有人会将美国媒体领域的革命追溯到1980年6月1日：当天美国东部时间下午6点，CNN开始24小时不间断播报新闻。然而，尽管CNN实现了全天候全年无休的播出，但它仅在电视新闻的播出量上有所区别，在质量或倾向性方面，与传统电视网新闻并无不同。事实上，CNN很快便成为传统新闻体系的一部分——这正是它的目标所在，也是它最终成为的样子。
Some would date the revolution in American media to June 1, 1980, when, at 6:00 PM Eastern Time, CNN began broadcasting around-the-clock news. But, while CNN was 24/7/365, it differed only in the volume of televised news it carried, not different from the quality or the lean of legacy network news. Indeed, CNN quickly became a part of legacy news. That is what it is aspired to. That is what it became.
另一些人则会指出1987年8月4日才是这场革命的开端：当天，在联邦通信委员会（FCC）主席丹尼斯·R·帕特里克（Dennis R. Patrick）的领导下，FCC以4票全票的结果废除了“公平原则”。
Others would point to August 4, 1987, as the beginning of the revolution, the date the Federal Communications Commission repealed the "Fairness Doctrine" by a vote of 4-0 under FCC Chairman Dennis R. Patrick’s leadership.
还有的人会指出1988年8月1日：当天，拉什·林博（Rush Limbaugh）在ABC广播网络推出了自己的节目，并开始通过当时旗下的50家附属电台进行播出。“拉什建造了这座购物中心，”我常对关注保守派谈话广播诞生史的听众说，“迈克·加拉格尔（Mike Gallagher）、拉里·埃尔德（Larry Elder）、马克·莱文（Mark Levin）……我们不过是这座购物中心里的店铺而已。”
Still others would point to August 1, 1988, when Rush Limbaugh launched his program on ABC Radio Networks and began broadcasting over his then 50 affiliates. "Rush built the mall," I tell most audiences interested in the birth of conservative talk radio. "Mike Gallagher, Larry Elder, Mark Levin…we just have stores inside that mall."
在迎接美国250周年诞辰之际，拉什·林博的爱国精神遗产再度回归，旨在向年轻人传授真实的历史。拉什为AM广播电台的经营者提供了“概念验证”，并向整个媒体行业发出了需求信号：美国一半民众不仅长期未被充分服务，甚至实际上并不受欢迎。市场也作出了回应。如今，布莱恩·基尔米德（Brian Kilmeade）、盖伊·本森（Guy Benson）以及福克斯广播网络上的许多其他主持人，都是不断扩张的中间偏右派新闻生态体系的一部分。
RUSH LIMBAUGH’S PATRIOTIC LEGACY RETURNS AHEAD OF AMERICA’S 250TH BIRTHDAY TO TEACH KIDS TRUE HISTORY Rush provided "proof of concept" to AM station owners and a demand signal to all of media that half of America was not just under-served but actually unwelcomed. The market responded. Brian Kilmeade, Guy Benson and many others on the Fox Radio Network are part of the ever-expanding news universe on the center-right.
“这个国家的主流媒体基本上都是铁板一块——或多或少都带有自由主义倾向，”2006年，在福克斯新闻开播十周年之际，福克斯新闻创始人鲁珀特·默多克如此评价。这其实是他十年前在频道开播时所说的话的呼应：“坦率地说，其他所有媒体都大同小异。而我们将成为一个另类选择。”
"The good bulk of the press in this country was monolithic — liberal to varying degrees," Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch commented on the tenth anniversary of the launch of Fox News in 2006. This was an echo from what he had said at the actual launch ten years ago: "Frankly, all the others look alike.
胡安·威廉姆斯：我妻子当时觉得我加入福克斯新闻简直是疯了，但我很高兴自己这么做了。
We will be an alternative." JUAN WILLIAMS: MY WIFE THOUGHT I WAS CRAZY TO JOIN FOX NEWS.
