Do News Channels Register As Unbiased

"I challenge everyone to bear witness me an example of bias in Play a joke on News Channel."—Rupert Murdoch (Salon, 3/1/01)

Years ago, Republican party chair Rich Bail explained that conservatives' frequent denunciations of "liberal bias" in the media were function of "a strategy" (Washington Post, eight/20/92). Comparing journalists to referees in a sports match, Bond explained: "If y'all lookout man whatever great motorbus, what they try to do is 'piece of work the refs.' Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack adjacent fourth dimension."

Rupert Murdoch (photo: Monika Flueckiger/World Economic Forum)

But when Fob News Channel, Rupert Murdoch's 24-hour cable network, debuted in 1996, a curious thing happened: Instead of denouncing it, conservative politicians and activists lavished praise on the network. "If it hadn't been for Fox, I don't know what I'd have done for the news," Trent Lott gushed after the Florida election recount (Washington Post, two/5/01). George W. Bush extolled Play tricks News Channel anchor Tony Snowfall—a erstwhile speechwriter for Bush's father—and his "impressive transition to journalism" in a peculiarly taped April 2001 tribute to Snow'south Sunday-forenoon evidence on its five-yr ceremony (Washington Post, 5/7/01). The right-fly Heritage Foundation had to warn its staffers not to watch then much Fox News on their computers, because it was causing the remember tank's system to crash.

When it comes to Pull a fast one on News Channel, conservatives don't feel the demand to "work the ref." The ref is already on their side. Since its 1996 launch, Fox has go a central hub of the conservative move's well-oiled media machine. Together with the GOP organization and its satellite think tanks and advancement groups, this network of fiercely partisan outlets—such as the Washington Times, the Wall Street Periodical editorial page and bourgeois talk-radio shows like Rush Limbaugh'due south—forms a highly effective right-wing echo chamber where GOP-friendly news stories tin can be promoted, repeated and amplified. Play a joke on knows how to play this game better than anyone.

Yet, at the same time, the network bristles at the slightest suggestion of a conservative tilt. In fact, wrapping itself in slogans similar "Fair and balanced" and "We report, yous decide," Flim-flam argues precisely the opposite: Far from being a biased network, Fox argues, it is the only unbiased network. And so far, Trick'southward strategy of aggressive deprival has worked surprisingly well; faced with its unblinking refusal to admit any bourgeois tilt at all, some commentators have but acquiesced to the network's own self-cess. FAIR has decided to take a closer expect.

"Coming next, drug fond pregnant women no longer have annihilation to fear from the authorities thanks to the Supreme Court. Both sides on this in a moment."—Neb O'Reilly (O'Reilly Factor, 3/23/01)

Roger Ailes at Fox Anniversary Event/Photograph: AP/Jim Cooper

Trick'due south founder and president, Roger Ailes, was for decades ane of the savviest and most pugnacious Republican political operatives in Washington, a veteran of the Nixon and Reagan campaigns. Ailes is well-nigh famous for his role in crafting the elderberry Bush's media strategy in the bruising 1988 presidential race. With Ailes' aid, Bush-league turned a double-digit deficit in the polls into a resounding win by targeting the GOP'south base of white male voters in the Southward and Due west, using cerise-meat themes similar Michael Dukakis' "menu-carrying" membership in the ACLU, his laissez-faire mental attitude toward flag-burning, his alleged indifference to the pledge of fidelity—and, of course, paroled felon Willie Horton.

Described by beau Bush-league adjutant Lee Atwater as having "two speeds—attack and destroy," Ailes once jocularly told a Time reporter (8/22/88): "The only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it." Later, as a producer for Rush Limbaugh's short-lived Telly show, he was fond of calling Bill Clinton the "hippie president" and lashing out at "liberal bigots" (Washington Times, 5/xi/93). It is these two sensibilities to a higher place all—correct-wing talk radio and below-the-belt political candidature—that Ailes brought with him to Pull a fast one on, and his stamp is evident in all aspects of the network's programming.

Fox daytime anchor David Asman is formerly of the correct-wing Wall Street Journal editorial page and the bourgeois Manhattan Establish. The host of Fox News Sunday is Tony Snow, a bourgeois columnist and one-time main speechwriter for the first Bush-league assistants. Eric Breindel, previously the editorial-folio editor of the right-wing New York Mail service, was senior vice president of Fox's parent company, News Corporation, until his expiry in 1998; Fox News Channel's senior vice president is John Moody, a long-fourth dimension journalist known for his staunch conservative views.

