Fox News: Fair and Balanced

I'd like people to really do a factual break down on Fox News' coverage. People REALLY bash and reject fox news without thinking. You�d think that in the ATS society, many would crave a large organization trying to fight though the bias in news given to the country, but no they�d rather have their cozy opinions cuddled and supported. I myself think that the REPORTING is ok at most times.

It is easy to see that Fox announcers may crack a smile on conservative wins, but it's not like most other networks do the same for liberal issues being in the light.

There are other instances where you see news organizations totally burying or alerting certain stories, everybody is guilty of it at some time. For example when Hillary Clinton cracked the joke about Gandhi being the guy who worked at a gas station, or when the Arkansas trooper said that when guarding the governor�s mansion for the Clintons he heard numerous anti-Semitic insults betwixt each other, do we see headlines everywhere? Funny how Hillary can get away with that clean, while Trent Lott says it would have been cool for Strom to be president back in the day and he gets crucified.

Given that there is sporadic unpleasantness in both ideological directions, it's so easy to condemn the whole coverage as hyper opinionated when it's not your view. I wretch at the liberal coverage on MSNBC and CNN, but I do not think their REPORTING is that slanted and I still tolerate it for enlightenment. I find it odd that when people were polled on how they see the media, teenagers said it is mostly conservatively slanted when in reality studies have shown that the news is more liberally slanted. Maybe these people are getting commentary and reporting confused.

I think when it gets down to it, it's the OPINION and COMMENTARY that are what people get so rowdy about. Seriously, if Bush declared the sky hot pink, the networks would report it first and then turn to their discussion board or council and either laugh their asses off or try to theorize when it may be in fact hot pink lol.

When it comes to commentators like O'riley or Bohanan it's still opinion and PLEASE try to see that he does use a lot of F A C T S and he can still be right or wrong. I try to see it on liberal type shows and it's hard sometimes cause they leave out counter arguments to be replaced for more cynical filler. Perhaps teenagers see the media as being more conservatively slanted in a liberally slanted media because when they debate, the conservative issue regularly wins. (lol i had to say it)

Shows like the Daily Show and SNL which are becoming major and wholly the source of news for teenagers. That is a scary thought! I have seen how liberals get all warm and comfortable when they see them bash bush with some witty cynical joke, but it's extremely biased and horrendous reporting (but they get great guests though lol).

Lets try to subtract the mega conspiracies and try to compare Fox news� and the other major networks� reporting to the theoretical perfect news report show and hopefully we�ll find that Fox News is not of pure evil wrongness to which a lot of people testify.

Fox news does a good job of reporting on their stories, I can not contest that. At the same time though, CBS, CNN, NBC, etc do a good job on covering stories as well. IMO, the only difference between all other stations and Fox is that Fox is Right wing biased rather than left.

Letter from Fox News producer Charlie Reina to the Poynter Institute

So Chris Wallace says Fox News Channel really is fair and balanced. Well, I guess that settles it. We can all go home now. I mean, so what if Wallace's salary as Fox's newest big- name anchor ends with a whole lot of zeroes? So what if he hasn't spent a day in the FNC newsroom yet?

My advice to the pundits: If you really want to know about bias at Fox, talk to the grunts who work there - the desk assistants, tape editors, writers, researchers and assorted producers who have to deal with it every day. Ask enough of them what goes on, promise them anonymity, and you'll get the real story.

The fact is, daily life at FNC is all about management politics. I say this having served six years there - as producer of the media criticism show, News Watch, as a writer/producer of specials and (for the last year of my stay) as a newsroom copy editor. Not once in the 20+ years I had worked in broadcast journalism prior to Fox - including lengthy stays at The Associated Press, CBS Radio and ABC/Good Morning America - did I feel any pressure to toe a management line. But at Fox, if my boss wasn't warning me to "be careful" how I handled the writing of a special about Ronald Reagan ("You know how Roger [Fox News Chairman Ailes] feels about him."), he was telling me how the environmental special I was to produce should lean ("You can give both sides, but make sure the pro-environmentalists don't get the last word.")

