• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, April 27, 2010

Matthews, speaking at MEDIA magazine’s Outfront 2010 conference, is making an analogy to the kind of niche political interest newspapers you might find on a typical European newsstand. The kind focusing on a “fascist� point of view, or a socialist orientation. And he says that’s what cable news programs like Glenn Beck’s or Sarah Palin’s or Keith Obermann’s now represent in America.

“That’s what [American] media is like today,� Matthews says, adding, “Little folded up newspapers.�

Matthews is alluding to the fact that even high-profile cable news shows like those still command only 1% of the audience, but have a great deal of influence on the niches that tend to follow them.