Mediaite has presented their list of Most Influential In Media In 2017. It suggests a very sorry state of our mass media if these are really the most influential, especially when looking at the page with their top five.
Leading the list is Fox & Friends Co-hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade
They top the list because of Donald Trump being such a big fan. Trump, who often repeats what they say and praises them on Twitter, also congratulated them for this today.
They are followed by Jeff Zucker of CNN. While CNN is hardly the strongest source of serious journalism, unless you are interested in the latest plane crash, at least this is better than the biased media in the rest of the top five.
Sean Hannity comes in third followed by Matt Drudge.
There is finally a voice from the left at number five. Unfortunately it is Rachel Maddow, who has jumped the shark and gone full Glenn Beck, with her hysterical coverage of Russia conspiracy theories, going far beyond the evidence. As Norman Solomon wrote, “Joe McCarthy never did it better.”
Glancing through the rest of the list, while we don’t have Jon Stewart around anymore, other late night comedians did relatively well with Jimmy Kimmel at 23 and Stephen Colbert at 24. Unfortunately Bill Maher, who has abandoned his more independent thought and now follows the Democratic Party line, beats them at 20. John Oliver is at 33. Trevor Noah is at 73 and Samantha Bee is 74th.
Right after Kimmel and Colbert is Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks at 25.
I’m surprised that they only ranked Steve Bannon at 45, although the loss by Roy Moore did not help him.
