Gov. Beverly Perdue asked for — and received — the resignation of N.C. Alcoholic Beverage Commission Chairman Doug Fox today, hours after newspapers gave Perdue’s office a copy of a racist photo illustration sent from Fox’s e-mail address after the election in November.

By WALT BELCHER
MEDIA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE

The TV sets in the White House may not be tuned to Fox News Channel, but the favorite channel of the previous administration is riding high in the age of Obama.

So far this year, the network with the “fair and balanced” motto has widened its lead over its 24-hour cable news rivals, averaging more viewers in prime time than CNN and MSNBC combined.

Since Barack Obama took office, the network’s prime-time average is up 30 percent over last year, and the network’s 6 p.m. “Special Report with Bret Baier” is up 42 percent.

CNN has seen its audience drop from the highs seen last year during the hotly contested presidential race. And MSNBC, which enjoyed gains by emphasizing liberal commentators such a Rachel Maddow, isn’t growing as fast as FNC.

“The conventional wisdom among some liberal pundits was that Fox News would be in decline with this new administration, but we are thriving,” says Jay Wallace, vice president of News Editorial at Fox News Channel.

Hard Times Drive Ratings
Apparently those pundits didn’t take into account the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, which has fueled viewer interest in news.

Bill Shine, senior vice president for programming at Fox News, has said that because Obama is still enjoying a honeymoon with other media, viewers are turning to Fox, where his policies are met with skepticism.

“The economy is driving the ratings, and we are asking the tough questions,” Wallace says. “Our viewers appreciate that.”

Anchor Baier adds that while conservative viewers tune to the network’s opinionated talk shows, viewers of all political persuasions are coming to the newscasts, which he says are nonpartisan.

“We do try to be fair and balanced,” says Baier, who replaced semi-retired conservative anchor Brit Hume.

“We are straight down the middle on all of our news programs,” Baier says. “Viewers are concerned about their wallets in these uncertain times. And people on both sides of the political aisle are coming to us to get the whole story.”

Conservative Celebrities Drive Ratings, Too
Liberal MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann was one who predicted that Fox News Channel would do well with a Democrat in office.

During his Super Bowl visit to Tampa last month, Olbermann said Fox’s conservative pundits now have someone and something to rail against.

Much of Fox News’s overall ratings success comes from a trio of successful conservative talk shows hosted by Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly (who celebrates his 100th month as most-watched cable news host on Thursday).

On his blog, O’Reilly notes that “62 million Americans voted against Mr. Obama … folks who are uneasy with the direction of the country are not going to watch or read product from news organizations that are in the tank for Barack Obama.”

But Fox’s overall audience isn’t just conservative, though that may be the perception, because even Obama has joked that watching the network makes him feel bad about himself.

A recent study of viewers’ politics conducted by Pew Research Center found that Fox has the most balanced audience at 39 percent conservative, 33 percent liberal and 22 percent independent.

The CNN audience was 18 percent conservative, 51 percent liberal and 23 percent independent, while MSNBC’s viewers were 18 percent conservative, 45 percent liberal and 27 independent.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – With banks weighed down by bad debt, long-delayed infrastructure spending offers a way to both generate jobs and rebuild the country’s flagging optimism, current and former politicians said Monday.

“We can do big and bold things that can last a long time,” said former Gov. Jim Hunt, who created the annual Emerging Issues Forum nearly a quarter-century ago.

The two-day forum hosted by North Carolina State University brings together public policy leaders to discuss looming challenges. This year’s focus on infrastructure deficiencies came just as Congress and the Obama administration grapple with a federal stimulus package that includes spending to repair highways and bridges, expand railroad and mass transit routes, and update public water systems.

But while President Obama has urged quick spending on public projects to put people to work, less than 8 percent of the Senate’s $827 billion package is directed at infrastructure projects. About 11 percent of the House’s $820 billion version is for public construction needs.

That boosts the $1.1 trillion in annual U.S. infrastructure spending, but it’s a fraction of the estimated $2.2 trillion in needs over the next five years, according to a report last month by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

A quarter of the country’s bridges are deficient; in North Carolina a third of the spans aren’t up to the demands of their use, ASCE president Wayne Klotz said. Seven billion gallons of clean drinking water just leaks away because water systems in some cities are a century old, he said. The country’s average grade was D in 15 areas including aviation, dams and bridges evaluated by the society, Klotz said.

“Our infrastructure system’s parts are not serving their intended purposes,” Klotz said, and are not adequate for a growing economy.

The risks of failing to maintain public works were captured most dramatically when levees protecting New Orleans failed from insufficient maintenance and investment, flooding the city during Hurricane Katrina, Klotz said.

But the need for improved public works is being recognized at the same time the U.S. economy needs a jolt that business investment or consumer spending seem unable to provide, said U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.

“To do things differently, you need to begin thinking differently,” Dodd said, calling the infrastructure spending in the federal stimulus package “downpayments on the long-term needs of our nation.”

Infrastructure construction has fueled nearly every successful society in history, Dodd said, from the Roman water-delivery networks still in use today, to the highways the Incas built across South America’s Andes mountains, to the Erie Canal that opened trade from the Great Lakes frontier to East Coast ports in 1825.

Today, China is building super-modern airports and mag-lev trains to climb into the ranks of leading economies.

But America’s big challenge creates opportunities, like an idea for a high-speed, coast-to-coast freight railroad between Long Beach, Calif., and Wilmington that could compete with the Panama Canal as a faster way to move goods from Asia to Europe, Dodd said.

Rural electrification, massive dams and other public projects built during the Depression continue to deliver benefits today, Dodd said. But those efforts also restored confidence “that Americans can push back against any odds,” a benefit that would come from new infrastructure projects, Dodd said.

NEW YORK – Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity is losing his liberal half.

WASHINGTON – Asked why he has been falling in polls since the financial crisis, Republican John McCain sums it up this way: “Cause life isn’t fair.”

McCain chuckled as he made the remark Thursday on the Fox News morning show “Fox & Friends” – not that trailing Democratic rival Barack Obama in a series of new polls is a laughing matter for the GOP campaign.

An Associated Press-GfK poll released Wednesday showed Obama surging to a 7-percentage-point lead, 48 percent to 41 percent, over McCain one month before the presidential election. Three weeks ago, McCain had a slight edge over Obama in the AP-GfK survey.

Things got a little testy on Fox and Friends on Monday when Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs suggested that the host might be “making stuff up” about the fallen veteran’s bracelet that his boss displayed during the first presidential debate with John McCain. Conservative talk show hosts have been making a lot of this story, so what is the truth?