Fox News Channel controversies
Encyclopedia
Critics of Fox News Channel
have accused the network of having a bias
favoring the political right
and the Republican Party
. Fox News has publicly denied such charges, stating that the reporters in the newsroom provide separate, neutral reporting.
chairman Howard Dean
has referred to Fox News as a "right-wing propaganda machine," and several Democratic Party
politicians have boycotted events hosted or sponsored by the network. In 2007, several major Democratic Party presidential candidates (Hillary Rodham Clinton
, John Edwards
, Barack Obama
, and Bill Richardson) boycotted or dropped out of Fox News-sponsored or hosted debates, forcing their cancellation. The Nevada State Democratic Party had originally agreed to co-host a Democratic debate with Fox News Channel
in Reno, Nevada
. Despite the opposition of groups like MoveOn.org, the party agreed to bring in Fox News in an effort to find "new ways to talk to new people." However, after Fox News chairman Roger Ailes
was quoted making a joke involving the similarity of Barack Obama's name to that of the terrorist Osama bin Laden
, a firestorm of opposition arose in Democratic circles against the debate. On March 12, 2007, the party announced it had pulled out of the debate, effectively canceling it.
Similar accusations have been levied against Fox News in response to its decision to exclude Republican Texas
Representative Ron Paul
, who differs from many in the Republican Party on social issues and holds a strong opposition to foreign intervention, and California
Representative Duncan Hunter
from the January 5, 2008, Republican candidate debate. In response, many individuals and organizations petitioned Fox News to reconsider its decision. When Fox refused to change its position and continued to exclude Paul and Hunter, the New Hampshire Republican Party officially announced it would withdraw as a Fox partner in the forum.
While the network has been criticized for its tendency to support the Republican Party and its interests, David Frum
, former speechwriter for George W. Bush
, has also said, "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we're discovering we work for Fox."
said in a January 17, 2007, interview with the Chicago Sun-Times
, "They're a Republican brand. They're an extension of the Republican Party with some exceptions, [like] Greta van Susteren
. But I don't begrudge them that. [Fox CEO] Roger Ailes is an old friend. They've been nice to me. They've said some very nice things about me. Not [Bill] O'Reilly, but I don't watch him."
Writing for the Los Angeles Times
, Republican and conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg
indicated his belief that Fox News was rightward-leaning: "Look, I think liberals have reasonable gripes with Fox News. It does lean to the right, primarily in its opinion programming but also in its story selection (which is fine by me) and elsewhere. But it's worth remembering that Fox is less a bastion of ideological conservatism and more a populist, tabloid-like network."
Fox News host Bill O'Reilly
has stated that "Fox does tilt right," (although he states this in specific reference to the coverage of the Iraq war, not FNC's coverage in general), but that the network does not "actively campaign or try to help Bush-Cheney."
media watch dog
groups such as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
(FAIR) and Media Matters for America
, have argued that Fox News reporting contains conservative editorializing within news stories. Others have referred to the network as "Faux
News", "GOP
-TV", "Fox Noise Channel", "Fox Nothing Channel", "Fixed News" and "Cluster Fox." FAIR also asserted that in a study of a 19 week period from January 2001 to May 2001 the ratio of conservative guests to liberals on Special Report with Brit Hume
was 50:6, and obtained similar data from other Fox shows.
Accuracy in Media
has claimed that there was a conflict of interest in Fox News' co-sponsorship of the May 15, 2007, Republican presidential candidates debate, pointing out that candidate and former New York city mayor Rudolph Giuliani's law firm had tackled copyright protection and legislation on the purchase of cable TV lineups for News Corporation
, the parent company of Fox News, and suggesting that Fox might be biased in favor of Giuliani's candidacy for the Republican Party presidential nomination.
during September 2004 found that Fox News was second to CBS
as the most politically biased network in the public view. 37% of respondents thought CBS
, in the wake of the memogate scandal, was trying to help elect John Kerry
, while 34% of respondents said they believed that Fox's goal was to "help elect Bush." However, a poll conducted by Public Policy Polling
in January 2010 found Fox News to be the only US television news network to receive a positive rating by the public for trustworthiness with results strongly split depending on the political affiliation of the respondents
A survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
showed "a striking rise in the politicization of cable TV news audiences . . . This pattern is most apparent with the fast-growing Fox News Channel." Another Pew survey of news consumption found that Fox News has not suffered a decline in credibility with its audience, with one in four (25%) saying they believe all or most of what they see on Fox News Channel, virtually unchanged since Fox was first tested in 2000.
According to the results of a 2006 study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism
a survey of 547 journalists, found that Fox was most frequently cited by surveyed journalists as an outlet taking an ideological stance in its coverage, and most identified as advocating conservative
political positions, with 56% of national journalists citing Fox News as being especially conservative in its coverage of news. Additionally Fox was viewed as having the highest profile as a conservative news organization; it was cited unprompted by 69% of national journalists.
The documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism
claims that Fox reporters and anchors, rather than citing an anonymous
source in order to advance a storyline, Fox personalities allegedly use the phrase "some people say" to include unattributed conservative opinion and commentary into reports. In the film, Media Matters for America president David Brock
noted that some shows, like Fox's evening news program, Special Report with Brit Hume
, tend to exhibit editorializing attitudes and behavior when on the air.
A 2006 University of California, Berkeley study cited that there was a correlation between the presence of the Fox News Channel in cable markets and increases in Republican votes in those markets.
A study published in November 2005 by Tim Groseclose, a professor of political science
at UCLA, comparing political bias from such news outlets as the New York Times, USA Today
, the Drudge Report
, the Los Angeles Times
, and Fox News’ Special Report, concluded "all of the news outlets we examine, except Fox News’ Special Report and the Washington Times, received scores to the left of the average member of Congress." In particular, Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume
had an Americans for Democratic Action
rating that was right of the political center. Groseclose used the number of times a host cited a particular think tank
on his or her program and compared it with the number of times a member of the U.S. Congress cited a think tank, correlating that with the politician's Americans for Democratic Action rating.
Geoff Nunberg, a professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley and a National Public Radio commentator, criticized the methodology of the study and labeled its conclusions invalid. He pointed to what he saw as a Groseclose's reliance on interpretations of facts and data that were taken from sources that were not, in his view, credible. Groseclose and Professor Jeff Milyo rebutted, saying Nunberg "shows a gross misunderstanding [of] our statistical method and the actual assumptions upon which it relies." Mark Liberman (a professor of Computer Science and the Director of Linguistic Data Consortium at the University of Pennsylvania), who helped post Groseclose and Milyo's rebuttal, later posted how the statistical methods used to calculate this bias pose faults. Mark concluded "that many if not most of the complaints directed against G&M are motivated in part by ideological disagreement — just as much of the praise for their work is motivated by ideological agreement. It would be nice if there were a less politically fraught body of data on which such modeling exercises could be explored."
A December 2007 study/examination by Robert Lichter
of a self-described nonpartisan
media watchdog group, the Center for Media and Public Affairs
found that Fox News's evaluations of all of the 2008 Democratic
presidential candidates combined was 51% positive and 49% negative, while the network's evaluations of the Republican
presidential candidates 51% negative and 49% positive. The study, however, did find that Fox's coverage was less negative toward Republican candidates than the coverage of broadcast networks.
(PIPA) at the University of Maryland
School of Public Affairs, as published in the Winter 03-04 issue of the Political Science Quarterly
, reported that poll-based findings indicated that viewers of Fox News, the Fox Broadcasting Company
and local Fox affiliates were more likely than viewers of other news networks to hold three purported misperceptions:
In response, Fox News frequent guest Ann Coulter
characterized the PIPA findings as "misperceptions of pointless liberal factoids" and called it a "hoax poll." Bill O'Reilly
called the study "absolute crap." Roger Ailes referred to the study as "an old push poll
." James Taranto
, editor of OpinionJournal.com, the Wall Street Journals online editorial page, called the poll "pure propaganda." PIPA issued a clarification on October 17, 2003, stating that "The findings were not meant to and cannot be used as a basis for making broad judgments about the general accuracy of the reporting of various networks or the general accuracy of the beliefs of those who get their news from those networks. Only a substantially more comprehensive study could undertake such broad research questions," and that the results of the poll show correlation, but do not prove causation.
PIPA also conducted a statistical study on purported misinformation evidenced by registered voters prior to the 2010 election. According to the results of the study, "...false or misleading information is widespread in the general information environment..." but viewers of Fox News were more likely to be misinformed on specific issues when compared to viewers of comparable media, that this liklihood also increased proportionally to the frequency of viewing Fox News and that these findings showed statistical significance
. Media critic David Zurawik pointed to what he saw as weaknesses in the study, such as that certain government agencies are defined as holding the "true" positions on issues and that the study didn't differentiate between the influences of FNC shows as opposed to political ads that aired within shows.
A 2007 Pew Research Center poll of general political knowledge ("Who is the governor of your state?", "Who is the President of Russia?") indicated that Fox News Channel viewers scored 35% in the high-knowledge area, the same as the national average. This was not significantly different than local news, network news and morning news, and was slightly lower than CNN (41%). Viewers of The O'Reilly Factor (51%) scored in the high category along with Rush Limbaugh
(50%), NPR
(51%), major newspapers (54%), Newshour with Jim Lehrer (53%) The Daily Show
(54%) and The Colbert Report (54%).
A 2010 Stanford University survey found "more exposure to Fox News was associated with more rejection of many mainstream scientists’ claims about global warming, [and] with less trust in scientists". A 2011 Kaiser Family Foundation survey on U.S. misperceptions about health care reform similarly found that Fox News viewers scored lower for factual knowledge than other news viewers. A 2010 Ohio State University study of public misperceptions about the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" found that viewers who relied on Fox News were 66% more likely to believed incorrect rumors than those with "low reliance" on Fox News.
In 2011, a study by Fairleigh Dickinson University
found that Fox News viewers were less well informed than people who did not watch any news at all. The study employed objective questions, such as whether Hosni Mubarak
was still in power in Egypt
.
