Is Fox News 'fair and balanced'?

Since the television channels establishment back in 1996, The FNC -Fox News Channel has prided itself on the slogan that it is 'fair and balanced' and "We Report. You Decide." However, there are many critics who would disagree. Walter Cronkite (the former CBS Evening News Anchor) has described how the

“Fox network was intended to be a conservative organisation for the far right-wing”

(Taken from movie, Outfoxed)



Owned by American - Australian media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and his conglomerate, News Corporation. Broadcasting out of studios in New York City, the cable channel has an estimated total audience of 4.7 billion people. In the United States alone, it is available to 85 million households. Established in October 1996, President and Chairman of the FNC, Roger Ailes (former political aide to Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush) described the networks intentions as

“restoring objectivity where we find it lacking”

and to present viewers with

“fine, balanced journalism”

.

Yet before I highlight some of the techniques that make the FNC bias, look at the ownership of the company and we already see so political alligences and how they influence the media and news....

Above: Rupert Murdoch

The FNC is owned by media conglomerate, News Corporation and media mogul, Rupert Murdoch. Media is a powerful medium which reaches the vast majority of the world’s population and therefore the remaining estates of power (particularly the executive first estate) are to a degree fearful to be in opposition to the media. Murdoch himself is known for successfully creating political alliances so as to gain his own endgame. When Gough Whitlam was the Labor nominee for Australian Prime Minister, Murdoch and his newspapers in Australia supported the campaign. In 1974, Murdoch was quoted as saying,

“My Journalists were foot soldiers for Whitlam’s campaign”

. However, once Whitlam was in power, Murdoch decided that he no longer liked this alliance and turned against him. The following year in 1975, Whitlam was defeated in the PM elections by Malcolm Fraser. As compensation for Murdoch’s favourable media coverage, Fraser changed laws in Australia to suit Murdoch’s business plans. Murdoch wanted US citizenship so that he could begin his media empire in the United States. However, this caused problems for the ownership of the media that he had already ascertained in Australia. Conveniently, Fraser changed the existing media laws in Australia and Murdoch was permitted to continue owning and purchasing media outlets in the country. In 1992, tax concessions were given when News Corps established Fox Studios including low rental and payroll tax concessions. Murdoch also backed Paul Keating in the New Zealand elections. Once Keating became PM, he repaid Murdoch by keeping Air New Zealand out of the Australian domestic aviation market in 1994. Therefore, Murdoch became 50% owner of small airline, Ansett. Keating also refused to allow Optus to lay fibre optic cables in New Zealand which consequentially profited Telstra (which was partly owned by Murdoch at the time).

So what do we learn from this? Murdoch likes to align himself with powerful politicians in order to accomplish his business needs from the top. So the notion that he may also be using the FNC for the same purposes is not out of the question.

In the United States, Murdoch has aligned himself with the Republican party and current President George W. Bush and there are clear examples of how Fox News has been substantially more favourable to the conservative political party. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Bush administration ends, will he switch sides so as not to alienate his viewers or will he remain a republican supporter and suffer the consequences?

In a report by conducted by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), it was found that during the years 2000 through to 2004, the number of republicans tuning into Fox news when from 18% to 39%. This by itself is blatant evident that Fox News obviously is reporting the news with a right-wing perspective.

Probably the most notable technique which Fox News employs which shows their one sided nature is the simple premise of “cutting the person they are interviewing off”. On the FNC program, The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly has used this technique countless times. Whilst interviewing consultants and experts, if what they are saying does not represent conservative opinion, he beings to cut them off, has told several of his guests to “shut up” and in extreme cases, has been known to end interviews in abrupt and rude fashions. When asked at a press conference about telling his viewers to “shut up”, O’Reilly stated that “it happened once in six years”.

Above: Jeremy Glick on the O'Reilly Factor

However, Greenwald found footage of at least seven instances from O’ Reilly’s Talking Points commentary and various interviews where he told the person he was interviewing to “shut up”. Jeremy Glick was a teenager who lost his father in the Twin Towers in New York on September 11th. Bill O’Reilly found out that despite the loss of his father that day, Glick opposed sending troops to fight the war in Afghanistan and had even signed a petition stating his opinion. Glick was invited on to “The O’Reilly Factor” where O’Reilly shouted at him and threw a tirade of accusations at him and spun his words to create negative views after Glick refused to alter his opinion and was seen saying to O’Reilly, “You evoke sympathy with the 9/11 families to rationalise your narrow right-wing views!”. Below is a transcript excerpt from the interview with Glick and O'Reilly. For the full transcript and more on O'Reilly and Glick

O'REILLY: All right. You didn't support the action against Afghanistan to remove the Taliban. You were against it, OK.