Fox's managing editor is Brit Hume, a veteran TV journalist and contributor to the conservative American Spectator and Weekly Standard magazines. Its top-rated talkshow is hosted by Pecker O'Reilly, a columnist for the conservative WorldNetDaily.com and a registered Republican (that is, until a calendar week before the Washington Mail service published an commodity revealing his political party registration—12/13/00).

The affluence of conservatives and Republicans at Fox News Aqueduct does not seem to be a coincidence. In 1996, Andrew Kirtzman, a respected New York Urban center cable news reporter, was interviewed for a chore with Fox and says that management wanted to know what his political affiliation was. "They were afraid I was a Democrat," he told the Village Voice (10/xv/96). When Kirtzman refused to tell Fox his party ID, "all employment word ended," co-ordinate to the Vocalization.

Catherine Crier, who was perceived as 1 of Pull a fast one on's about prestigious and apparent early hires, was an elected Republican judge before starting a career in journalism. (Crier has since moved on to Court TV.) Pundit Mara Liasson—who is touted as an on-air "liberal" by Fox executives—sits on the board of the conservative human-rights group Freedom House; New York magazine (11/17/97) cited a Pull a fast one on insider as proverb that Liasson assured president Roger Ailes before being hired that she was a Republican.

"Who would exist the most likely to cheat at cards— Bill Clinton or Al Gore?"—Fox News Channel/Opinion Dynamics poll (5/00)

Brit Hume/Photo: School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington Academy

The most obvious sign of Play a trick on's camber is its heavily correct-leaning punditry. Each episode of Special Report with Brit Hume, for example, features a 3-person panel of pundits who chat well-nigh the day'southward political news at the end of the show. The most frequent panelist is Fred Barnes, the evangelical Christian supply-sider who edits the Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard. He sits proudly on the rightward flank of the Republican party (and often scolds it for slouching leftwards).

The adjacent most frequent invitee is Mort Kondrake, who sits in the center of the panel. Politically, Kondrake falls at the very rightward edge of the Autonomous party— if not beyond information technology. As he famously explained in a 1988 New Republic essay (8/29/88), he is a Democrat who is "disgusted with the Democratic Party" and whose main reason for not defecting to the Republicans is that they "have failed to exist true to themselves as conservatives." (He was referring to Reagan'southward deficit spending.)

Rounding out the panel is its third-most-frequent pundit, Mara Liasson, who sits on the opposite side of the table from the conservative Barnes, implicitly identifying her equally a liberal. Only her liberalism consists of footling more than being a adult female who works for National Public Radio; she has proposed that "one of the roots of the problem with education today is feminism" (Talk of the Nation, v/3/01); she declares that "Jesse Jackson gets abroad with a lot of things that other people don't" (Special Report, 6/21/00); she calls George W. Bush's reversal on carbon dioxide emissions "a minor thing" (3/xiv/01), campaign finance reform "an issue that . . . only 200 people in America care near" (3/19/01) and slavery reparations "pretty much of a non-consequence" (3/19/01).

Less frequent Special Report panelists include conservative Washington Times reporter Bill Sammon, centrist Fortune writer Jeff Birnbaum and NPR host Juan Williams. Williams, the but guest who could plausibly claim to be a liberal, was then outraged over attacks on his friend Clarence Thomas that he declared that "liberals have become monsters" (Washington Mail service, 10/ten/91), denouncing the "so-chosen champions of fairness: liberal politicians, unions, civil rights groups and women's organizations." Indeed, Fob'southward crew of "liberal" pundits seems almost calculated to be either ineffective left-of-center advocates or conciliatory moderates. Ironically, peradventure the just Fox commentator who consistently presents a strong progressive perspective—that is, critical of corporate power and militarism, and sympathetic to progressive social movements—is Fair founder Jeff Cohen, a weekly panelist on the weekend media show Play a joke on News Picket.

Meanwhile, Barnes and Kondracke —the conservative Republican and conservative Democrat—brand up the entire political spectrum on Flim-flam's weekend political prove, The Beltway Boys, where they are generally in agreement as they talk over the week'south news.

Sean Hannity at Iowa Country Fair 2011/Photograph: Jerry Ranch

Even Fox'due south "left-right" debate evidence, Hannity & Colmes—whose Crossfire-manner format virtually imposes numerical equality between conservatives and "liberals"—can't shake the impression of resembling a Harlem Globetrotters game in which everyone knows which side is supposed to win.