. In the documentary Outfoxed
, former Fox News employees are interviewed to better understand the inner workings of Fox News. In memos from the documentary, Moody instructs employees on the approach to be taken on particular stories. Critics of Fox News claim that the instructions on many of the memos indicate a conservative bias. The Washington Post quoted Larry Johnson, a former part-time Fox News commentator, describing the Moody memos as "talking points instructing us what the themes are supposed to be, and God help you if you stray."
Former Fox News producer Charlie Reina explained, "The roots of Fox News Channel'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."
Photocopied memos from John Moody instructed the network's on-air anchors and reporters to use positive language when discussing pro-life
viewpoints, the Iraq war, and tax cuts, as well as requesting that the Abu Ghraib
prisoner abuse scandal be put in context with the other violence in the area. Such memos were reproduced for the film Outfoxed, which included Moody quotes such as, "The soldiers [seen on Fox in Iraq
] in the foreground should be identified as 'sharpshooters,' not 'snipers,' which carries a negative connotation
."
Two days after the 2006 election, The Huffington Post
reported they had acquired a copy of a leaked internal memo from Mr. Moody that recommended: "…[L]et's be on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem-controlled congress." Within hours of the memo's publication, Fox News anchor Martha McCallum, went on-air on the program The Live Desk
with reports of Iraqi insurgents cheering the firing of Donald Rumsfeld and the results of the 2006 congressional election.
released a leaked October 2009 e-mail between Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon
and the network's senior producers, which seemed to issue directives slanting Fox News' coverage of President Barack Obama
's health care reform
efforts. In the e-mail, Sammon instructed producers to not use the phrase "public option" when discussing a key measure of President Obama's reform bill, and instead use the terms "government option" or "government-run health insurance", noting negative connotations; Sammon also suggested that the qualifier "so-called" be said before any proper mention of the public option. Another e-mail by Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente accepted Sammon's conditions. Critics claimed that Sammon took advice from Republican pollster Frank Luntz
, who appeared on Hannity
shortly before the e-mail was written and made the same suggestions in identifying the public option. Critics also noticed that reporters and panelists on Special Report with Bret Baier used the term "public option" before the e-mail was sent, but used the term "government option" immediately afterwards. Sammon, in an interview with Howard Kurtz
for The Daily Beast
, defended the directive and denied he was trying to skew Fox News' coverage.
Later that month, Media Matters released an e-mail by Sammon from December 2009, in which he pressured Fox News reporters to include the views of climate change
skeptics in light of the Climategate controversy.
While promoting his memoir, What Happened
, Scott McClellan
, former White House Press Secretary
(2003–2006) for President George W. Bush
stated on the July 25, 2008, edition of MSNBC
's Hardball with Chris Matthews
that the Bush White House routinely gave talking points to Fox News commentators — but not journalists — in order to influence discourse and content. McClellan stated that these talking points were not issued to provide the public with news, but were issued to provide Fox News commentators with issues and perspectives favorable to the White House and Republican Party.
McClellan later apologized to Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly
for not responding to Matthews' suggestion that "Bill" or "Sean
" received the talking points; McClellan said he had no personal knowledge that O'Reilly ever received the talking points. Furthermore he pointed out "the way a couple of questions were phrased in that interview along with my response left things open to interpretation and I should not have let that happen."
es owned by Fox News, though it was not possible to determine exactly who the editors were. The tool showed that self-referential edits from IP ranges owned by corporations and news agencies were not uncommon, including from The New York Times. Fox edits received attention in the blogosphere
and on some online news sites. Wikipedia articles edited from Fox computers from 2005 through 2007 included Al Franken
, Keith Olbermann
, Chris Wallace
and Brit Hume
.
On the July 2, 2008, edition of Fox and Friends, co-hosts Brian Kilmeade
and Steve Doocy
aired photos of New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg
and Times television editor Steven Reddicliffe that appeared to have been crudely doctored, apparently in order to portray the journalists unflatteringly. This occurred during a discussion of a piece in the June 28 edition of The New York Times, which pointed out what Steinberg called "ominous trends" in Fox News' ratings.
According to Media Matters
, the photos depict New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg with yellowed teeth, "his nose and chin widened, and his ears made to protrude further." The other image, of Times television editor Steven Reddicliffe, had similar yellow teeth, as well as "dark circles ... under his eyes, and his hairline has been moved back."
During the discussion, Doocy called the Times report, written by Steinberg, a "hit piece" ordered up by Reddicliffe. The broadcast then showed an image of Steinberg's face superimposed over a picture of a poodle, while Reddicliffe's face was superimposed over the man holding the poodle's leash.
Times culture editor Sam Sifton
called the photo that was aired on Fox "disgusting," and the criticism of the paper's reporting a "specious and meritless claim" while denying that it was a "hit piece."
, the New York Post
, and The Wall Street Journal
with a prominent caption reading, "How did ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN miss this story?" with pictures of a Tea Party movement
protest on the United States Capitol
lawn. A still picture in the ad was in fact taken from a CNN broadcast covering the event. The veracity of this ad was called into question on the air by then-CNN commentator Rick Sanchez
, along with others pointing to various coverage of the event. CNN, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, and CBS Radio News provided various forms of live coverage of the rally in Washington throughout the day on Saturday, including the lead story on CBS Evening News.
Fox News' vice president of marketing, Michael Tammero, responded, "it's fair to say that from the tea party movement . . . to ACORN . . . to the march on 9/12, the networks either ignored the story, marginalized it or misrepresented the significance of it altogether."
appeared on all the major news programs except Fox News, a snub partially in response to remarks about the President by commentators Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and general coverage by Fox with regard to Obama's Health Care proposal. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace called White House administration officials "crybabies" in response. Following this, a senior Obama adviser told U.S. News that the White House would never get a fair shake from Fox News.
In late September 2009, Obama senior advisor David Axelrod
and Roger Ailes met in secret to try to smooth out tensions between the two camps without much success. Two weeks later, White House officials referred to FNC as “not a news network", communications director Anita Dunn asserting that “Fox News often operates as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.” President Obama followed with "If media is operating basically as a talk radio format, then that's one thing, and if it's operating as a news outlet, then that's another," and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel
stated that it was important "to not have the CNN's and the others in the world basically be led in following Fox."
Within days it was reported that Fox had been excluded from an interview with administration official Ken Feinberg, with bureau chiefs from the White House Pool (ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN) coming to the defense of Fox. One of the major bureau chiefs stated, "If any member had been excluded it would have been the same thing, it has nothing to do with Fox or the White House or the substance of the issues." Shortly after this story broke the White House admitted to a low-level mistake, but that said that Fox had not made a specific request to interview Feinberg. Fox White House correspondent Major Garrett responded by stating that he had not made a specific request, but that he had a "standing request from me as senior White House correspondent on Fox to interview any newsmaker at the Treasury at any given time news is being made."
On November 8, 2009 the Los Angeles Times
reported that an unnamed Democratic consultant was warned by the White House not to appear on Fox News again. According to the article, Anita Dunn claimed in an e-mail to have checked with colleagues who "deal with TV issues" and had been told that nobody had been instructed to avoid Fox. Patrick Caddell
, a Fox News contributor and former pollster for President Jimmy Carter
said he had spoken with other Democratic consultants who had received similar warnings from the White House.
reported on his November 10, 2009 broadcast of The Daily Show
that Fox News pundit Sean Hannity
misrepresented video footage purportedly showing large crowds on a health-care protest orchestrated by Rep. Michele Bachmann
. Stewart showed inconsistencies in alternating shots according to the color of the sky and tree leaves, showing that spliced in the shots was footage from Glenn Beck's much larger 9/12 rally
which had occurred two months earlier. Hannity estimated 20,000 protesters were in attendance, the Washington Post estimated 10,000 and Luke Russert
reported that three Capitol Hill police officers guessed "about 4,000." Sean Hannity apologized to his viewers for the error during his November 11, 2009 broadcast.
On November 18, 2009, Fox News anchor Gregg Jarrett
told viewers that a Sarah Palin
book signing in Grand Rapids, Michigan had a massive turnout while showing footage of Palin with a large crowd. Jarrett noted that the former Republican vice-presidential candidate is "continuing to draw huge crowds while she's promoting her brand-new book", adding that the images being shown were "some of the pictures just coming in to us.... The lines earlier had formed this morning." The video was actually taken from a 2008 McCain/Palin campaign rally. Fox senior vice-president of news Michael Clemente issued an initial statement saying, "This was a production error in which the copy editor changed a script and didn't alert the control room to update the video." Fox offered an on-air apology the following day during the same "Happening Now" segment citing regrets for what they described as a "video error" with no intent to mislead.
with regular news coverage. Ailes stated that Fox News has broken stories harmful to Republicans, offering "Fox News is the network that broke George W. Bush
's DUI
four days before the election" as an example. The DUI story was broken by then-Fox affiliate WPXT
in Portland, Maine
, although Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron
also contributed to the report and, in the words of National Public Radio ombudsman Alicia C. Shepard, Fox News Channel "sent the story ping-ponging around the nation" by broadcasting WPXT's coverage. WPXT News Director Kevin Kelly said that he "called Fox News in New York City to see if we were flogging a dead horse" before running the story, and that Fox News Channel confirmed the arrest with the campaign and ran the story shortly after 6 p.m.
Upon the release of Outfoxed, Fox News issued a statement denouncing MoveOn.org, Greenwald and The New York Times for copyright infringement
. Fox dismissed their judgments of former employees featured in the documentary as the partisan views of disgruntled workers who never vocalized concern over any alleged bias while they were employed at the network. Ailes also shrugged off criticisms of the former Fox employees by noting that they worked in Fox affiliates and not at the actual channel itself. Fox News also challenged any news organization that sought to portray Fox as a "problem" with the following proposition: "If they will put out 100 percent of their editorial directions and internal memos, Fox News Channel will publish 100 percent of our editorial directions and internal memos, and let the public decide who is fair. This includes any legitimate cable news network, broadcast network, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post."
Former Fox News personality Eric Burns
has suggested in an interview that Fox "probably gives voice to more conservatives than the other networks. But not at the expense of liberals." Burns justifies a higher exposure of conservatives by saying that other media often ignore conservatives.
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
have accused the network of having a bias
Bias
Bias is an inclination to present or hold a partial perspective at the expense of alternatives. Bias can come in many forms.-In judgement and decision making:...
favoring the political right
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
and the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
. Fox News has publicly denied such charges, stating that the reporters in the newsroom provide separate, neutral reporting.
