Tonight’s “Rock Center” led off with a two-part Ted Koppel report looking at partisan news media, its rise and why it may be here to stay, whether you like it or not.

The hugely popular and wildly profitable Fox News Channel — in the form of Bill O’Reilly — participated in the NBC report, but MSNBC did not. “The presidents of Fox and our sister network, MSNBC, wanted no part of this conversation,” said Koppel. “And also declined on behalf of their on-air talent.” O’Reilly was the exception. Koppel also talked with Ann Coulter and Bill Maher. Also:

• Koppel posed this hypothetical to O’Reilly: “Diane Sawyer is retiring, they want you to be the next anchor. Money is not going to be a problem. What do you do?” O’Reilly: “I don’t do it. Too boring. It would not be nearly as much fun as teeing the world off every night here and having all the reaction and being able to do all the things I could never do in a hard news broadcast.”
• Koppel, showing his own bias (journalistic, not political), describes Fox News this way: “A partisan news network with the mocking slogan ‘Fair and Balanced.’”
• New York Times media columnist David Carr thinks a partisan outlet as primary news source is, “an existential threat to our perfect union.”

Full segments after the jump…