On the right, co-host Sean Hannity is an effective and telegenic ideologue, a protégé of Newt Gingrich and a ascent star of conservative talk radio who is maybe more plugged into the GOP leadership than any media effigy besides Rush Limbaugh (Hannity reportedly received "thunderous applause" when he spoke at a recent airtight-door Business firm Republican Conference meeting that is ordinarily closed to the media—U.Southward. News & World Report, 5/7/01.)

On the left is Alan Colmes, a rather less telegenic former stand up-upwardly comic and radio host whose views are slightly left-of-eye merely who, as a personality, is completely off the radar screen of liberal politics. "I'm quite moderate," he told a reporter when asked to describe his politics (The states Today, two/1/95). Hannity, a cocky-described "arch-conservative" (Electronic Media, 8/26/96), joined Fox when the network was started, and personally nominated Colmes to exist his on-screen debating opponent (New York Times, 3/1/98). Before the pick was fabricated, the show'south working title was Hannity & Liberal to Exist Determined—giving some thought of the relative weight each host carries, both on-screen and inside the network. Fox sometimes sends a photographic camera downwardly to Hannity's radio studio during the network's daytime news programming, from which he holds forth on the news of the day. Needless to say, Colmes does not receive similar handling.

"I recall what's going on is the Democratic lawyers take flooded Florida. They are afraid of George W. Bush-league becoming president and instituting tort reform and their gravy train will be over. This is the trial association's total court press to brand certain Bush-league does non win." —Fox News Aqueduct ballast John Gibson (12/ix/00)

Trick has had trouble at times hiding the partisanship of its main news personalities. In 1996, while already a Play a trick on anchor, Tony Snow endorsed Bob Dole for president in the Republican National Committee magazine Rising Tide (New York, 11/17/97). A former speech-writer for the elder Bush, Snow often guest-hosts the Rush Limbaugh evidence and wrote an unabashedly bourgeois weekly newspaper column until Fox management recently pressured him to driblet it to avoid the appearance of bias (Washington Post, 5/29/01).

Tony Snow/Photo: National Center for Policy Analysis

At the 2000 Republican convention in Philadelphia, Snowfall—ostensibly present equally a journalist covering a news event—jumped onstage to give a oral communication to the Republican Youth Caucus afterward organizers asked him to make full in for a speaker who couldn't make it. (He was afterwards reprimanded by his bosses.) Trent Lott, whose speech directly followed Snow's, began with a cheer of "How almost Tony Snowfall in 2008?" (New York Daily News 8/ii/00; Federal News Service, 8/1/00).

Just three days earlier, near the GOP convention, Bill O'Reilly gave the keynote speech at David Horowitz's bourgeois "Restoration Weekend" event, where he was introduced by Republican congressmember Jack Quinn. Flim-flam's Sean Hannity likewise spoke at the gathering, described by the Washington Times (6/xxx/00) as the "premiere political outcome for conservative thinkers." O'Reilly has had Horowitz on his show six times—to talk most everything from National Public Radio's "left" bias (12/20/00) to Hillary Clinton's "sense of entitlement" (6/22/00) to Horowitz'due south book on race relations, >Hating Whitey (10/4/99).

"In that location'south a sure sameness to the news on the Big Iii [networks] and CNN. . . . America is bad, corporations are bad, animal species should be protected, and every cop is a racist killer. That'southward where 'fair and balanced' [Fox's slogan] comes in. We don't call back all corporations are bad, every forest should be saved, every authorities spending program is good. We're going to be more inquisitive."—John Moody, Fox News Channel's senior vice-president for news and editorial (Brill's Content, 10/99)

Some mainstream journalists accept suggested that Fox's "directly news" is more or less balanced, however slanted its commentary might be. "A close monitoring of the channel over several weeks indicates that the news segments tend to exist straightforward, with little hint of political subtext except for stories the news editors feel the 'mainstream' printing has either downplayed or ignored," wrote Columbia Journalism Review's Neil Hickey (3-4/98). The fact that Trick'southward "chat consistently tilts to the conservative side," wrote the Washington Postal service's Howard Kurtz (2/five/01), "may cast an unwarranted cloud on the news reporting, which tends to be straightforward."

When a New York Times contour of Fox News ran with a headline calling information technology a "conservative cable channel" (nine/xviii/00), the paper quickly corrected their "mistake" the post-obit solar day, explaining that in "attributing a general political viewpoint to the network, the headline exceeded the facts in the commodity."

Putting aside the question of what genuine "residue" means, there are undoubtedly a few reporters in Fob'southward Washington agency—such equally White Business firm correspondent Jim Bending—whose stories are more than or less indistinguishable from those of their counterparts at the mainstream networks.