Political figures
Former Democratic National CommitteeDemocratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...
chairman Howard Dean
Howard Dean
Howard Brush Dean III is an American politician and physician from Vermont. He served six terms as the 79th Governor of Vermont and ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009. Although his U.S...
has referred to Fox News as a "right-wing propaganda machine," and several Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
politicians have boycotted events hosted or sponsored by the network. In 2007, several major Democratic Party presidential candidates (Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...
, John Edwards
John Edwards
Johnny Reid "John" Edwards is an American politician, who served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.He defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in...
, Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
, and Bill Richardson) boycotted or dropped out of Fox News-sponsored or hosted debates, forcing their cancellation. The Nevada State Democratic Party had originally agreed to co-host a Democratic debate with Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
in Reno, Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...
. Despite the opposition of groups like MoveOn.org, the party agreed to bring in Fox News in an effort to find "new ways to talk to new people." However, after Fox News chairman Roger Ailes
Roger Ailes
Roger Eugene Ailes is president of Fox News Channel, chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group. Ailes was a media consultant for Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W...
was quoted making a joke involving the similarity of Barack Obama's name to that of the terrorist Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
, a firestorm of opposition arose in Democratic circles against the debate. On March 12, 2007, the party announced it had pulled out of the debate, effectively canceling it.
Similar accusations have been levied against Fox News in response to its decision to exclude Republican Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
Representative Ron Paul
Ron Paul
Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul is an American physician, author and United States Congressman who is seeking to be the Republican Party candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Paul represents Texas's 14th congressional district, which covers an area south and southwest of Houston that includes...
, who differs from many in the Republican Party on social issues and holds a strong opposition to foreign intervention, and California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
Representative Duncan Hunter
Duncan Hunter
Duncan Lee Hunter is an American politician. He was a Republican member of the House of Representatives from California's 52nd, 45th and 42nd districts from 1981 to 2009....
from the January 5, 2008, Republican candidate debate. In response, many individuals and organizations petitioned Fox News to reconsider its decision. When Fox refused to change its position and continued to exclude Paul and Hunter, the New Hampshire Republican Party officially announced it would withdraw as a Fox partner in the forum.
While the network has been criticized for its tendency to support the Republican Party and its interests, David Frum
David Frum
David J. Frum is a Canadian American journalist active in both the United States and Canadian political arenas. A former economic speechwriter for President George W. Bush, he is also the author of the first "insider" book about the Bush presidency...
, former speechwriter for George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, has also said, "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we're discovering we work for Fox."
Media figures
CNN's Larry KingLarry King
Lawrence Harvey "Larry" King is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards....
said in a January 17, 2007, interview with the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
, "They're a Republican brand. They're an extension of the Republican Party with some exceptions, [like] Greta van Susteren
Greta Van Susteren
Greta Van Susteren is an American commentator and television personality on the Fox News Channel, where she hosts On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteren...
. But I don't begrudge them that. [Fox CEO] Roger Ailes is an old friend. They've been nice to me. They've said some very nice things about me. Not [Bill] O'Reilly, but I don't watch him."
Writing for the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, Republican and conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Jonah Jacob Goldberg is an American conservative syndicated columnist and author. Goldberg is known for his contributions on politics and culture to , of which he is editor-at-large...
indicated his belief that Fox News was rightward-leaning: "Look, I think liberals have reasonable gripes with Fox News. It does lean to the right, primarily in its opinion programming but also in its story selection (which is fine by me) and elsewhere. But it's worth remembering that Fox is less a bastion of ideological conservatism and more a populist, tabloid-like network."
Fox News host Bill O'Reilly
Bill O'Reilly (commentator)
William James "Bill" O'Reilly, Jr. is an American television host, author, syndicated columnist and political commentator. He is the host of the political commentary program The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, which is the most watched cable news television program on American television...
has stated that "Fox does tilt right," (although he states this in specific reference to the coverage of the Iraq war, not FNC's coverage in general), but that the network does not "actively campaign or try to help Bush-Cheney."
Media watchdogs
ProgressiveProgressivism in the United States
Progressivism in the United States is a broadly based reform movement that reached its height early in the 20th century and is generally considered to be middle class and reformist in nature. It arose as a response to the vast changes brought by modernization, such as the growth of large...
media watch dog
Watchdog journalism
Watchdog journalism aims to hold accountable public personalities and institutions, whose functions impact social and political life. The term "lapdog journalism", for journalism biased in favour of personalities and institutions, is sometimes used as a conceptual opposite to watchdog...
groups such as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting is a progressive media criticism organization based in New York City, founded in 1986.FAIR describes itself on its website as "the national media watch group" and defines its mission as working to "invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity...
(FAIR) and Media Matters for America
Media Matters for America
Media Matters for America is a politically progressive media watchdog group which says it is "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Set up as a 501 non-profit organization, MMfA was founded in 2004 by journalist and...
, have argued that Fox News reporting contains conservative editorializing within news stories. Others have referred to the network as "Faux
Faux
'Faux is a French word for "false".When manufacturing faux objects or materials, an attempt is often made to create products which will resemble the imitated items as closely as possible...
News", "GOP
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
-TV", "Fox Noise Channel", "Fox Nothing Channel", "Fixed News" and "Cluster Fox." FAIR also asserted that in a study of a 19 week period from January 2001 to May 2001 the ratio of conservative guests to liberals on Special Report with Brit Hume
Special Report with Brit Hume
Special Report with Bret Baier is an American television news and political commentary program appearing on Fox News Channel, currently hosted by Bret Baier. It airs live each Monday through Friday at 6:00pm ET. The show focuses on both reporting and analysis of the day's events, with a primary...
was 50:6, and obtained similar data from other Fox shows.
Accuracy in Media
Accuracy in Media
Accuracy In Media is an American, non-profit news media watchdog founded in 1969 by economist Reed Irvine. AIM describes itself as "a non-profit, grassroots citizens watchdog of the news media that critiques botched and bungled news stories and sets the record straight on important issues that...
has claimed that there was a conflict of interest in Fox News' co-sponsorship of the May 15, 2007, Republican presidential candidates debate, pointing out that candidate and former New York city mayor Rudolph Giuliani's law firm had tackled copyright protection and legislation on the purchase of cable TV lineups for News Corporation
News Corporation
News Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...
, the parent company of Fox News, and suggesting that Fox might be biased in favor of Giuliani's candidacy for the Republican Party presidential nomination.
Ownership and management
- Australian born media mogul Rupert MurdochRupert MurdochKeith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
is the Chairman and CEO of News CorporationNews CorporationNews Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...
, the owner of Fox News Channel. He has been a subject of controversy and criticism as a result of his substantial influence in both the print and broadcast media. In the United States, he is the publisher of the New York PostNew York PostThe New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
newspaper and the magazine The Weekly StandardThe Weekly StandardThe Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative opinion magazine published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a "redoubt of...
. Accusations against him include the "dumbing down" of news and introducing "mindless vulgarity" in place of genuine journalismJournalismJournalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
, and having his own outlets produce news that serve his own political and financial agendas. According to the BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
website: "To some he is little less than the devil incarnate, to others, the most progressive mover-and-shaker in the media business."
- Then-presidential candidate George W. BushGeorge W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
's cousin, John Prescott EllisJohn Prescott EllisJohn Prescott Ellis , formerly an American journalist and media consultant, and now a partner in the venture-capital firm Sand Hills Partners. He is a nephew of former President of the United States George H.W. Bush and a first cousin of former President George W...
, was Fox News' projection team manager during the general election of 2000. After speaking numerous times on election night with his cousins George and JebJeb BushJohn Ellis "Jeb" Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd Governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. He is a prominent member of the Bush family: the second son of former President George H. W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush; the younger brother of former President George W...
, Ellis, at 2:16 AM, reversed Fox News' call for FloridaFloridaFlorida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
as a state won by Al GoreAl GoreAlbert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
. Critics allege this was a premature decision, given the impossibly razor-thin margin (officially 537 of 5.9 million votes), which created the "lasting impression that Bush 'won' the White House – and all the legal wrangling down in Florida is just a case of Democratic 'snippiness'." Others, such as researcher John LottJohn LottJohn Richard Lott Jr. is an American academic and political commentator. He has previously held research positions at academic institutions including the University of Chicago, Yale University, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Maryland, College Park,...
, have responded that, by this reasoning, Fox News and the other networks were even more premature in initially calling the state for Gore, a call made while polls were still open, and which may have depressed voter turnout for Bush.
- On January 9, 2010, the son-in-law of News Corporation CEO Rupert MurdochRupert MurdochKeith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
and the husband of Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth, Matthew FreudMatthew FreudMatthew Freud is head of Freud Communications, an international public relations firm in the United Kingdom.-Biography:...
, stated he and other members of the media mogul's family are "ashamed and sickened" by the right leaning tendencies of Fox News in the opening salvo in a bid to displace Roger AilesRoger AilesRoger Eugene Ailes is president of Fox News Channel, chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group. Ailes was a media consultant for Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W...
, the founder and CEO of Fox News. In the previous Sunday New York Times news story featuring a profile on Roger Ailes, Freud was quoted saying "I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes' horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalist standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to, what you heard was a declaration of war, There are, practically speaking, now two factions inside of News Corp.: Ailes and Fox News, and the Murdoch children – with Rupert caught between them." Although Rupert Murdoch did not respond to the remark directly, a spokesperson for News Corporation put a statement after a Financial Times inquiry claiming “Matthew Freud’s opinions are his own and in no way reflect the views of Rupert Murdoch, who is proud of Roger Ailes and Fox News.” Tim ArangoTim ArangoTim Arango is an American journalist and current Baghdad bureau chief of The New York Times. He has previously reported for the Times about media and business, and was featured in the film Page One: Inside the New York Times....
also claims in Murdoch's 2008 biography that he voiced concerns privately to Ailes about his conduct claiming he was purportedly "embarrassed" by Fox News. Murdoch denied that claim.
- In June 2010, News Corporation donated $1 million to the Republican Governors AssociationRepublican Governors AssociationThe Republican Governors Association is a Washington, D.C.-based 527 organization founded in 1963, consisting of U.S. state and territorial governors affiliated with the Republican Party.Its Democratic Party counterpart is the Democratic Governors Association...