GLICK: Why would I want to brutalize and further punish the people in Afghanistan...

O'REILLY: Who killed your father!

GLICK: The people in Afghanistan...

O'REILLY: Who killed your father.

GLICK: ... didn't kill my father.

O'REILLY: Sure they did. The al Qaeda people were trained there.

GLICK: The al Qaeda people? What about the Afghan people?

O'REILLY: See, I'm more angry about it than you are!

GLICK: So what about George Bush?

O'REILLY: What about George Bush? He had nothing to do with it.

GLICK: The director -- senior as director of the CIA.

O'REILLY: He had nothing to do with it.

GLICK: So the people that trained a hundred thousand Mujahadeen who were...

O'REILLY: Man, I hope your mom isn't watching this.

GLICK: Well, I hope she is.

O'REILLY: I hope your mother is not watching this because you -- that's it. I'm not going to say anymore.

GLICK: OK.

O'REILLY: In respect for your father...

GLICK: On September 14, do you want to know what I'm doing?

O'REILLY: Shut up. Shut up.

GLICK: Oh, please don't tell me to shut up.

O'REILLY: As respect -- as respect -- in respect for your father, who was a Port Authority worker, a fine American, who got killed unnecessarily by barbarians...

GLICK: By radical extremists who were trained by this government...

O'REILLY: Out of respect for him...

GLICK: ... not the people of America.

O'REILLY: ... I'm not going to...

GLICK: ... The people of the ruling class, the small minority.

O'REILLY: Cut his mic. I'm not going to dress you down anymore, out of respect for your father. We will be back in a moment with more of THE FACTOR.

Shortly after this, the Glick interview was abruptly ended by O’Reilly despite being live on air and Glick was asked to leave the studio immediately. The following day, O’Reilly accused Glick of “spewing hatred for country vile propaganda”. O’Reilly didn’t finish there though because 6 months on, he referenced Glick during one of his Talking Points segments accusing Glick of saying that the “Bushs were responsible for 9/11” and was referenced again 11 months later from the initial interview as well (Greenwald, 2004). This is a clear and blatant example of how Fox News is in reality not as “fair and balanced” as they would like to appear.

Another technique used by the FNC to manipulate the viewers political opinions is Fox News’ use of experts and consultants for their discussion programs. Fox News uses experts of high stature when representing republicans and their opinions. They ask well-known conservatives to come on air and discuss political topics in a supposedly bipartisan forum. However, Clara Frank who was a producer at Fox News and has a background in political journalism stated “There are all these prominent conservatives but when I looked at the liberal consultants, I couldn’t see a single name I knew,” (Greenwald, 2004). Alterman, 2003 argues that

“the conservative orientation of Fox is invaluable to the right, not merely because Fox offers the spin on reality conservatives prefer to have people see and hear, but also because it helps pull the rest of the not-terribly liberal media in its direction”

One consultant working for Fox News was Larry Johnson. In a television interview on Fox News, he was asked whether the US had the ability to fight two simultaneous wars. Johnson suggested that this was “not possible” and that the forces should “focus on Al Queda”. However, despite being under contract for another 8 weeks, Johnson was not used as a consultant on the network again (Greenwald, 2004).

The FNC is also seen to be bias in their news coverage with one former employee arguing that the network has “basic cultural underpinnings – race issues, aids and a hatred of the Kennedys”. A former employee, Frank O’Donnell highlights this by saying that he was once ordered to run a long un-cut piece from “A Current Affair” relating to Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy and the Chapaquitic incident where whilst driving under the influence of alcohol, Kennedy was involved in a car accident and his young female passenger was killed, however, he only got a 2 month suspension. Bias news coverage is relayed to the specific stations on a daily basis and according to O’Donnell (a former Fox News Producer in Washington, D.C), he says

“it was made clear to us that our activities were being monitored”

. Fox News executives exercise some censorship control over their news coverage and often comes in the form of an internal memo sent by the FNC’s Vice President of News, John Moody.