But an attentive viewer will observe that in that location are entire blocks of the network'due south programming schedule that are set up bated for conservative stories. Play a trick on'southward website offers a regular feature on "political correctness" entitled "Tongue-Tied: A Report From the Front Lines of the Culture Wars," whose logo is a scowling "PC Patrol" officeholder peering testily through a magnifying glass. Information technology invites readers to write in and "keep us upwardly on examples of PC excess you come across."

Recently the network debuted a weekly half-hour series—Merely on Pull a fast one on—devoted explicitly to correct-fly stories. The concept of the show was explained by host Trace Gallagher in the premier episode (5/26/01):

V years ago, Play a trick on News Channel was launched on the idea that something was wrong with news media—that somehow, somewhere bias plant its way into reporting. . . . And information technology'southward not just the way yous tell a story that can get in the way of the truth. Information technology's the stories you choose to tell. . . . Fox News Aqueduct is committed to existence fair and counterbalanced in the coverage of the stories everybody is reporting—and to reporting stories you won't hear anywhere else. Stories yous will run across simply on Play a joke on.

Gallagher then introduced a series of stories about one bourgeois crusade subsequently some other: from white firefighters suing Boston's fire section for discrimination, to sawmill workers endangered by Clinton-Gore environmental regulations (without annotate from a single supporter of the rules), to property owners who feel threatened past an ecology agreement "signed by President Clinton in 1992." (The agreement was actually signed by George Bush the elder, who was president in 1992—though that didn't stop Trick from using news footage of a smiling Neb Clinton proudly signing an official certificate that was supposed to be, only wasn't, the environmental pact in question.)

Fox'due south news specials are equally slanted: Dangerous Places (3/25/01), a special most foreign policy hosted by Newt Gingrich; Heroes, an irregular series hosted past quondam Republican congressmember John Kasich; and The Real Reagan (11/25/99), a panel discussion on Ronald Reagan, hosted by Tony Snowfall, in which all six guests were Reagan friends and political aides. Vanishing Freedoms 2: Who Owns America (5/19/01) wandered off into militia-style paranoia, suggesting that the U.Due north. was "taking over" private property.

There is a formula to Trick's news agenda. "A lot of the people nosotros take hired," Fox executive John Moody explained (Inside Media, 12/11/96) when the network was launched, "have come without the preconceptions of must-do news. In that location are stories we will sometimes forego in social club to practise stories we think are more pregnant. The biggest forcefulness that nosotros have is that Roger Ailes has allowed me to do that; to forego stores that would be 'duty' stories in society to focus on other things."

These "other" stories that Moody has in heed are what make up much of Fox's programming: An embarrassing story near Jesse Jackson's sexual activity life. The latest political-correctness outrage on campus. A ane-day mini-scandal about a Democratic senator. Much like talk radio, Trick picks upward these tidbits from right-wing outlets like the Washington Times or the Drudge Written report and runs with them.

To see how the formula works, consider the recent saga of right-fly activist David Horowitz and his "censored" anti-slavery reparations ad. When some college newspapers refused to carry the advertizing, and some campuses saw protests against it, the case instantly became a cause celebre on the correct. Information technology was the perfect story for Pull a fast one on: The liberal academic establishment trampling on the free speech of a conservative who merely asked that his views exist heard. Within less than a month, Horowitz was on nearly every major Fox testify to discuss the issue. (See sidebar.)

Former CBS producer Don Dahler resigned from Play tricks after executive John Moody ordered him to change a story to play down statistics showing a lack of social progress among blacks. (Moody says the modify was journalistically justified—New York, 11/17/97.) Co-ordinate to the Columbia Journalism Review (3-four/98), "several" former Fox employees "complained of 'management sticking their fingers' in the writing and editing of stories to cook the facts to make a story more than palatable to right-of-middle tastes." Said ane: "I've worked at a lot of news organizations and never found that kind of manipulation."

Jed Duvall, a sometime veteran ABC reporter who left Fox later on a year, told New York (eleven/17/97): "I'll never forget the morning that i producer came upwardly to me, and, rubbing her hands like Uriah Heep, said, 'Let'due south have something on Whitewater today.' That sort of matter doesn't happen at a professional news arrangement." Indeed, Fox's signature political news show, Special Report with Brit Hume, was originally created as a daily one-hour update devoted to the 1998 Clinton sex scandal.