. News Corporation's political action committeePolitical action committeeIn the United States, a political action committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group, regardless of size, organized to elect political candidates or to advance the outcome of a political issue or legislation. Legally, what constitutes a "PAC" for purposes of regulation is a...
had previously split their contributions to Democrats and Republicans by a margin of 54% to 46%, respectively.
Polls and surveys
A poll conducted by Rasmussen ReportsRasmussen Reports
Rasmussen Reports is an American media company that publishes and distributes information based on public opinion polling. Founded by pollster Scott Rasmussen in 2003, the company updates daily indexes including the President's job approval rating, and provides public opinion data, analysis, and...
during September 2004 found that Fox News was second to CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
as the most politically biased network in the public view. 37% of respondents thought CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, in the wake of the memogate scandal, was trying to help elect John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
, while 34% of respondents said they believed that Fox's goal was to "help elect Bush." However, a poll conducted by Public Policy Polling
Public Policy Polling
Public Policy Polling is an American Democratic Party-affiliated polling firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina. PPP was founded in 2001 by businessman and Democratic pollster Dean Debnam, the firm's current president and chief executive officer...
in January 2010 found Fox News to be the only US television news network to receive a positive rating by the public for trustworthiness with results strongly split depending on the political affiliation of the respondents
A survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is an American think tank organization based in Washington, D.C. that provides information on issues, attitudes and trends shaping the United States and the world. The Center and its projects receive funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts. In 1990, Donald S...
showed "a striking rise in the politicization of cable TV news audiences . . . This pattern is most apparent with the fast-growing Fox News Channel." Another Pew survey of news consumption found that Fox News has not suffered a decline in credibility with its audience, with one in four (25%) saying they believe all or most of what they see on Fox News Channel, virtually unchanged since Fox was first tested in 2000.
According to the results of a 2006 study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism
Project for Excellence in Journalism
The Project for Excellence in Journalism is a non-profit research organization in the US that uses empirical methods to evaluate and study the performance of the press. It asserts that it is "non partisan, non ideological and non political"...
a survey of 547 journalists, found that Fox was most frequently cited by surveyed journalists as an outlet taking an ideological stance in its coverage, and most identified as advocating conservative
American conservatism
Conservatism in the United States has played an important role in American politics since the 1950s. Historian Gregory Schneider identifies several constants in American conservatism: respect for tradition, support of republicanism, preservation of "the rule of law and the Christian religion", and...
political positions, with 56% of national journalists citing Fox News as being especially conservative in its coverage of news. Additionally Fox was viewed as having the highest profile as a conservative news organization; it was cited unprompted by 69% of national journalists.
Studies and reports
The “2011 State of the News Media” Report by the Pew Center on Excellence in Journalism found that in 2010, Fox News Channel had average daytime audience of 1.2 million and nighttime viewership of 1.1 million, higher than its cable competitors but down 11% and 9% respectively from 2009. Fox's cumulative audience (unique viewers who watched at least 60 minutes in an average month) was 41.1 million, coming in second to CNN with 41.7 million. For 2010, CNN's digital network continued to lead Fox's digital network online; CNN with 35.7 million unique visitors per month, compared to Fox's 15.5 million. For the first time Fox outspent its competitors, with a total news investment of $686 million. 72% of this investment went to program costs, reflecting their focus on high profile hosts. They also increased their revenues 17% over 2009 to $1.5 billion, well ahead of second-place CNN at $1.2 billion.Content analysis studies
The Project on Excellence in Journalism report in 2006 showed that 68 percent of Fox cable stories contained personal opinions, as compared to MSNBC at 27 percent and CNN at 4 percent. The "content analysis" portion of their 2005 report also concluded that "Fox was measurably more one-sided than the other networks, and Fox journalists were more opinionated on the air."The documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism
Outfoxed
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism is a 2004 documentary film by filmmaker Robert Greenwald that criticises the Fox News Channel, and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, claiming that the channel is used to promote and advocate right-wing views...
claims that Fox reporters and anchors, rather than citing an anonymous
Anonymity
Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.There are many reasons why a...
source in order to advance a storyline, Fox personalities allegedly use the phrase "some people say" to include unattributed conservative opinion and commentary into reports. In the film, Media Matters for America president David Brock
David Brock
David Brock is an American journalist and author, the founder of the media watchdog group, Media Matters for America, and a Democratic political operative...
noted that some shows, like Fox's evening news program, Special Report with Brit Hume
Special Report with Brit Hume
Special Report with Bret Baier is an American television news and political commentary program appearing on Fox News Channel, currently hosted by Bret Baier. It airs live each Monday through Friday at 6:00pm ET. The show focuses on both reporting and analysis of the day's events, with a primary...
, tend to exhibit editorializing attitudes and behavior when on the air.
A 2006 University of California, Berkeley study cited that there was a correlation between the presence of the Fox News Channel in cable markets and increases in Republican votes in those markets.
Studies of reporting bias
In a 2006 academic content analysis of election news, Rasmussen Reports showed that coverage at ABC, CBS, and NBC was more favorable toward Kerry than Bush, while coverage at Fox News Channel were more favorable toward Bush.A study published in November 2005 by Tim Groseclose, a professor of political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
at UCLA, comparing political bias from such news outlets as the New York Times, USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, the Drudge Report
Drudge Report
The Drudge Report is a news aggregation website. Run by Matt Drudge with the help of Joseph Curl and Charles Hurt, the site consists mainly of links to stories from the United States and international mainstream media about politics, entertainment, and current events as well as links to many...
, the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, and Fox News’ Special Report, concluded "all of the news outlets we examine, except Fox News’ Special Report and the Washington Times, received scores to the left of the average member of Congress." In particular, Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume
Special Report with Brit Hume
Special Report with Bret Baier is an American television news and political commentary program appearing on Fox News Channel, currently hosted by Bret Baier. It airs live each Monday through Friday at 6:00pm ET. The show focuses on both reporting and analysis of the day's events, with a primary...
had an Americans for Democratic Action
Americans for Democratic Action
Americans for Democratic Action is an American political organization advocating progressive policies. ADA works for social and economic justice through lobbying, grassroots organizing, research and supporting progressive candidates.-History:...
rating that was right of the political center. Groseclose used the number of times a host cited a particular think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
on his or her program and compared it with the number of times a member of the U.S. Congress cited a think tank, correlating that with the politician's Americans for Democratic Action rating.
Geoff Nunberg, a professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley and a National Public Radio commentator, criticized the methodology of the study and labeled its conclusions invalid. He pointed to what he saw as a Groseclose's reliance on interpretations of facts and data that were taken from sources that were not, in his view, credible. Groseclose and Professor Jeff Milyo rebutted, saying Nunberg "shows a gross misunderstanding [of] our statistical method and the actual assumptions upon which it relies." Mark Liberman (a professor of Computer Science and the Director of Linguistic Data Consortium at the University of Pennsylvania), who helped post Groseclose and Milyo's rebuttal, later posted how the statistical methods used to calculate this bias pose faults. Mark concluded "that many if not most of the complaints directed against G&M are motivated in part by ideological disagreement — just as much of the praise for their work is motivated by ideological agreement. It would be nice if there were a less politically fraught body of data on which such modeling exercises could be explored."
A December 2007 study/examination by Robert Lichter
Samuel Robert Lichter
S. Robert Lichter is Professor of Communication at George Mason University, where he directs the Center for Media and Public Affairs, which conducts scientific studies of the news and entertainment media, and the Statistical Assessment Service , which works to improve the quality of statistical...
of a self-described nonpartisan
Nonpartisan
In political science, nonpartisan denotes an election, event, organization or person in which there is no formally declared association with a political party affiliation....
media watchdog group, the Center for Media and Public Affairs
Center for Media and Public Affairs
The Center for Media and Public Affairs is a self-described nonpartisan and nonprofit research and educational organization that is affiliated with George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. It was founded in 1985 by political scientists Dr. S. Robert Lichter and his ex-wife, the late Dr....
found that Fox News's evaluations of all of the 2008 Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
presidential candidates combined was 51% positive and 49% negative, while the network's evaluations of the Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
presidential candidates 51% negative and 49% positive. The study, however, did find that Fox's coverage was less negative toward Republican candidates than the coverage of broadcast networks.
Tests of knowledge of Fox viewers
A study by the Program on International Policy AttitudesProgram on International Policy Attitudes
The Program on International Policy Attitudes is an institution devoted to research on the public opinion of international politics...
(PIPA) at the University of Maryland
University of Maryland
When the term "University of Maryland" is used without any qualification, it generally refers to the University of Maryland, College Park.University of Maryland may refer to the following:...
School of Public Affairs, as published in the Winter 03-04 issue of the Political Science Quarterly
Political Science Quarterly
Political Science Quarterly is an American scholarly journal covering government, politics and policy, published continuously since 1886 by the Academy of Political Science. It is the oldest political science journal in the United States....
, reported that poll-based findings indicated that viewers of Fox News, the Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
and local Fox affiliates were more likely than viewers of other news networks to hold three purported misperceptions:
- 67% of Fox viewers believed that the "U.S. has found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al Qaeda terrorist organizationSaddam Hussein and al-QaedaSaddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations were made by U.S. Government officials who claimed that a highly secretive relationship existed between former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the radical Islamist militant organization Al-Qaeda from 1992 to 2003, specifically through a series of...
" (Compared with 56% for CBS, 49% for NBC, 48% for CNN, 45% for ABC, 16% for NPR/PBS).
- The belief that "The U.S. has found Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq" was held by 33% of Fox viewers and only 23% of CBS viewers, 19% for ABC, 20% for NBC, 20% for CNN and 11% for NPR/PBS
- 35% of Fox viewers believed that "the majority of people [in the world] favor the U.S. having gone to war" with Iraq. (Compared with 28% for CBS, 27% for ABC, 24% for CNN, 20% for NBC, 5% for NPR/PBS)
In response, Fox News frequent guest Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter
Ann Hart Coulter is an American lawyer, conservative social and political commentator, author, and syndicated columnist. She frequently appears on television, radio, and as a speaker at public events and private events...
characterized the PIPA findings as "misperceptions of pointless liberal factoids" and called it a "hoax poll." Bill O'Reilly
Bill O'Reilly (commentator)
William James "Bill" O'Reilly, Jr. is an American television host, author, syndicated columnist and political commentator. He is the host of the political commentary program The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, which is the most watched cable news television program on American television...
called the study "absolute crap." Roger Ailes referred to the study as "an old push poll
Push poll
A push poll is a political campaign technique in which an individual or organization attempts to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a poll. In a push poll, large numbers of respondents are contacted, and little or no effort is made to collect and analyze...
