Mr. B. Daniel of Austin, TX has helpfully forwarded an Associated Press item about a Tulsa man who has invented a device that prevents the Fox News Channel from reaching your TV screen.
It’s not that Sam Kimery objects to the views expressed on Fox News Channel. The creator of the “Fox Blocker” contends the network is not news at all.
Kimery says he has sold about 100 of the little silver bits of metal that screw into the back of most televisions, allowing people to filter Fox News from their sets. The Tulsa, Okla., resident also has received thousands of e-mails, both angry and complimentary, as well as a few death threats since the device debuted in August.
“Apparently the making of terroristic threats against those who don’t share your views is a high art form among a certain core audience,” said Kimery, 45.
Formerly a registered Republican, even a precinct captain, Kimery became an independent in the 1990s when he said the state party stopped taking input from everyday members.
Kimery now contends Fox News’ top-level management dictates a conservative journalistic bias, that inaccuracies never are retracted, and what airs is more opinion than news.
“I might as well be reading tabloids out of the grocery store,” he said. “Anything to get a rise out of the viewer and to reinforce certain retrograde notions.”
A Fox spokeswoman at the station’s New York headquarters said the channel’s ratings speak for themselves. For the first three months of this year, Fox has averaged 1.62 million viewers in prime-time, compared with CNN’s 805,000, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Kimery seems like a smart guy. Hopefully he can invent some sort of device that will enable viewers to change the channel or to turn off their televisions altogether. Like say, a human hand.