"In the D.C. bureau [at ABC], we e'er had to worry what the lead story would exist in the New York Times, and God forbid if we didn't take that story. Now we don't care if we accept that story." Stories favored past the journalistic establishment, Kim Hume says, are "all mushy, similar AIDS, or all lightheaded, like Caput Beginning. They desire to give publicity to people they remember are doing good." —New York mag(11/17/97) quoting Kim Hume, Fox News Aqueduct Washington bureau chief

1 of the virtually partisan features on Flim-flam is a daily segment on Special Report chosen "The Political Grapevine." Billed every bit "the about scintillating two minutes in television," the Grapevine is a kind of correct-wing hot-sheet. It features Brit Hume at the anchor'due south desk reading off a series of gossipy items culled from other, ofttimes right-fly, news outlets.

The key to the Grapevine is its story selection, and at that place is nothing subtle about it. Almost every item carries an unmistakable partisan message: Democrats, environmentalists and Hollywood liberals are the perennial villains (or the butts of the joke), while Republicans are shown either as targets of unfair attacks or heroes who can do no incorrect. Political correctness run amok, the "liberal bias" of the mainstream media and the chicanery of civil rights groups all figure prominently.

When Rep. Patrick Kennedy tussled with airport security (3/21/01), Democrat Pete Stark used intemperate language (4/18/01) and California Gov. Gray Davis uttered a string of curse words (4/18/01), it fabricated it onto the Grapevine. When the Sacramento Bee ran a series on the shortcomings of the large environmental groups, its findings earned a mention on the Grapevine (4/21/01). When it emerged that Al Gore booster Ben Affleck didn't carp to vote in last year'southward election, you heard about it on the Grapevine (iv/25/01).

Republicans are treated differently. "Since [New York's] Rudolph Giuliani became the mayor," one item cheered (4/24/01), "the streets are cleaner and safer, and tourism reigns supreme in Times Square." When George W. Bush ordered men to habiliment a coat and tie to enter the Oval Role, Grapevine (v/14/01) noted that "his father had a similar reverence for the office," while "President Clinton used to come up into the Oval Function in running shorts . . . and sometimes he did non remain fully clothed while he was there."

The success of the Grapevine has plain inspired a spin-off on Fox'due south Sunday morning evidence. Play tricks News Sunday anchor Tony Snow recently inaugurated "Beneath the Fold," a weekly roundup of "unheralded political stories" that is basically identical to Grapevine, including the conservative spin. When one Below the Fold item (4/15/01) mentioned that Barbra Streisand was reportedly thinking of starting upward "a cablevision TV network devoted exclusively to Democratic viewpoints," Snow couldn't resist adding that the vocalizer came upwardly with the idea "evidently believing such a thing doesn't be already."

Fox News Channel is "not a conservative network!" roars Pull a fast one on News Channel chairman Ailes. "I absolutely, totally deny information technology. . . . The fact is that Rupert [Murdoch] and I and, by the way, the vast majority of the American people, believe that most of the news tilts to the left," he says. Play a trick on'south mission is "to provide a little more balance to the news" and "to go cover some stories that the mainstream media won't embrace."—Brill's Content (10/99) quoting Roger Ailes

To hear the network'south bigwigs tell it, it's non Fox that's beingness biased when information technology puts conservative fare on heavy rotation. It'south the "liberal media" that are biased when they fail to do so. Flim-flam's entire editorial philosophy revolves around the idea that the mainstream media have a liberal bias that Fox is obligated to rectify.

In interviews, Ailes and other Fox executives oft expound this philosophy, sometimes with baroque results. Ailes in one case told the New York Times (10/7/96) that he and Fox executive John Moody had both noticed a pattern in the weekly newsmagazines: They oft encompass faith, "but it's always a story that beats upwardly on Jesus." "They call him a cult figure of his fourth dimension, some kind of crazy fool," Ailes continued. "And it's as if they go out and try to notice evidence to trash him." Moody added that two recent Time and Newsweek articles on Jesus "really bordered on the sacrilegious."

Only the core of Fox's critique is the notion that the mainstream media but don't tell the conservative side of the story. This is the premise Fox executives kickoff from when they defend their own network: If Fox appears conservative, they argue, it's merely because the land has grown so accustomed to the left-leaning media that a truly balanced network seems to lean right. "The reason you may believe it tips to the right is you're stunned at seeing so many conservatives," Ailes in one case told a reporter (Washington Post, two/5/01).

Simply Ailes and his colleagues have trouble backing upwardly these claims with actual facts. He'southward fond of calling Bob Novak the only conservative on CNN—"that's the but guy they hired that was to the correct!" (Charlie Rose, 5/22/01) —but he ignores Tucker Carlson, Kate O'Beirne and Mary Matalin (who recently left for the White House), not to mention past bourgeois stars such as Lynne Cheney, Mona Charen, John Sununu and, of course, Pat Buchanan, perhaps the well-nigh right-wing figure in national politics and an eighteen-year veteran of Crossfire (minus the occasional hiatus to run for president).