当然，这家电视网及其品牌取得了惊人的成功。拉什·林博为广播行业做到了的事，鲁珀特·默多克也为有线电视新闻行业做到了：他证明了美国有大量新闻受众迫切需要以中间派、中右翼及保守派视角呈现的新闻内容。正如林博的成功带动了众多模仿者一样，默多克的成功也促使众多媒体纷纷采用类似模式。
I'M GLAD I DID Of course, the success of the network and the brand has been phenomenal. What Rush Limbaugh did for radio, Rupert Murdoch did for cable news: Prove the concept that there was an enormous, unmet demand in consumers of news in America for center, center-right and conservative news. As with Limbaugh, so with Murdoch: Great success followed by others entering the lists with the same basic model.
只要稍微看看有线电视新闻的收视率数据，就能明白默多克的判断完全正确，甚至超出了所有人的预期。福克斯新闻不仅在收视率上占据绝对优势，更是遥遥领先。三十年来，它始终稳居榜首，其成功模式始终如一：聘请那些能代表爱国且热爱美国的受众群体观点的专业人士主持节目，并要求他们在黄金时段以公正、克制的方式报道新闻。
Even a cursory glance at cable news ratings screams out that Murdoch was right and perhaps right far beyond what anyone suspected. Fox News doesn’t merely dominate the ratings, it crushes them. Through three decades of rising to and remaining on top, the formula has been the same: Put professionals on the air who reflect what patriotic and America-loving portions of the news-consuming public believe and ask them to present the news in a fair, measured way through the start of prime time.
节目必须保持理性，也要包容不同观点。适度运用轻松幽默与巧妙的讽刺无可厚非，即便是那些“观点类主持人”也需确保自己的收视率维持在20%左右，而日间节目的收视率则稳定在40%上下。凭空臆想毫无意义，因此大可不必费神去想象一个没有福克斯新闻、也没有如此繁荣的保守派媒体生态的世界。即便是最严苛的批评者也不得不承认：那样的世界会乏味得多，也灰暗得多——若没有福克斯新闻，传统媒体过去三十年里只会继续千篇一律地传播那些老生常谈的内容罢了。
Always be reasonable. Always be open to other views. Use light humor and sly derision by all means, but even the "opinion hosts" work to "stay within the 20s" even as daytime stays firmly "within the 40s." Counter-factuals are never very productive, so spare yourself the time you would waste imagining a world in which Fox News had not been launched and thrived. It would be — even its worst critics should admit this — so much less interesting, so much more grey than had legacy news been left to its own devices, pumping out the same-old same-old over the past 30 years.
福克斯新闻已经为自己打造了一座坚不可摧的“堡垒”，因此在未来数年里，它不太可能被挤出有线电视新闻行业的头把交椅，甚至有望继续稳居“新闻界”的领军地位。
Having carved out for itself a formidable Gibraltar of a fortress for its brand, it is unlikely that Fox News will be displaced from the top of cable news specifically, and indeed increasingly "the news" generally for years to come.
眼下，传统媒体正迈出最初的试探性步伐，试图摆脱自越南战争以来逐渐形成的“带有偏见”的负面形象——当时传统媒体已然沦为充斥着偏颇言论的宣传工具。
What we see now are the first, tentative steps of legacy media to consciously try and shrug off the reputation for bias it built for itself since the Vietnam War turned legacy media into a vast swamp of advocacy journalism.
福克斯新闻连续八个季度位居YouTube媒体类频道浏览量榜首，总浏览量高达9.18亿次。不过要扭转这一形象绝非易事，毕竟此前诸多尝试均以失败告终。这就好比一些大学会聘请一位资历出众的右翼学者担任一两年的“客座教授”，其目的不过是做做样子、掩饰自身立场，而非真心接纳这些长期被排斥在外的观点。
FOX NEWS MEDIA TOPS YOUTUBE FOR EIGHTH STRAIGHT QUARTER WITH 918 MILLION VIEWS That’s a huge mountain to climb, especially as so many previous attempts have failed. Like universities that hire a visiting professor with glowing credentials on the right for a year or two of appointment as a "Visiting Scholar," the underlying institution is looking for camouflage not a genuine commitment to the ideas it has long locked out of its halls.
三十年后，人们会发现“新闻业”依旧只是一门手艺而非正式职业；最优秀的从业者始终对周遭世界有着全面认知，绝不会只关注新闻内容的一半甚至更少。
30 years down the road, the country will again check in and see that "journalism" remains a craft, not a profession, and the best craftsmen are fully aware of the world around them, not blinkered to half or more of the news horizon.