I have caught that show periodically. It isn't bad, but I never read Juan Williams as a liberal. He seems a very conventional, middle-of-the-road type to me. Reminds me of when Fox used to have Hannity and Colmes, but Colmes was so mousy. Hannity would insult him and he would cower. The guests would ignore him and he would just drop the issue.
I do agree that MSNBC is probably worse, though. They don't even have a conservative counter-point guy during the afternoon that I've seen. I think they get Pat Buchanan during the day sometimes. They used to have Tucker Carlson but never used him enough. He's a bright, thoughtful guy, so that is too bad.
CNN gets a pretty good mix of liberals and conservatives that they bring in from time to time, but clearly slants its news toward focusing on liberal/humanitarian stuff with the Cooper 360 show. And their obsession with racial issues ensures that they are going to have more left-wing folks talking about all that. More than the ideological slant, though, I hate CNN because their hosts all annoy the crap out of me based on personality/style.
News Hour doesn't bother so much with that, though. They don't need to, because they go to lengths not to slant things. That's why their hosts handle the presidential debates--because they aren't gonna go after one guy over the other. Sure, once a week Mark Shields and David Brooks discuss the issues, and they'll bring in people of opposing viewpoints, but quite frequently they aren't of the ideological variety.
Unfortunately, the market does not reward this kind of show, though, because as pointed out above, people want to watch people with the same feelings of their own talking about sensational things, and don't want to waste time with critical analysis about complex, but boring issues that really matter. This is understandable, but means that people aren't getting a complete picture of anything. And so, the News Hour or Washington Week could never compete with a Fox News or an MSNBC.
I do agree that MSNBC is probably worse, though. They don't even have a conservative counter-point guy during the afternoon that I've seen. I think they get Pat Buchanan during the day sometimes. They used to have Tucker Carlson but never used him enough. He's a bright, thoughtful guy, so that is too bad.
CNN gets a pretty good mix of liberals and conservatives that they bring in from time to time, but clearly slants its news toward focusing on liberal/humanitarian stuff with the Cooper 360 show. And their obsession with racial issues ensures that they are going to have more left-wing folks talking about all that. More than the ideological slant, though, I hate CNN because their hosts all annoy the crap out of me based on personality/style.
News Hour doesn't bother so much with that, though. They don't need to, because they go to lengths not to slant things. That's why their hosts handle the presidential debates--because they aren't gonna go after one guy over the other. Sure, once a week Mark Shields and David Brooks discuss the issues, and they'll bring in people of opposing viewpoints, but quite frequently they aren't of the ideological variety.
Unfortunately, the market does not reward this kind of show, though, because as pointed out above, people want to watch people with the same feelings of their own talking about sensational things, and don't want to waste time with critical analysis about complex, but boring issues that really matter. This is understandable, but means that people aren't getting a complete picture of anything. And so, the News Hour or Washington Week could never compete with a Fox News or an MSNBC.
...I'm bashing them because they suck as a news source. 