Pecker O'Reilly on Election Night 2010/Photo: FoxNewsInsider

According to Pecker O'Reilly, Play a joke on "gives voice to people who can't get on other networks. When was the last time you saw pro-life people [on other networks] unless they shot somebody?" (Philadelphia Inquirer, 4/x/01). O'Reilly's question is hands answered; in the concluding iii years, the National Right to Life Committee'south spokespeople accept appeared on CNN 21 times (compared with 16 appearances for their chief analogue, the National Abortion Rights Action League).

In a 1999 Washington Post profile (3/26/99), Ailes offered another example. He said he was especially proud of a iii-office series on education that Fox had recently aired, which reported that "many educators believe self-esteem teaching is harmful" to students. "The mainstream media will never cover that story," Ailes told the Postal service. "I've seen ten,000 stories on instruction and I've never seen i that didn't say the federal regime needed to spend more money on instruction."

But merely weeks prior to Ailes' interview, CNN's weekly Newsstand series (two/28/99) aired a glowing profile of an upstate New York business organisation executive who had turned around a troubled inner-city elementary school "past bringing the lessons of the boardroom into the classroom." CNN'southward report came consummate with soundbites from a conservative education advocate ("the unions are a major impediment to educational activity reform") and lines from host Jeff Greenfield like, "Critics have said that for decades, the public education system has behaved like an entrenched monopoly with lilliputian or no incentive to improve its functioning." The piece would have warmed the heart of any conservative educational activity reformer.

The difference between the two networks is that while such conservative-friendly fare airs on CNN some of the fourth dimension, Fox has oriented its whole network effectually it. Contrary to what Ailes and other right-fly media critics say, the agenda of CNN and its fellow mainstream outlets is non liberal or bourgeois, but staunchly centrist. The perspectives they value nearly are those of the bipartisan institution middle, the aforementioned views that make up the mainstream corporate consensus that media publishers and executives are themselves a part of. It'southward politicians who stake out centrist, pro-business positions within their parties who win the adulation of the Washington printing corps, like John McCain and Joe Lieberman during the 2000 campaign. Both parties are constantly urged by the media to "motion to the center."

Defenders of Pull a fast one on might argue that its make of conservative-tilted programming fills a void, since it represents a form of ideologically hard-edged news seldom seen in the centrist media. But the same point could be made on the other side of the spectrum: Only as bourgeois stories don't always make it onto CNN, neither practice stories that matter to the left. A left-wing version of Fox might run frequent updates on the Mumia Abu-Jamal example, the dangers of depleted uranium weapons or the benefits of single-payer wellness care. That would contrast sharply with CNN—just it wouldn't justify calling CNN "correct-wing" or "conservative." Play a joke on's "leftist" accusations are every bit unfounded.

At about the same time that Fob was taking a deep interest in the David Horowitz advertizing controversy, the Boston Globe refused to run an advertizement criticizing the office supply company Staples for its use of non-recycled paper. Though the Globe is arguably a more important venue for debate than any number of higher papers, the case was not reported by either Fox or CNN. Indeed, until a FAIR letter-writing entrada forced the Globe ombudsman to address the issue (6/eleven/01), merely ane publication in the Nexis news database reported information technology at all (Sacramento Bee, 4/12/01).

"The media are not tending toward Republican presidents—any Republican president—and really never have been." —Brit Hume, Play tricks News Channel managing editor (Washington Post, 9/25/00)

Fox is sometimes forced to juggle ii identities—Republican and conservative—that are non always the same. A contempo instance was the standoff over the downed American spy plane in China. Following appearances on Special Study by conservatives William Kristol (4/9/01) and Fred Barnes (iv/eleven/01), who were critical of Bush for his unexpectedly conciliatory handling of the crisis, Fox (4/thirteen/01) was quick to run a slew of letters from outraged Republican viewers accusing the pundits of trying to "undermine a president of their own party." They "never cut him a bit of slack," one viewer wrote. "Who needs Dan Rather when you have Mr. Kristol to bring down our president?"

Trick's sensitivity to Republican complaints came into the open during the 2000 presidential entrada when Tony Snow was the target of a barrage of criticism from posters to the far-right website FreeRepublic.com, who accused him of being too negative nigh the Bush campaign in his columns and on Play tricks News Channel.

