A myth in the unmaking

Shogun

Free: Mudholes Stomped
Jan 8, 2007
30,530
2,267
1,045
A myth in the unmaking


Fox News's status as a politically impartial channel is at last being exposed as a fiction

Michael Tomasky
Monday November 19, 2007
The Guardian

Britons may be familiar with Rupert Murdoch, but I don't think the UK has a beast quite like the American Fox News Channel. Celebrating its 11th year on the air, Fox is a breathtaking institution. It is a lock, stock and barrel servant of the Republican party, devoted first and foremost to electing Republicans and defeating Democrats; it's even run by a man, Roger Ailes, who helped elect Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush senior to the presidency. And yet, because it minimally adheres to certain superficial conventions, it can masquerade as a "news" outfit and enjoy all the rights that accrue to that.

Journalism with a point of view is a fine thing. It's what I do. The difference is that I say I'm a liberal journalist while Fox executives and "reporters" insist they play it straight. But everyone in the US knows that my description is true. This is precisely why its fans watch it. Walk into any bar, hair salon, gym or motel lobby in the country; if the TV is tuned to Fox rather than CNN, you know that the owner or clientele or both are Republican. It's a secret - although not actually secret any more - sign of fraternity among conservatives, the way a solid red tie worn by a single urban man used to signal to other urban men that the wearer was indeed "that way".

So everyone knows, but, because of the conventions of journalistic propriety, Fox can't admit that it's a Republican outfit. It would have no credibility with politicians if it did and would be too easily dismissed as "ideological media". To get around this problem, its marketers devised what must be the most deviously ingenious pair of advertising slogans of all time: "We report, you decide" and "Fair and balanced".

And so, for a decade and more, Fox has got away with an amazing thing: it can call itself a "straight" news channel even while everyone knows it's not. It's a great little racket. Every so often, a Toto comes along and tugs at the curtain - earlier this year, for instance, the Democratic presidential aspirants agreed that they would not participate in any debates hosted by Fox because there was no point in getting up there and being asked questions merely for the purpose of providing footage that the eventual Republican nominee could use against them. But these moments have been rare.

Last week brought an event with the potential to change all that. Judith Regan, a former Fox host perhaps best known in the UK as the, um, brains behind the OJ Simpson If I Did It mediapalooza, has sued her former employer for wrongful dismissal.

So what? So this. Regan spent some portion of the dawn of the 21st century having an affair with NYC's then police commissioner, Bernard Kerik. The commissioner was recently indicted by a federal prosecutor in New York for alleged misdeeds dating from his time as a public servant. Kerik is a very close associate of presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani - so close that Giuliani once recommended Kerik to President Bush as homeland security director.

The nomination advanced far enough for Bush to stand at Kerik's side at a press conference. But suddenly, the doors blew open and the allegations against Kerik - that he'd renovated his home with ill-gotten gains, and more distressingly that he had suspected connections to organised crime - ended his nomination quickly. Ever since then, the question has loomed over Giuliani: when did he know that the man he recommended to run America's security was alleged to have mob ties? (A now deceased investigator once suggested that he warned Giuliani, but Giuliani says he has no memory of this.)

Regan, naturally enough given her special knowledge of the man, was questioned about Kerik by federal investigators. And she now alleges that two executives of Fox News instructed her to "lie to, and withhold information from" the investigators about Kerik. Regan charges that Fox executives did this because they feared the inquiry into Kerik might singe Giuliani, whose presidential ambitions, her complaint charges, Fox has long been intent on "protecting".

Let's linger over that for a moment. Two executives of a major news organisation may have told a citizen to lie to federal investigators to protect a presidential candidate. It's a stunning charge. If proven someday, Fox will no longer be able to hide behind the fiction that it's a neutral news outfit.

In the meantime, Democrats should ratchet up their refusal to pretend that Fox bears any relationship to news. I've always felt they should just boycott the network en bloc. One can be pretty confident that if the situation were reversed - imagine a cable channel that was known as a Democratic house organ and run by, say, Bill Clinton adviser James Carville - Republicans would have done something like that long ago. I asked Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic speaker, about this last Friday, and she just replied wanly: "I think we have to reach out to all the viewers out there."

I guess I didn't really expect her to say more on the record. But if the day ever comes that Fox is no longer allowed to have it both ways, Democrats won't have to keep playing along with the rabbit-hole fiction that Fox is a genuine news-gathering operation.

· Michael Tomasky is editor of Guardian America

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2213075,00.html
 
What a FUCKING JOKE. Every station on the air except Fox went about in 2000 through 2006 to sway the vote to the Democrats as to be unbelievable in the obvious bent of stories reporting and coverage. And then we have this. You should hang out with Eots if you believe this garbage.
 
It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to see the obvious slant to fox news.. as if your opinion about other stations validate their glad handing of republicans anyway.

what is actually the joke is how far the hard right will go to pretend otherwise.
 
I find it amazing that anyone didn't know what Fox was about. It's laughingly obvious. Heck I used to watch it here when I had cable and frankly I thought it should have been under "light entertainment" rather than news.
 