." James Taranto
James Taranto
James Taranto is an American columnist for The Wall Street Journal, editor of its online editorial page OpinionJournal.com and a member of the newspaper's editorial board. He is best known for his daily online column Best of the Web Today...
, editor of OpinionJournal.com, the Wall Street Journals online editorial page, called the poll "pure propaganda." PIPA issued a clarification on October 17, 2003, stating that "The findings were not meant to and cannot be used as a basis for making broad judgments about the general accuracy of the reporting of various networks or the general accuracy of the beliefs of those who get their news from those networks. Only a substantially more comprehensive study could undertake such broad research questions," and that the results of the poll show correlation, but do not prove causation.
PIPA also conducted a statistical study on purported misinformation evidenced by registered voters prior to the 2010 election. According to the results of the study, "...false or misleading information is widespread in the general information environment..." but viewers of Fox News were more likely to be misinformed on specific issues when compared to viewers of comparable media, that this liklihood also increased proportionally to the frequency of viewing Fox News and that these findings showed statistical significance
Statistical significance
In statistics, a result is called statistically significant if it is unlikely to have occurred by chance. The phrase test of significance was coined by Ronald Fisher....
. Media critic David Zurawik pointed to what he saw as weaknesses in the study, such as that certain government agencies are defined as holding the "true" positions on issues and that the study didn't differentiate between the influences of FNC shows as opposed to political ads that aired within shows.
A 2007 Pew Research Center poll of general political knowledge ("Who is the governor of your state?", "Who is the President of Russia?") indicated that Fox News Channel viewers scored 35% in the high-knowledge area, the same as the national average. This was not significantly different than local news, network news and morning news, and was slightly lower than CNN (41%). Viewers of The O'Reilly Factor (51%) scored in the high category along with Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III is an American radio talk show host, conservative political commentator, and an opinion leader in American conservatism. He hosts The Rush Limbaugh Show which is aired throughout the U.S. on Premiere Radio Networks and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United...
(50%), NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
(51%), major newspapers (54%), Newshour with Jim Lehrer (53%) The Daily Show
The Daily Show
The Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...
(54%) and The Colbert Report (54%).
A 2010 Stanford University survey found "more exposure to Fox News was associated with more rejection of many mainstream scientists’ claims about global warming, [and] with less trust in scientists". A 2011 Kaiser Family Foundation survey on U.S. misperceptions about health care reform similarly found that Fox News viewers scored lower for factual knowledge than other news viewers. A 2010 Ohio State University study of public misperceptions about the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" found that viewers who relied on Fox News were 66% more likely to believed incorrect rumors than those with "low reliance" on Fox News.
In 2011, a study by Fairleigh Dickinson University
Fairleigh Dickinson University
Fairleigh Dickinson University is a private university founded as a junior college in 1942. It now has several campuses located in New Jersey, Canada, and the United Kingdom.-Description:...
found that Fox News viewers were less well informed than people who did not watch any news at all. The study employed objective questions, such as whether Hosni Mubarak
Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011....
was still in power in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
.
Daily memos
Fox News executives exert a degree of editorial control over the content of their daily reporting. In the case of Fox News, some of this control comes in the form of daily memos issued by Fox News' Vice President of News, John MoodyJohn Moody (journalist)
John Moody is Chief Executive Officer of NewsCore, the internal wire service of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. He was previously Senior Vice President, News Editorial for the Fox News Channel.-Early life, education and career:...
. In the documentary Outfoxed
Outfoxed
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism is a 2004 documentary film by filmmaker Robert Greenwald that criticises the Fox News Channel, and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, claiming that the channel is used to promote and advocate right-wing views...
, former Fox News employees are interviewed to better understand the inner workings of Fox News. In memos from the documentary, Moody instructs employees on the approach to be taken on particular stories. Critics of Fox News claim that the instructions on many of the memos indicate a conservative bias. The Washington Post quoted Larry Johnson, a former part-time Fox News commentator, describing the Moody memos as "talking points instructing us what the themes are supposed to be, and God help you if you stray."
Former Fox News producer Charlie Reina explained, "The roots of Fox News Channel'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."
Photocopied memos from John Moody instructed the network's on-air anchors and reporters to use positive language when discussing pro-life
Pro-life
Opposition to the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-life, or anti-abortion, movement, a social and political movement opposing elective abortion on moral grounds and supporting its legal prohibition or restriction...
viewpoints, the Iraq war, and tax cuts, as well as requesting that the Abu Ghraib
Abu Ghraib
The city of Abu Ghraib in the Baghdad Governorate of Iraq is located just west of Baghdad's city center, or northwest of Baghdad International Airport. It has a population of 189,000. The old road to Jordan passes through Abu Ghraib...
prisoner abuse scandal be put in context with the other violence in the area. Such memos were reproduced for the film Outfoxed, which included Moody quotes such as, "The soldiers [seen on Fox in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
] in the foreground should be identified as 'sharpshooters,' not 'snipers,' which carries a negative connotation
Connotation
A connotation is a commonly understood subjective cultural or emotional association that some word or phrase carries, in addition to the word's or phrase's explicit or literal meaning, which is its denotation....
."
Two days after the 2006 election, The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
reported they had acquired a copy of a leaked internal memo from Mr. Moody that recommended: "…[L]et's be on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem-controlled congress." Within hours of the memo's publication, Fox News anchor Martha McCallum, went on-air on the program The Live Desk
The Live Desk
The Live Desk was an American news/talk program on the Fox News Channel. It was cancelled and replaced with America Live with Megyn Kelly-About the show:...
with reports of Iraqi insurgents cheering the firing of Donald Rumsfeld and the results of the 2006 congressional election.
Bill Sammon e-mails
In December 2010, Media Matters for AmericaMedia Matters for America
Media Matters for America is a politically progressive media watchdog group which says it is "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Set up as a 501 non-profit organization, MMfA was founded in 2004 by journalist and...
released a leaked October 2009 e-mail between Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon
Bill Sammon
Bill Sammon is Fox News Washington managing editor and a vice president for the network, as well as a published author and newspaper columnist. He previously worked as White House correspondent for the Washington Times and the Washington Examiner before joining Fox News in August 2008.-Personal...
and the network's senior producers, which seemed to issue directives slanting Fox News' coverage of President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
's health care reform
Health care reform
Health care reform is a general rubric used for discussing major health policy creation or changes—for the most part, governmental policy that affects health care delivery in a given place...
efforts. In the e-mail, Sammon instructed producers to not use the phrase "public option" when discussing a key measure of President Obama's reform bill, and instead use the terms "government option" or "government-run health insurance", noting negative connotations; Sammon also suggested that the qualifier "so-called" be said before any proper mention of the public option. Another e-mail by Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente accepted Sammon's conditions. Critics claimed that Sammon took advice from Republican pollster Frank Luntz
Frank Luntz
Frank I. Luntz is an American political consultant and pollster. His most recent work has been with the Fox News Channel as a frequent commentator and analyst, as well as running focus groups after presidential debates...
, who appeared on Hannity
Hannity
Hannity is a television show on the Fox News network, a replacement to the long-running show Hannity & Colmes. It is hosted by conservative political pundit Sean Hannity....
shortly before the e-mail was written and made the same suggestions in identifying the public option. Critics also noticed that reporters and panelists on Special Report with Bret Baier used the term "public option" before the e-mail was sent, but used the term "government option" immediately afterwards. Sammon, in an interview with Howard Kurtz
Howard Kurtz
Howard "Howie" Alan Kurtz is an American journalist and author with a special focus on the media. He is host of CNN's Reliable Sources program, and Washington bureau chief for The Daily Beast. He is the former media writer for The Washington Post. He has written five books about the media...
for The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast is an American news reporting and opinion website founded and published by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker as well as the short-lived Talk Magazine. The Daily Beast was launched on October 6, 2008, and is owned by IAC...
, defended the directive and denied he was trying to skew Fox News' coverage.
Later that month, Media Matters released an e-mail by Sammon from December 2009, in which he pressured Fox News reporters to include the views of climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
skeptics in light of the Climategate controversy.
Talking points from Bush White House
What Happened
What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception is the #1 New York Times bestseller of Scott McClellan, who served as White House Press Secretary from 2003 until 2006 under President George W. Bush. The book was scheduled to be released on June 2, 2008; however,...
, Scott McClellan
Scott McClellan
Scott McClellan is a former White House Press Secretary for President George W. Bush, and author of a controversial No. 1 New York Times bestseller about the Bush Administration titled What Happened. He replaced Ari Fleischer as press secretary in July 2003 and served until May 10, 2006...
, former White House Press Secretary
White House Press Secretary
The White House Press Secretary is a senior White House official whose primary responsibility is to act as spokesperson for the government administration....
(2003–2006) for President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
stated on the July 25, 2008, edition of MSNBC
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
's Hardball with Chris Matthews
Hardball with Chris Matthews
Hardball with Chris Matthews is a talk show on MSNBC, broadcast weekdays at 5 and 7 PM hosted by Chris Matthews. It originally aired on now-defunct America's Talking and later CNBC. The current title was derived from a book Matthews wrote in 1988, Hardball: How Politics Is Played Told by One Who...
that the Bush White House routinely gave talking points to Fox News commentators — but not journalists — in order to influence discourse and content. McClellan stated that these talking points were not issued to provide the public with news, but were issued to provide Fox News commentators with issues and perspectives favorable to the White House and Republican Party.
McClellan later apologized to Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly
Bill O'Reilly (commentator)
William James "Bill" O'Reilly, Jr. is an American television host, author, syndicated columnist and political commentator. He is the host of the political commentary program The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, which is the most watched cable news television program on American television...
for not responding to Matthews' suggestion that "Bill" or "Sean
Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity is an American radio and television host, author, and conservative political commentator. He is the host of The Sean Hannity Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. Hannity also hosts a cable news show, Hannity,...