Snowfall responded to the Freepers, as the site's conservative contributors call themselves, with a long and detailed apologia, highlighting every pro-Bush aspect of his work in excruciating detail. Discussing his syndicated conservative column, he wrote:

I have found over the years that the best way to be friendly to whatsoever politician is to be honest. Having said that, I've inappreciably been hostile to Bush in contempo columns. Yes, I have criticized him this twelvemonth, but no serious reader could possibly believe Gore has gotten the best of the exchange.

Just check out the 2 most recent columns. A piece on "specifics" notes that Gore offers virtually no specifics to voters and the few he mentions are nuts. There'due south plenty of grist there for Bush fans and the Bush campaign. The well-nigh recent defends Bush in the Adam Clymer thing.

In response to a writer who was irate at a video clip showing a Bush gaffe, Snow replied: "Yes, nosotros carried a Bush gaffe at the cease. It was funny, not damaging to the candidate."

And perhaps most tellingly, he described the strategy he had recently used on Play tricks News Sunday (9/x/00) to interview a pair of guests about the presidential campaign— the showtime an adjutant to Bill Clinton, the second the Republican governor of Pennsylvania:

ane) Nosotros opened with a tough interview of John Podesta, taking Clinton to task for a series of things (including hate crimes legislation) and request some tough questions about Gore'south energy and wellness-care policies.

ii) Tom Ridge came adjacent. We tried to get him to fire away at Clinton/Gore abuse. He wouldn't exercise it. We tried to get him to urge a more openly bourgeois campaign by Bush. He wouldn't do it. If you have complaints about such matters, I advise you write the Bush-league campaign, not Flim-flam News Channel.

In other words, Snow admits he was trying to put the Democratic guest on the defensive well-nigh Clinton—while goading the Republican into playing offense against Clinton. (The episode is a perfect example of Fox'southward notion of balance: attacking Democrats and liberals on substance while challenging Repub-licans and conservatives only on tactics.) In closing the memo, Snow wrote, "Departing thoughts: I fabricated fun of the United Nations." He concluded: "I have a hard fourth dimension finding anything in that lineup that Freepers would consider treasonous."

"Off-white and counterbalanced, as ever."—Fox News slogan

Some take suggested that Play tricks'south conservative betoken of view and its Republican leanings render the network inherently unworthy equally a news outlet. Fair believes that view is misguided. The Usa is unusual, perhaps even unique, in having a journalistic civilisation then fiercely wedded to the elusive notion of "objective" news (an thought of relatively contempo historical vintage even in the U.S.). In Uk, papers similar the conservative Times of London and the left-leaning Guardian evangelize consistently fantabulous coverage while making no secret of their respective points of view. In that location'south zero keeping American journalists from doing the same.

If anything, it is partly the disingenuous claim to objectivity that is corroding the integrity of the news business. American journalists claim to correspond all political views with an open heed, yet in practice a narrow bipartisan centrism excludes dissenting points of view: No major newspaper editorial folio opposed NAFTA; almost all endorse U.South. airstrikes on Iraq; and single-payer health care proposals find almost no backers among them.

With the ascendance of Pull a fast one on News Channel, we now have a national conservative TV network in addition to the established centrist outlets. But like the mainstream networks, Fox refuses to acknowledge its political signal of view. The result is a skewed center-to-right media spectrum made worse by the refusal to acknowledge whatever tilt at all.

Play tricks could potentially represent a valuable contribution to the journalistic mix if it admitted it had a bourgeois indicate of view, if information technology beefed upwardly its hard news and investigative coverage (and cut back on the tabloid sensationalism), and if there were an openly left-leaning Goggle box news channel capable of balancing both Fox'due south conservatism and CNN's centrism.

None of these 3 things appears likely to happen in the foreseeable hereafter.

SIDEBAR: Toeing the Line on Special Written report

For some, the free market is a religion. That seems true for Play tricks News reporter Brit Hume, who has fabricated no secret of what he thinks about the thought of caps on wholesale electricity prices in California. Hume commented on Fox (5/29/01) that "no one with an economics degree that I know" would support toll caps for California.

In fact, 10 prominent mainstream economists wrote a letter to George W. Bush endorsing the idea. "We are mindful of the potential dangers of applying a unproblematic cost cap," they wrote (New York Times, 5/30/01). "Simply California's electricity markets are non characterized by effective competition." The letter added that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's "failure to act now will take dire consequences for the country of California." Paul Krugman, one of the land's most prominent economists, had past that indicate written six columns in the New York Times calling for free energy price caps.