Its either that some people are so stuck in thier bias that they can not see it or they are just dishonest.

It is a horrible channel for stickig to the truth.

The ohter channels beat the drums to war and never asked the real questions along with never debunking the idiot swiftboaters.
 
Indeed, britt hume looked like a whipped puppy on election night 06.


certainly, that night was a tad depressing at the fox camp.
 
Indeed, britt hume looked like a whipped puppy on election night 06.


certainly, that night was a tad depressing at the fox camp.

You obviously did not watch all the other channels in 2000 2002 2004 or you would not make such a foolish statement. 2000 was probably the best, CBS and NBC the reporters all but were crying at around 3 am when they had to admit Bush won. And in 2004 they tried to sway the vote with hit pieces just before the electio, further I love the comment about the swiftboaters in the previous post, they wouldn't even allow them a voice on air but they did attack them repeatedly.
 
00 and 04 were a whole lot closer races than 06. Had you not been in bed by 7pm when it was clear the dems were taking over you might have a frame of reference.

hang onto it though... the longer you do the funnier it gets.
 
00 and 04 were a whole lot closer races than 06. Had you not been in bed by 7pm when it was clear the dems were taking over you might have a frame of reference.

hang onto it though... the longer you do the funnier it gets.

You m ade a comment about a reporter or anchor looking bad about results. I responded with the fact that in the 3 previous elections all the liberal networks anchors and reporters all were about to burst into tears when their party did not win. Don't like it? Don't bring it up in the future, it will just make you look bad.
 
It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to see the obvious slant to fox news.. as if your opinion about other stations validate their glad handing of republicans anyway.

what is actually the joke is how far the hard right will go to pretend otherwise.

I don't see an obvious slant. I actually started watching it because the slant that permeates the other news networks was NOT there.

If the op-eds; which, are NOT "news" are slanted one way or the other, who really cares? They're op-eds.
 
I don't see an obvious slant. I actually started watching it because the slant that permeates the other news networks was NOT there.

If the op-eds; which, are NOT "news" are slanted one way or the other, who really cares? They're op-eds.

GunnyL, the only reason you don't see is a slant is because it's slanted in your direction. The power of denial is overwhelming. Since I'm neither a republican or democrat, I see the bias in each. Fox is clearly more biased than CNN, but since CNN has to compete with other networks for the democrat slant viewers it's ratings will be lower. This lets fox whore around the title of most watched, which only further promotes the stupidity of calling themselves the most watched because they are the most balanced.
 
But everyone in the US knows that my description is true. This is precisely why its fans watch it. Walk into any bar, hair salon, gym or motel lobby in the country; if the TV is tuned to Fox rather than CNN, you know that the owner or clientele or both are Republican. It's a secret - although not actually secret any more - sign of fraternity among conservatives, the way a solid red tie worn by a single urban man used to signal to other urban men that the wearer was indeed "that way".

So my Air National Guard unit is Republican because Fox News is the preferred news channel in the breakroom? Sweet.
 
There is plenty of bias to go around. FOX leans right but IMO many others lean left MSNBC, CNN and many network broadcasts are guilty of leaning as well'

media research .org

newsbusters.org


(Sorry the links don't work but forum rules won't let me post urls because i am new here)

even newspapers are not free from bias. But one thing I see is that there are many more complaints of "liberal media bias" than "conservative media bias"

More reason for us to be more diligent in our qyest for the truth.
 
I absolutely love the complaint from liberals that Fox is bad cause it leans right. Yet they will claim none of the others lean left. That lie has been shown the door to many times to even be taken seriously.

I also love how people that have NEVER watched Fox have eaten up the "right" wing bias charge. Almost invariably they list NON NEWS programs as their proof. Fox goes out of their way to ensure every side has at least a voice in the op ed programs. And the News is fair and it IS balanced.

They report they do not fabricate.

Remind us how it is ok for NEWS programs to stage events to 'showcase" supposed behavior and bias. They have done it at NASCAR and in different towns and cities. And then pretended it was unbiased news.

And then show us where Fox EVER created a hit piece that was full of unproven documents and information and presented just before an election in the stated goal of upsetting a sitting politician. An "investigation" 5 years in the making that had to resort to unproven material and unsupported comments as it's "shocking" evidence.
 
Fox is a standing joke in the media. But Murdoch doesn't care, it's making him money, that's what he cares about.

Yup the joke though is on the idiot MSM that can not understand people are tired of lies, mistruths and veiled political support BY supposed independent news organizations.
 
No, the really funny bit is that anyone thinks the MSM is anything but right wing. I mean, who do you think owns it? It's not Indie, I can tell you.

Doesn't matter. The radical right thinks the media is out to get them because they're too busy reading stuff like newsbusters and drudge. And no matter how many times the left-wing media stuff gets debunked, they don't want to hear it.

It's kind of like banging one's head against the wall.

If you want to watch something interesting on the subject of fauxnews, I'd highly recommend the documentary, Outfoxed, btw.
 

Forum List

Back
Top