Does anyone find it ironic that Fox News has been able to demand rate increases from corporations such as Dish network or Sirus radio? Fox has forced rate increases upon these unwilling companies, which have no choice but to deal with Fox News or lose a large market share.

Advertising dollars keep rolling in for Matt Drudge’s website, the Drudge Report, which gets millions of hits per day. Conservative talk radio rules the airwaves. Millions upon millions of dollars are spent on advertising to produce these radio shows.

The so-called mainstream media are in trouble on all fronts. News publications are looking for government subsidies. Newspapers aren’t selling well, and advertisers aren’t paying the rates they need to stay in business. The news media refuse to listen to the cry from the masses to stop ignoring the stories they find uncomfortable and to ask the hard questions.

It appears to me they’re mostly covering for a left-wing ideology that much of their management supports. The media need to take a hard look inward and ask themselves a basic question: Are they really serving the public good? Or are they destroying themselves by refusing to ask the same questions that have made conservative news media filthy rich? Capitalism seems to be working after all.

John Hopkins

Manchester