" received the talking points; McClellan said he had no personal knowledge that O'Reilly ever received the talking points. Furthermore he pointed out "the way a couple of questions were phrased in that interview along with my response left things open to interpretation and I should not have let that happen."
Wikipedia edits
In August 2007, a new utility, Wikipedia Scanner, revealed that Wikipedia articles relating to Fox News had been edited from IP addressIP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
es owned by Fox News, though it was not possible to determine exactly who the editors were. The tool showed that self-referential edits from IP ranges owned by corporations and news agencies were not uncommon, including from The New York Times. Fox edits received attention in the blogosphere
Blogosphere
The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions...
and on some online news sites. Wikipedia articles edited from Fox computers from 2005 through 2007 included Al Franken
Al Franken
Alan Stuart "Al" Franken is the junior United States Senator from Minnesota. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which affiliates with the national Democratic Party....
, Keith Olbermann
Keith Olbermann
Keith Theodore Olbermann is an American political commentator and writer. He has been the chief news officer of the Current TV network and the host of Current TV's weeknight political commentary program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, since June 20, 2011...
, Chris Wallace
Chris Wallace (journalist)
Christopher "Chris" Wallace is an American journalist, currently the host of the Fox Network program, Fox News Sunday. Wallace has won three Emmy Awards, the Dupont-Columbia Silver Baton Award, and a Peabody Award. Wallace has been with Fox News since 2003...
and Brit Hume
Brit Hume
Brit Hume is an American television journalist and political commentator.For twenty years he was a correspondent for the American Broadcasting Company, including Chief White House Correspondent. He then spent ten years as the Washington, D.C. managing editor of the Fox News Channel and the anchor...
.
Photo manipulation
Brian Kilmeade
Brian Kilmeade a Fox News Channel television personality. Weekdays, he co-hosts Fox's morning show, Fox & Friends, along with Steve Doocy and Gretchen Carlson. Kilmeade also co-hosts Brian and the Judge, a talk-news radio show on Fox News Radio, with Judge Andrew P. Napolitano...
and Steve Doocy
Steve Doocy
Stephen James "Steve" Doocy is an American network-television personality on the Fox News Channel, journalist, and a best selling author.-Early life:...
aired photos of New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg
Jacques Steinberg
Jacques P. Steinberg is an American journalist and author who covers the media, primarily television, for The New York Times cultural news desk....
and Times television editor Steven Reddicliffe that appeared to have been crudely doctored, apparently in order to portray the journalists unflatteringly. This occurred during a discussion of a piece in the June 28 edition of The New York Times, which pointed out what Steinberg called "ominous trends" in Fox News' ratings.
According to Media Matters
Media Matters for America
Media Matters for America is a politically progressive media watchdog group which says it is "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Set up as a 501 non-profit organization, MMfA was founded in 2004 by journalist and...
, the photos depict New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg with yellowed teeth, "his nose and chin widened, and his ears made to protrude further." The other image, of Times television editor Steven Reddicliffe, had similar yellow teeth, as well as "dark circles ... under his eyes, and his hairline has been moved back."
During the discussion, Doocy called the Times report, written by Steinberg, a "hit piece" ordered up by Reddicliffe. The broadcast then showed an image of Steinberg's face superimposed over a picture of a poodle, while Reddicliffe's face was superimposed over the man holding the poodle's leash.
Times culture editor Sam Sifton
Sam Sifton
Sam Sifton is an American journalist working for the New York Times. Sifton's posts at the Times have included deputy dining editor ; dining editor ; deputy culture editor and culture editor .....
called the photo that was aired on Fox "disgusting," and the criticism of the paper's reporting a "specious and meritless claim" while denying that it was a "hit piece."
9/12 newspaper ad controversy
On September 18, 2009, Fox News Channel took out full-page ads in The Washington PostThe Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
, and The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
with a prominent caption reading, "How did ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN miss this story?" with pictures of a Tea Party movement
Tea Party movement
The Tea Party movement is an American populist political movement that is generally recognized as conservative and libertarian, and has sponsored protests and supported political candidates since 2009...
protest on the United States Capitol
United States Capitol
The United States Capitol is the meeting place of the United States Congress, the legislature of the federal government of the United States. Located in Washington, D.C., it sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall...
lawn. A still picture in the ad was in fact taken from a CNN broadcast covering the event. The veracity of this ad was called into question on the air by then-CNN commentator Rick Sanchez
Rick Sanchez
Ricardo León "Rick" Sánchez de Reinaldo , known professionally as Rick Sanchez, is a Cuban-American journalist, author and former TV news anchor...
, along with others pointing to various coverage of the event. CNN, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, and CBS Radio News provided various forms of live coverage of the rally in Washington throughout the day on Saturday, including the lead story on CBS Evening News.
Fox News' vice president of marketing, Michael Tammero, responded, "it's fair to say that from the tea party movement . . . to ACORN . . . to the march on 9/12, the networks either ignored the story, marginalized it or misrepresented the significance of it altogether."
Obama administration conflict with Fox News
In September 2009, the Obama administration engaged in a verbal conflict with Fox News Channel. On September 20, 2009, President ObamaBarack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
appeared on all the major news programs except Fox News, a snub partially in response to remarks about the President by commentators Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and general coverage by Fox with regard to Obama's Health Care proposal. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace called White House administration officials "crybabies" in response. Following this, a senior Obama adviser told U.S. News that the White House would never get a fair shake from Fox News.
In late September 2009, Obama senior advisor David Axelrod
David Axelrod
David Axelrod may refer to:* David Axelrod * David Axelrod , Senior Advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama* David B. Axelrod , poet and educator...
and Roger Ailes met in secret to try to smooth out tensions between the two camps without much success. Two weeks later, White House officials referred to FNC as “not a news network", communications director Anita Dunn asserting that “Fox News often operates as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.” President Obama followed with "If media is operating basically as a talk radio format, then that's one thing, and if it's operating as a news outlet, then that's another," and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Israel Emanuel is an American politician and the 55th and current Mayor of Chicago. He was formerly White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama...
stated that it was important "to not have the CNN's and the others in the world basically be led in following Fox."
Within days it was reported that Fox had been excluded from an interview with administration official Ken Feinberg, with bureau chiefs from the White House Pool (ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN) coming to the defense of Fox. One of the major bureau chiefs stated, "If any member had been excluded it would have been the same thing, it has nothing to do with Fox or the White House or the substance of the issues." Shortly after this story broke the White House admitted to a low-level mistake, but that said that Fox had not made a specific request to interview Feinberg. Fox White House correspondent Major Garrett responded by stating that he had not made a specific request, but that he had a "standing request from me as senior White House correspondent on Fox to interview any newsmaker at the Treasury at any given time news is being made."
On November 8, 2009 the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
reported that an unnamed Democratic consultant was warned by the White House not to appear on Fox News again. According to the article, Anita Dunn claimed in an e-mail to have checked with colleagues who "deal with TV issues" and had been told that nobody had been instructed to avoid Fox. Patrick Caddell
Patrick Caddell
Patrick Hayward "Pat" Caddell is an American public opinion pollster and a political film consultant.-Biography:...
, a Fox News contributor and former pollster for President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
said he had spoken with other Democratic consultants who had received similar warnings from the White House.
Video footage manipulation
Comedian Jon StewartJon Stewart
Jon Stewart is an American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian...
reported on his November 10, 2009 broadcast of The Daily Show
The Daily Show
The Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...
that Fox News pundit Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity is an American radio and television host, author, and conservative political commentator. He is the host of The Sean Hannity Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. Hannity also hosts a cable news show, Hannity,...
misrepresented video footage purportedly showing large crowds on a health-care protest orchestrated by Rep. Michele Bachmann
Michele Bachmann
Michele Marie Bachmann is a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing , a post she has held since 2007. The district includes several of the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities, such as Woodbury, and Blaine as well as Stillwater and St. Cloud.She is currently a...
. Stewart showed inconsistencies in alternating shots according to the color of the sky and tree leaves, showing that spliced in the shots was footage from Glenn Beck's much larger 9/12 rally
Taxpayer March on Washington
The Taxpayer March on Washington was a Tea Party protest march from Freedom Plaza to the United States Capitol that was held on September 12, 2009, in Washington, D.C. The event coincided with other similar protests organized in various cities across the nation...
which had occurred two months earlier. Hannity estimated 20,000 protesters were in attendance, the Washington Post estimated 10,000 and Luke Russert
Luke Russert
Luke Russert is an American television and radio personality. He has followed in the footsteps of his father, Tim Russert, who was prominent in the television news industry. His mother is Maureen Orth, special correspondent for Vanity Fair. He has co-hosted a sports talk program on XM radio with...
reported that three Capitol Hill police officers guessed "about 4,000." Sean Hannity apologized to his viewers for the error during his November 11, 2009 broadcast.
On November 18, 2009, Fox News anchor Gregg Jarrett
Gregg Jarrett
Gregory Walter "Gregg" Jarrett is an American news anchor for Fox News Channel.Joining the network in November 2002, he co-anchors weekend newscasts with Julie Banderas and serves as a substitute anchor weekdays...
told viewers that a Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin
Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...
book signing in Grand Rapids, Michigan had a massive turnout while showing footage of Palin with a large crowd. Jarrett noted that the former Republican vice-presidential candidate is "continuing to draw huge crowds while she's promoting her brand-new book", adding that the images being shown were "some of the pictures just coming in to us.... The lines earlier had formed this morning." The video was actually taken from a 2008 McCain/Palin campaign rally. Fox senior vice-president of news Michael Clemente issued an initial statement saying, "This was a production error in which the copy editor changed a script and didn't alert the control room to update the video." Fox offered an on-air apology the following day during the same "Happening Now" segment citing regrets for what they described as a "video error" with no intent to mislead.
Notable pundits
- Glenn BeckGlenn BeckGlenn Edward Lee Beck is an American conservative radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host. He hosts the Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks...
