Sunday, September 28, 2008

Rising to the Challenge: Fox Business News

Sunday night, September 28, 2008, 11:00 pm - As we sat in the eye storm during the worst financial crisis in modern history, the cable and broadcast news networks went to sleep, lulled by the lilting lullabies of reruns, repeats and a band headlined by a former governor.

If you wanted news, if you wanted analysis, if you wanted updates on a marathon Republican House of Representative's meeting, you were simply out of luck.


Unless you were one of the very lucky few who have access to the new FOX BUSINESS NEWS CHANNEL. Fortunately, I subscribe to satellite provider Direct TV and I receive Fox Business on channel 359.

While CNN and FOX NEWS were rerunning earlier programs, MSNBC, who seem to have totally abdicated the news business entirely, ran old, old, old NBC Dateline programs. Even the news crawls were seemingly outdated and sparse on facts.

At the critical moment that House Republicans emerged from their 3 hour meeting, the regular FOX NEWS channel was caught flatfooted rerunning last night's folksy Mike Huckabee debut, complete with Huckabee himself leading a really terrible band made up of FOX NEWS staffers. It was embarrassing.

Curiously, even business leader CNBC missed the oportunity to cover the biggest business story since cable news broadcasts began.

But right next door at FOX BUSINESS NEWS it was all live and incredibly professional and informative. Only FOX BUSINESS ran the Republican House News Conference. Only FOX BUSINESS had live interviews with House members, Wall Street leaders and business leaders, economists and government leaders around the world.

Anchored coolly and professionally by David Asman and Cheryl Casone, there was no hyperbole and no spin. And, after the House Republican leaders issued there tentative support for the compromise bill, the FOX BUSINESS team tracked the reaction from markets around the world. Gold is down and most markets and futures are up as I write this report.

FOX BUSINESS has a new fan here. I know where to tune for business news.

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