Editorially, the FNC newsroom is under the constant control and vigilance of management. The pressure ranges from subtle to direct. First of all, it's a news network run by one of the most high-profile political operatives of recent times. Everyone there understands that FNC is, to a large extent, "Roger's Revenge" - against what he considers a liberal, pro-Democrat media establishment that has shunned him for decades. For the staffers, many of whom are too young to have come up through the ranks of objective journalism, and all of whom are non-union, with no protections regarding what they can be made to do, there is undue motivation to please the big boss.

Sometimes, this eagerness to serve Fox's ideological interests goes even beyond what management expects. For example, in June of last year, when a California judge ruled the Pledge of Allegiance's "Under God" wording unconstitutional, FNC's newsroom chief ordered the judge's mailing address and phone number put on the screen. The anchor, reading from the Teleprompter, found himself explaining that Fox was taking this unusual step so viewers could go directly to the judge and get "as much information as possible" about his decision. To their credit, the big bosses recognized that their underling's transparent attempt to serve their political interests might well threaten the judge's physical safety and ordered the offending information removed from the screen as soon as they saw it. A few months later, this same eager-to-please newsroom chief ordered the removal of a graphic quoting UN weapons inspector Hans Blix as saying his team had not yet found WMDs in Iraq. Fortunately, the electronic equipment was quicker on the uptake (and less susceptible to office politics) than the toady and displayed the graphic before his order could be obeyed.

But the roots of FNC's day-to-day on-air bias are actual and direct. They come in the form of an executive memo distributed electronically each morning, addressing what stories will be covered and, often, suggesting how they should be covered. To the newsroom personnel responsible for the channel's daytime programming, The Memo is the bible. If, on any given day, you notice that the Fox anchors seem to be trying to drive a particular point home, you can bet The Memo is behind it.

The Memo was born with the Bush administration, early in 2001, and, intentionally or not, has ensured that the administration's point of view consistently comes across on FNC. This year, of course, the war in Iraq became a constant subject of The Memo. But along with the obvious - information on who is where and what they'll be covering - there have been subtle hints as to the tone of the anchors' copy. For instance, from the March 20th memo: "There is something utterly incomprehensible about Kofi Annan's remarks in which he allows that his thoughts are 'with the Iraqi people.' One could ask where those thoughts were during the 23 years Saddam Hussein was brutalizing those same Iraqis. Food for thought." Can there be any doubt that the memo was offering not only "food for thought," but a direction for the FNC writers and anchors to go? Especially after describing the U.N. Secretary General's remarks as "utterly incomprehensible"?

The sad truth is, such subtlety is often all it takes to send Fox's newsroom personnel into action - or inaction, as the case may be. One day this past spring, just after the U.S. invaded Iraq, The Memo warned us that anti-war protesters would be "whining" about U.S. bombs killing Iraqi civilians, and suggested they could tell that to the families of American soldiers dying there. Editing copy that morning, I was not surprised when an eager young producer killed a correspondent's report on the day's fighting - simply because it included a brief shot of children in an Iraqi hospital.

These are not isolated incidents at Fox News Channel, where virtually no one of authority in the newsroom makes a move unmeasured against management's politics, actual or perceived. At the Fair and Balanced network, everyone knows management's point of view, and, in case they're not sure how to get it on air, The Memo is there to remind them.

Read Al Franken's new book. Just my 2 Cents

Originally posted by TheCatalyst
Read Al Franken's new book. Just my 2 Cents

Got it right here on my desk!

And yeah, it is a great book, it fights the right with facts instead of "you suck... no... you suck!"

lol. Well, I'm too drunk right now to read ALL of the text people have written, but I will tomorrow after I get back from church

Fox? Fair and balanced? Nope. They have as much spin as CNN and MSNBC. You decide, however? Yeah, I decide, after looking into the matter fully. Fair and balanced is a bunch of shyte. They show the news from a conservative viewpoint, as CNN shows it from a liberal standpoint. Use the major networks as a stepping stone to find the real story. When you find something on any news station, search for the story on the web, and find out the full story. Don't trust them, they rely on ratings and soundbites.

(Dang, had to hit delete for hitting the wrong key waaaaay too many times durring this post. Maybe it's time for bed....)

Nice post from Nerdling, thanks. But I believe it's nothing new on either side of the isle it's apart of the game and it doesn't have to all focus on Bush, bombs and bible as well as my example of the Clintons.