, the host of an eponymous afternoon commentary show, stated in 2009 that he believes President Obama is "a racist" and has "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture." These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott promulgated by Color of ChangeColor of ChangeColor of Change is a Web-based grassroots organization that aims to strengthen the political voice of Black America. It was formed after the events of Hurricane Katrina, a powerful storm that devastated much of the north-central Gulf Coast...
. The boycott resulted in 80 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming, to avoid associating their brands with content that could be considered offensive by potential customers. He later apologized for the remarks, telling Fox News SundayFox News SundayFox News Sunday with Chris Wallace is a public affairs program on the Fox network, hosted by Chris Wallace and airing on Sunday mornings. The show began on April 28, 1996, which predated the launch of Fox News Channel, and usually talks about items similar to Sunday morning talk shows...
anchor Chris WallaceChris Wallace (journalist)Christopher "Chris" Wallace is an American journalist, currently the host of the Fox Network program, Fox News Sunday. Wallace has won three Emmy Awards, the Dupont-Columbia Silver Baton Award, and a Peabody Award. Wallace has been with Fox News since 2003...
that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as racism what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black liberation theologyBlack liberation theologyBlack liberation theology, sometimes shortened to black theology, is a relatively new theological perspective found in some Christian churches in the United States. It maintains that African Americans must be liberated from multiple forms of bondage — political, social, economic, and religious...
. Glenn Beck left Fox News in June 2011 after 29 months with the network.
- Neil CavutoNeil CavutoNeil Patrick Cavuto is an American television anchor and commentator on the Fox Business Network and host of three television programs, Your World with Neil Cavuto and Cavuto on Business, both on the Fox News Channel and Cavuto on sister channel Fox Business Network.Cavuto also tapes a nightly...
, who is also Fox News' vice president of business news and a current member of the network's executive committee, was described as a "Bush apologist" by critics after conducting an allegedly deferential interview with President George W. Bush. Democratic strategists and politicians boycotted Cavuto's show in 2004 after he claimed, on air, that Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was rooting for Senator John KerryJohn KerryJohn Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
. Cavuto has also received criticism for gratuitous footage and photos of scantily clad supermodelSupermodelThe term supermodel refers to a highly-paid fashion model who usually has a worldwide reputation and often a background in haute couture and commercial modeling. The term became prominent in the popular culture of the 1980s. Supermodels usually work for top fashion designers and labels...
s and adult film stars on his show, Your World with Neil CavutoYour World with Neil CavutoYour World with Neil Cavuto , which debuted as the Cavuto Business Report on the network's launch in 1996, is an American business television program appearing on Fox News Channel.-About the program:...
.
- Alan ColmesAlan ColmesAlan Samuel Colmes is an American radio/television host, liberal political commentator for the Fox News Channel, and blogger. He is the host of The Alan Colmes Show, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show distributed by Fox News Radio that also airs throughout the United States on Fox News Talk...
is touted by Fox as "a hard-hitting liberal", who was used to counter the conservative opinions of his co-host, conservative talk radio personality Sean HannitySean HannitySean Hannity is an American radio and television host, author, and conservative political commentator. He is the host of The Sean Hannity Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. Hannity also hosts a cable news show, Hannity,...
on the political debate program Hannity & ColmesHannity & ColmesHannity & Colmes was a live television show on Fox News Channel in the United States, hosted by Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes, who respectively presented a conservative and liberal perspective. The series premiered on October 6, 1996, and the final episode aired on January 9, 2009. It was the...
. However, while speaking to USA TodayUSA TodayUSA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, he said: "I'm quite moderate." He has been characterized by several newspapers as being Sean Hannity's "sidekick." Liberal commentator and Minnesota Senator Al FrankenAl FrankenAlan Stuart "Al" Franken is the junior United States Senator from Minnesota. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which affiliates with the national Democratic Party....
lambasted Colmes in his book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell ThemLies and the Lying Liars Who Tell ThemLies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them is a satirical book on American politics by comedian, political commentator and now Senator Al Franken, published in 2003 by Dutton, a subsidiary in the Penguin Group. Franken had a study group of 14 Harvard graduate students known as "TeamFranken" to help him...
. Throughout the book, Colmes' name is printed in smaller type than all other words to emphasize Franken's belief that Colmes' role was to feebly defend liberal positions, allowing him to be bulldozed by Hannity. Franken accuses him of refusing to ask tough questions during debates and neglecting to challenge erroneous claims made by Hannity or his guests.
- John GibsonJohn Gibson (media host)John David Gibson is an American radio talk show host. As of September 2008, he hosts the syndicated radio program The John Gibson Show on Fox News Radio. Gibson was formerly the co-host of the weekday edition of The Big Story on the Fox News television channel.-Early career:Gibson earned a BA...
, the former host of an afternoon hour of news coverage called The Big StoryThe Big StoryThe Big Story, which debuted in 2000, was an American news/talk television program on the Fox News Channel, hosted by John Gibson and Heather Nauert weekdays. It was taken off in March 2008, replaced with America's Election Headquarters, an hour of news related to the 2008 United States...
, was cited as an example of Fox News blurring the lines between objective reporting and opinion/editorial programming. Gibson angered some people immediately after the 2000 presidential election controversy when, during the opinion segment of his show, Gibson said: "Is this a case where knowing the facts actually would be worse than not knowing? I mean, should we burn these ballots, preserve them in amber, or shred them?" and "George Bush is going to be president. And who needs to know that he's not a legitimate president?" In an opinion piece on the Hutton InquiryHutton InquiryThe Hutton Inquiry was a 2003 judicial inquiry in the UK chaired by Lord Hutton, who was appointed by the Labour government to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly, a biological warfare expert and former UN weapons inspector in Iraq.On 18 July 2003, Kelly, an employee...
decision, Gibson said the BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
had "a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism that was obsessive, irrational and dishonest" and that the BBC reporter, Andrew GilliganAndrew GilliganAndrew Paul Gilligan is a British journalist best known for a 2003 report on BBC Radio 4's The Today Programme in which he said a British government briefing paper on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction had been 'sexed up', a claim that ultimately led to a public inquiry that criticised Gilligan...
, "insisted on air that the Iraqi Army was heroically repulsing an incompetent American Military." In reviewing viewer complaints, OfcomOfcomOfcom is the government-approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom. Ofcom was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002. It received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003...
(the United Kingdom's statutory broadcasting regulator) ruled that Fox News had breached the program code in three areas: "respect for truth", "opportunity to take part", and "personal opinions expressed (in an opinion slot) must not rest upon false evidence." Fox News admitted that Gilligan had not actually said the words that John Gibson appeared to attribute to him; Ofcom rejected the claim that it was intended to be a paraphrase. (See). Gibson has also called Joe WilsonJoseph C. WilsonJoseph Charles Wilson IV is a former United States diplomat best known for his 2002 trip to Niger to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase yellowcake uranium; his New York Times op-ed piece, "What I Didn't Find in Africa"; and the subsequent "outing" of his wife...
a "liar", claimed that "the far left" is working for Al Qaeda and stated that he wished that Paris had been host to the 2012 Olympic Games, because it would have subjected the city to the threat of terrorism instead of London. Gibson ran a segment on the exchange between Ron PaulRon PaulRonald Ernest "Ron" Paul is an American physician, author and United States Congressman who is seeking to be the Republican Party candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Paul represents Texas's 14th congressional district, which covers an area south and southwest of Houston that includes...
and Rudy GiulianiRudy GiulianiRudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani KBE is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001....
at the Republican primary debate on the motives of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The majority of the segment was centered around the 9/11 Truth movement; Gibson said that the movement has "infected" many people "including Ron Paul", though Ron Paul has never subscribed to 9/11 conspiracy theories, and believes that Al-QaedaAl-QaedaAl-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
perpetrated the attacks. Gibson was also harshly criticized when, on his radio program, he repeatedly mocked Jon StewartJon StewartJon Stewart is an American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian...
's reaction to 9/11 on The Daily ShowThe Daily ShowThe Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...
. Some allege that this incident lead to his dismissal at Fox.
- Steven MilloySteven MilloySteven J. Milloy is a commentator for Fox News and runs the Web site junkscience.com, which is dedicated to "debunking" what Milloy labels "faulty scientific data and analysis." On Fox News Channel he is billed as a "Junk Science commentator." He describes himself as a libertarian.Among the topics...
, the commentator for FoxNews.com, has been critical of the science behind global warmingGlobal warmingGlobal warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
and secondhand smoke as a carcinogen. In a February 6, 2006, article in The New RepublicThe New RepublicThe magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, Paul D. ThackerPaul D. ThackerPaul D. Thacker, sometimes bylined as Paul Thacker, is an American journalist who specializes in science, medicine and environmental reporting. He has written for Science, Journal of the American Medical Association, Salon.com, and The New Republic, and Environmental Science & Technology...
revealed that ExxonMobilExxonMobilExxon Mobil Corporation or ExxonMobil, is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. Its headquarters are in Irving, Texas...
had donated $90,000 to two non-profit organizationNon-profit organizationNonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
s run out of Milloy's house. In addition, Milloy received almost $100,000 a year from Philip MorrisPhilip Morris USAPhilip Morris USA is the United States tobacco division of Altria Group, Inc. Philip Morris USA brands include Marlboro, Virginia Slims, Benson and Hedges, Merit, Parliament, Alpine, Basic, Cambridge, Bucks, Dave's, Chesterfield, Collector's Choice, Commander, English Ovals, Lark, L&M, Players and...
during the time he was arguing that secondhand smoke was not carcinogenic. Milloy's website, junkscience.com, was reviewed and revised by a public relationsPublic relationsPublic relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
firm hired by RJR Tobacco. In response to Thacker's disclosure of this conflict of interestConflict of interestA conflict of interest occurs when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other....
, Paul Schur, director of media relations for Fox News, stated that "...Fox News was unaware of Milloy's connection with Philip Morris. Any affiliation he had should have been disclosed."
Discredited military and counterterrorism editor
- The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
ran an article entitled "At Fox News, the Colonel Who Wasn't" by Jim RutenbergJim RutenbergJim Rutenberg is a political correspondent for the New York Times. He is married to actress Ondine Karady. He has written more than 1600 articles for the paper.-Stories by Jim Rutenberg:...
