Well, to start, I understand the assumptions that Fox News is considered right wing, and MSNBC is considered left. Many would consider them to be mixing political bias on the news they report.
Here's what I think:
Fox News is blatantly right wing. I would go as far as to say that they act as an arm to push the conservative agenda. I believe they they are a political machine first. They monetize conservative ideals. I'd even venture to say that they have coddled this idea of "conserve-victim" attitude; that liberals are out to destroy conservatives, and that they are victims of wrong doing in liberal America. Fox has no problem with "being conservative, for conservatives."
Where I think MSNBC differs is that it claims no political stance, it is given one by what it reports and how it reports it. I would argue, however, that MSNBC has no intention of being a political player or even enforcing an agenda. I believe that they are focused on making stories people want to hear. As I said before, they operate on sensationalism and conflict.
Sure, both will bring in a guest, and bash the poo out of them with their ideals. Where they differ, I believe, is that MSNBC does this for the ratings. Fox News does this to forward a way of thinking.
I really had to think hard on this one, so if you see anything that sounds off, let me know.
I mean, I'd almost argue that Fox does it more for the ratings than MSNBC - MSNBC is so far liberal that it can't really appeal to even most liberals out there. Furthermore, there's other liberal-biased news outlets (CNN, HLN) that people watch too.
However, Fox is the only conservative news out there really.. so if anything it gets massive ratings because it's not split up between people watching CNN, MSNBC, HLN, etc.
I don't really think any of them do it for the ratings though. The sad part is some of the CNN/MSNBC anchors who will spend a whole interview defending liberals while interviewing a conservative - or worse, ask loaded questions to a liberal guest so that there's no way they could answer wrong (or most times, they can easily lie about the answer). Fox actually, idk, interviews people. Brings up things they've said in the past and asks them about it. Does actual *journalism* instead of just reporting. Sure, some of the things Fox does are a little rude, such as bringing up people's tweets and inviting you on just to bring up your past, but that's what journalism is.
I'm really kinda sick of this world in which we are "reporting" the news that others fed us, instead of doing our own investigative journalism and finding out the cold hard facts no matter what they may be. I think this really shows in that CNN will spend an entire day reporting the same news in the same manner, just with different voices but similar scripts.
Furthermore, CNN has been known to report things "unknown sources" (or even known sources) have said and/or rumors as undeniable fact. They leave out information - they glorified the 1 million sign up mark for Obamacare... but they failed to mention that 5+ million had already lost their plans.
However I will commend CNN's election coverage (of all elections, on the night thereof). Even though I think there's an obvious, but small, bias in their pre-election coverage, they don't mess around on election days/nights, and they're really the ones with the most information on those nights. Guess every outlet has their thing :P