As a side note, some people might attest for a Governmentally controlled news program that does not have to subside to ratings, we all know the kind of junk comes from that given the huge slants of NPR and BBC (and don�t for get former USSR and china lol).

Fox News aside, does America need a conservatively slanted news outlet in general? I see it as beneficial to add balance to the spectrum, something A LOT of cynics and liberals try to attack which is the new counter balance after 50 years.

As a side thought maybe 50 years ago people saw the kind of corruption going on in the conservative media and sought for a release, which made it hip, the Kennedy�s were out playing football and Nixon and the wars were the devil. Maybe that was the progressive turn around.

Perhaps the turn around today are the Clintons, dean, the stifling mainstream liberal media, facing the forces of new patriotism, bush, Limbaugh (or talk radio in general), and fox news. As to it being hip, lol yeah right not yet.


I hate how people get so cynical about the news and give it up entirely saying that they will find their own news elsewhere. When in reality they just find the news that best caters to their agenda, typically hyper radical or hyper extreme.

Hopefully the tides of change can turn the mainstream into a moderate stagnation (where nobody can get away with their BS) with the advent of internet news. What i fear is that the news networks just start catering ala-cart and make their dough from pin pointing each view and then comforting them in their little fantasy lands.

Originally posted by ANMAN
As a side note, some people might attest for a Governmentally controlled news program that does not have to subside to ratings, we all know the kind of junk comes from that given the huge slants of NPR and BBC (and don�t for get former USSR and china lol).

Fox News aside, does America need a conservatively slanted news outlet in general? I see it as beneficial to add balance to the spectrum, something A LOT of cynics and liberals try to attack which is the new counter balance after 50 years.

As a side thought maybe 50 years ago people saw the kind of corruption going on in the conservative media and sought for a release, which made it hip, the Kennedy�s were out playing football and Nixon and the wars were the devil. Maybe that was the progressive turn around.

Perhaps the turn around today are the Clintons, dean, the stifling mainstream liberal media, facing the forces of new patriotism, bush, Limbaugh (or talk radio in general), and fox news. As to it being hip, lol yeah right not yet.

*AHEM*

The BBC is completely impartial

And unless you want secret death squads coming through your window i suggest you remember it!

I only news satation that I watch is Fox News. Why? Well it's in my name...they are the most conservative media source. CNN and the NBCs are too liberal for me, but sometimes I will flip through all the others.

Since when, Nerdling

The BBC or CNN or MSNBC, and the list can go on, are definately not "impartial". Care to define "impartial" then take say this war in Iraq or Israel, and give examples of their being "impartial," cause I would certainly be glad to provide counter-examples. Bet.





seekerof

[edit on 1-1-2006 by Seekerof]

I don't know about Fox fair and balance but anybody knows if the saudis owns stocks in any of the other news media outlets out there?

I wonder.

Interesting letter Nerdling-- thanks.

I would submit that Fox News has to rely on a memo-driven, management imposed policy to maintain a right-wing slant on their reporting in order to counter the traditional and well-documented left-wing bias of most reporters and editors.

The truth is that essentially all of the mass media, at least until the rise of Rush Limbaugh, talk radio and, later, Fox News, have had a leftist slant. I don't particularly believe that this was deliberate-- it's been shown in studies that the majority of reporters and editors themselves have a left-wing bias, and, try though they might have (or not, as the case may be) their bias certainly colored their reporting. With such a situation, the only way that a media outlet could maintain a right-wing slant would be to go out of their way to ensure that their reporters and editors presented things that way. Left to their own devices, their personal left-wing bias would certainly come to the fore.

I've never really cared for Fox's self-appraisal as "fair," but the "balanced" part has always appealed to me, simply because they at least did at one time serve as a "balance" to the decided left-wing slant of virtually every other media outlet. It was sort of ironic though that, in the wake of their unprecedented ratings, the other cable news networks began to slant themselves more toward the right, but that (no doubt due to the absence of the sort of environment that exists at Fox, in combination with the sinking poll numbers for Bush) has slowly drained away, and most of them are just about as left-wing now as they ever were. So Fox once again provides, if not fairness, at least balance.


Personally though, I don't trust ANY of them. They all have an agenda, if nothing more than simply attracting viewers, and for all of them the news is secondary to the agenda.