But on Play a trick on, laissez-faire orthodoxy was enforced. When Jeff Birnbaum, Washington bureau master of Fortune magazine and a frequent guest on Special Report with Brit Hume, suggested (5/29/01) that price caps "might help the blackouts through this summer," this view was rejected past both of the other panelists, Morton Kondracke and Pecker Kristol. Hume, acting equally moderator, derided Birnbaum for his deviation: "Did you ever accept whatsoever economics in college? . . . There are books . . . that could assist you."

A day later on (5/thirty/01), Birnbaum came on the testify to deliver what can just be described equally a recantation: "I consulted my Economics 101, and I made a fault last nighttime when I spoke," he said. "Toll caps are definitely the wrong economical answer. It could pb to a spreading free energy gap and problem beyond California's borders and a long-term energy trouble that would clearly be a serious political and substantive problem for the Bush-league administration."

"No apology required," was Hume's response. But one got the definite impression that toeing the ideological line is required on Special Report.

—Peter Hart

SIDEBAR:An Obsession That Only Goes Then Far

David Horowitz giving a lecture titled: "Intellectual Terrorism: The Left'south War on Gratuitous Voice communication" at UCLA/Photograph: Marc Langsam

One of Fox News Channel'southward favorite recent stories involved a newspaper ad that claimed African-Americans benefited from slavery, and owed America for the favor. The advertising's writer, bourgeois activist David Horowitz, claimed to exist a victim of censorship and "political correctness" because a number of college newspapers refused to publish his advertising, which argued confronting the idea of slavery reparations. Fox saw this as a major issue: Horowitz and his advert were mentioned at least 21 times on the network betwixt March vi and Apr 3.

On Fox News Sunday (three/25/01), the network's Sunday-morning equivalent of Meet the Press, interviews with Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham and Sen. Joseph Lieberman were incongruously followed by a segment featuring a largely unknown reparations activist and David Horowitz, in a Crossfire-fashion argue nearly Horowitz's rejected advertizing.

On Special Report with Brit Hume, the Horowitz advertizing became the discipline of at to the lowest degree nine "Grapevine" items in less than a month. The ad was also the subject of Hume's lead question to bourgeois columnist John Leo when he appeared for a one-on-i interview (3/23/01). Later, Hume put the Horowitz effect to the prove'south all-star console of pundits; all three pundits agreed that campus liberals were squelching fence. Mara Liasson argued that reparations are "pretty much of a non-issue" and Horowitz'southward ad was not "near as bad as the kind of hate speech you hear about in other cases," while Mort Kondracke explained that "there's nothing racist in this."

On Hannity & Colmes (3/26/01), the issue was: "Has David Horowitz's liberty of speech become a victim of political correctness?" On The O'Reilly Gene (iii/half-dozen/01), it was Horowitz and host Bill O'Reilly interrogating a reparations activist from Mobile, Alabama. ("That's my revenue enhancement money!" O'Reilly exclaimed.) The Edge with Paula Zahn brought Horowitz on 3 times within a month to discuss the same subject.

But at that place was one twist to the Horowitz story that Fox couldn't be bothered to report. When Horowitz'south ad was offered to the Daily Princetonian in April, the newspaper ran it—forth with an editorial (iv/four/01) describing its ideas as racist and promising to donate the ad'due south proceeds to the local chapter of the Urban League. Horowitz, the gratis-speech crusader, refused to pay his neb unless the paper's editors publicly apologized for their hurtful words: "Its slanders contribute to the temper of intolerance and hate towards conservatives," a argument from his office read.

Suddenly Play a trick on lost involvement in the Horowitz example. After a calendar month of running twice-weekly updates most college papers that were refusing the ad, Special Written report with Brit Hume ignored the Princeton episode. None of the network's major shows transcribed in the Nexis database reported Horowitz's tiff with the paper. No editor from the Princetonian was invited on The O'Reilly Factor to argue whether or not Horowitz was beingness a hypocrite. When their favorite gratuitous-spoken language martyr suddenly looked similar a censor, information technology was a story Fox merely didn't want to pursue.

—Seth Ackerman

See also the other ii articles in Fair's special report on Fox:

Fox's Slanted Sources: Conservatives, Republicans far outnumber others— a comparison of Special Report with Brit Hume with CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports.

Bill O'Reilly's Sheer O'Reillyness: Don't call him conservative— simply he is.

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Do News Channels Register As Unbiased,

Source: https://fair.org/extra/the-most-biased-name-in-news/

Posted by: escalanteenced1944.blogspot.com

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