're in the middle class, MSNBC should be your channel. If you're a paranoid right-wing freak...by all means, enjoy FOX all you want.