“Let’s spend a good deal of time on the battle over judicial nominations, which the President will address this morning. Nominations who both sides admit are qualified are being held up because of their POSSIBLE not demonstrated, views on issue – abortion. This should be a trademark issue for FNC today and in days to come”

Leaked internal memos to the news producers at the FNC have also found Moody to comment on the 9/11 commissions,

“Do not turn this into Watergate”

For the full leaked memos, click here.

These memos (Greenwald, 2004; Media Matters, 2004) clearly illustrate how the coverage that we view on Fox News has already be censored or spun by executives. In another example of how the media is bias at Fox News in terms of coverage is that on the birthday or former President Ronald Reagan, then Fox News anchor, Jon du Pre was asked to cover the celebrations at the Reagan Library. However, once arriving there, du Pre found no festivities so he was ordered to find some and they filmed a short film clip of a school group singing “Happy Birthday” outside the library and that was then aired nationwide. Even the coverage of the Iraqi war has been deemed bias by critics. Footage was aired of everyday activities such as swimming and playing football after the take over of Iraq by American troopers. Banner lines with statements like “ Iraqis are better off than they were one year ago” filled the screens when viewers turned on Fox News. In 2003, reports conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) found that there when asked if the US found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, 33% of Fox viewers said “yes” in comparison to the 11% of PBS (Public Broadcasting viewers). According to the Seattle Times (10.6.03), the “survey shows Fox led in misleading the public”.

The last example of extreme bias that I'll ramble about before I leave you with which contradicts the networks “Fair and Balanced” slogan is the blatant similarities that the news coverage has with the discussion topics that are voiced from the White House and the Bush administration. During the 2000 Presidential campaign for Bush’s election, one of the key political correspondents covering the election was Carl Cameron. Cameron is known to have favourable views of Bush and his wife was even campaigning for Bush at the time, yet he was still permitted to cover the election. In comparison, a producer at CNN who was widely known as a supporter of democratic nominee Al Gore was told by executives that he was not allowed to cover the presidential elections due to his possible conflict of interest or perception of interest (Anon, 2006; Greenwald, 2004)

In this post, I've looked at the various techniques that the Fox News Channel employs to manipulate their viewers and their bias coverage of the news. I have looked in detail at the internal memos, censored and focused coverage of news stories, similarities between the current Bush administration and what is being reported on the network and the ownership of the company to illustrate how the network is infact not “fair and balanced” like its company slogan but in fact right wing political and narrow minded in its representation of current affairs.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References


Ackerman, S. 2001, “The Most Biased Name in News”, Extra, pp.1-13

Alger, D. 1998, Megamedia, Rowman and Littlefireld, England

Anon, 2004, “33 internal FOX editorial memos reviewed by MMFA reveal FOX News Channel's inner workings”, http://mediamatters.org/items/200407140002, date accessed 19.11.06

Anon, 2006, “Fox News Channel Controversies”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel_controversies, date accessed 19.11.06

Anon, 2006, “Fox News Channel”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News#Controversies_and_allegations_of_bias, date
accessed 19.11.06

Alterman, E. 2003, “What Liberal Media?”, Basic Books, United States

Barry, P. 2002, “Rich Kids”, pp.127-130, Bantam Books, Sydney,

Chenoweth, N. 2001, “Chapter Ten: The Poker Player”, Virtual Murdoch : reality wars on the information highway, Secker and Warburg, London

Greenwald, R. 2004, “Outfoxed” [videorecording] : Rupert Murdoch's war on journalism, Imprint, Disinformation Co., New York

PIPA, 2003, “Misconception, Media and the Iraq War”, Programs on international policy attitudes, http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/102.php?nid=&id=&pnt=102&lb=brusc, date accessed 19.11.06

Minehan, M. 2006, “Rupert Murdoch” Presentation, Insearch, date accessed 19.11.06

Phillips, P. 2004, Censored 2005: The Top 25 Censored Stories, Seven Stories Press, London


Walker, A. 2002, “Rupert Murdoch: Bigger than Kane”, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2162658.stm, date accessed 19.11.06