, revealing that Joseph A. CafassoJoseph A. CafassoJoseph Anthony Cafasso, Jr. is a former Fox News consultant on military and counterterrorism issues who left the network after allegations surfaced that he misrepresented his military record.-Early life:...
, whom Fox had employed for four months as a Military and Counterterrorism Editor, had bogus military credentials. Cafasso makes a 15 second appearance making pronouncements about the religious biases behind the Fox News reporting in Outfoxed.
Criticism of media coverage
- Outfoxed, a documentary film on Fox News by liberal activist Robert GreenwaldRobert GreenwaldRobert Greenwald is an American film director, film producer, and political activist.-Early life:Greenwald was born and raised in New York City, the son of Ruth and Harold Greenwald. He attended the city's High School of Performing Arts...
, makes allegations of bias in Fox News by interviewing a number of former employees who discuss the network's practices. For example, Frank O'Donnell, identified as a Fox News producer, says: "We were stunned, because up until that point, we were allowed to do legitimate news. Suddenly, we were ordered from the top to carry [...] Republican, right-wingRight-wing politicsIn politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
propaganda", including being told what to say about Ronald ReaganRonald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
. The network made an official response and claimed that four of the individuals identified as employees of Fox News either were not employees (O'Donnell, e.g., worked for an affiliate over which Fox News claims to have no editorial authority) or had their titles inflated. - CNN founder Ted TurnerTed TurnerRobert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...
accused Fox News of being "dumbed down" and "propaganda" and equated the network's popularity to Adolf HitlerAdolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's rise to power in 1930's Germany, during a speech to the National Association of Television Program Executives. In response, a Fox News spokesperson said "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network, and now his mind. We wish him well." The Anti-Defamation LeagueAnti-Defamation LeagueThe Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...
, to whom Turner had apologized in the past for a similar comparison, said Turner is "a recidivistRecidivismRecidivism is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have either experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or have been treated or trained to extinguish that behavior...
who hasn't learned from his past mistakes." - Progressive media watchdog group Media Matters criticized Your World with Neil CavutoYour World with Neil CavutoYour World with Neil Cavuto , which debuted as the Cavuto Business Report on the network's launch in 1996, is an American business television program appearing on Fox News Channel.-About the program:...
for its focus on soft news stories. The show is targeted for its gratuitous footage and photos of scantily clad supermodels and porn stars.
Criticism of ethics
- During the Terri Schiavo caseTerri Schiavo caseThe Terri Schiavo case was a legal battle in the United States between the legal guardians and the parents of Teresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo that lasted from 1998 to 2005...
in early 2005, most of the commentators on Fox News — Sean HannitySean HannitySean Hannity is an American radio and television host, author, and conservative political commentator. He is the host of The Sean Hannity Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. Hannity also hosts a cable news show, Hannity,...
, Brit HumeBrit HumeBrit Hume is an American television journalist and political commentator.For twenty years he was a correspondent for the American Broadcasting Company, including Chief White House Correspondent. He then spent ten years as the Washington, D.C. managing editor of the Fox News Channel and the anchor...
, Bill O'ReillyBill O'Reilly (commentator)William James "Bill" O'Reilly, Jr. is an American television host, author, syndicated columnist and political commentator. He is the host of the political commentary program The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, which is the most watched cable news television program on American television...
, Neil CavutoNeil CavutoNeil Patrick Cavuto is an American television anchor and commentator on the Fox Business Network and host of three television programs, Your World with Neil Cavuto and Cavuto on Business, both on the Fox News Channel and Cavuto on sister channel Fox Business Network.Cavuto also tapes a nightly...
, and John GibsonJohn Gibson (media host)John David Gibson is an American radio talk show host. As of September 2008, he hosts the syndicated radio program The John Gibson Show on Fox News Radio. Gibson was formerly the co-host of the weekday edition of The Big Story on the Fox News television channel.-Early career:Gibson earned a BA...
— called for her feeding tube to be reinserted. ProgressiveProgressivism in the United StatesProgressivism in the United States is a broadly based reform movement that reached its height early in the 20th century and is generally considered to be middle class and reformist in nature. It arose as a response to the vast changes brought by modernization, such as the growth of large...
media watchdog Media Matters for America (MMFA) criticized Fox for their coverage of the affair, saying that Fox took sides by referring to it as "Terri's Fight." It also noted that Fox generally failed to disclose Schindler family spokesman Randall TerryRandall TerryRandall Almira Terry is an American pro-life activist and candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for President in 2012. Terry founded the pro-life organization Operation Rescue. The group became particularly prominent beginning in 1987 for blockading the entrances to abortion clinics;...
's anti-abortion activism as the head of Operation RescueOperation RescueOperation Rescue is a pro-life organization which originated in California and is now based in Kansas....
. When O'Reilly's stated that "the battle over Terri Schiavo's life came down pretty much along secular-religious lines. Roman Catholics and other right-to-life-based religions generally wanted Ms. Schiavo to live", Media Matters noted that although evangelical Christians had been closely divided on the issue of removing Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube, both CatholicCatholicThe word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
s and non-Evangelical Protestants were overwhelmingly in favor of doing so. When Gibson's offering the suggestion that the "political divide" was "Republicans stand for parents' right and life, and Democrats have sided for [a] questionable husband and dying", MMFA noted that in fact, a majority of Republicans also supported removal of the feeding tube. When Democrats provided the media with a memo written by staffers of Republican Senator Mel MartinezMel MartinezMelquíades Rafael Martínez Ruiz, usually known as Mel Martinez , is a former United States Senator from Florida and served as Chairman of the Republican Party from November 2006 until October 19, 2007, the first Latino to serve as chairman of a major party...
suggesting ways in which the Republicans could use the issue for political gain, Fox News personalities suggested that Democrats might have forged the memo. Senator Martinez later admitted that someone on his staff had written it, and MMFA noted that Hume did not later mention that he had suggested an alternative possibility.
- Carl CameronCarl CameronCarl Cameron is an American television journalist and commentator for Fox News Channel.-Early life and education:As a child Cameron spent several years in Iran, where his father worked as an archaeologist....
, chief political correspondent of Fox News, authored a bogus "news article" on the Fox News website in October 2004. It contained three fabricated quotes attributed to DemocraticDemocratic Party (United States)The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
presidential candidate John KerryJohn KerryJohn Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
. Fox News retracted the story and apologized, calling it a "jest" that became published through "fatigue and bad judgment, not malice."
Criticism of individuals
- Media MattersMedia Matters for AmericaMedia Matters for America is a politically progressive media watchdog group which says it is "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Set up as a 501 non-profit organization, MMfA was founded in 2004 by journalist and...
contends that Fox specializes in "political sabotage" by putting up moderate-to-conservative "Democrats" as token liberals against more staunchly conservative Republicans. It cites the following people as examples of this:- Pat Caddell – called the Democratic party a "confederacy of gangsters" and defended conservative writer Ann CoulterAnn CoulterAnn Hart Coulter is an American lawyer, conservative social and political commentator, author, and syndicated columnist. She frequently appears on television, radio, and as a speaker at public events and private events...
when she said she could not talk about former Senator and presidential candidate John EdwardsJohn EdwardsJohnny Reid "John" Edwards is an American politician, who served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.He defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in...
if a homophobic epithet she used was off-limits. - Susan EstrichSusan EstrichSusan Estrich is an American lawyer, professor, author, political operative, feminist advocate, and political commentator for Fox News.-Early life:...
– known for her opposition to liberal Democrats and support for the Democratic Leadership CouncilDemocratic Leadership CouncilThe Democratic Leadership Council was a non-profit 501 corporation that, upon its formation, argued the United States Democratic Party should shift away from the leftward turn it took in the late 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s...
, and once told Sean HannitySean HannitySean Hannity is an American radio and television host, author, and conservative political commentator. He is the host of The Sean Hannity Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. Hannity also hosts a cable news show, Hannity,...
that she was his "biggest liberalLiberalismLiberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
friend." - Zell MillerZell MillerZell Bryan Miller is an American politician from the US state of Georgia. A Democrat, Miller served as Lieutenant Governor from 1975 to 1991, 79th Governor of Georgia from 1991 to 1999, and as United States Senator from 2000 to 2005....
– a frequent guest on Fox News and a major critic of the Democratic Party. Miller spoke at the 2004 Republican National Convention.
- Pat Caddell – called the Democratic party a "confederacy of gangsters" and defended conservative writer Ann Coulter
- Another allegation of Fox's critics is that it sometimes ridicules protesters, especially ones for liberal causes. For example, during the 2004 Republican National ConventionRepublican National ConventionThe Republican National Convention is the presidential nominating convention of the Republican Party of the United States. Convened by the Republican National Committee, the stated purpose of the convocation is to nominate an official candidate in an upcoming U.S...
, Bill O'Reilly referred to some of the protesters as "terrorists" (though he added, "most protesters are peaceful"). Fox News online columnist Mike StrakaMike StrakaMike Straka is an American television host, author and journalist. He is the host of Fighting Words with Mike Straka on HDNet which features interviews with mixed martial arts athletes. He is also a regular contributor to FIGHT! Magazine, and has penned an MMA book based on interviews from his...
referred to anti-war protesters at the September 24, 2005, march in Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
as "jobless, anti-American, clueless, smelly, stupid traitors" and "protesters from hell."'
- IranIranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian-Swedish newspaper commentator Behrang Kianzad wrote in the ExpressenExpressenExpressen is one of two nationwide evening tabloid newspapers in Sweden, the other being Aftonbladet. Expressen was founded in 1944; its symbol is a wasp and slogans "it stings" or "Expressen to your rescue", always on the reader's side....
newspaper that "there are lies, damned lies and Fox News", in response to a Fox News story about allegedly MuslimMuslimA Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
violence in the city of MalmöMalmöMalmö , in the southernmost province of Scania, is the third most populous city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County...
, Sweden. The report focused on the borough of RosengårdRosengårdRosengård, literally "Rose court", is a city district in Malmö, Sweden. As of 1 January 2007, the population was 21,955, of which 60 percent were born outside of Sweden. In 2008 a total 86% of the population in the city district was of foreign background...
where two out of 1,000 school students were ethnic Swedes. Kianzad wrote that rock throwing against police, firefighters and ambulance personnel happened "not just in Rosengård and not as a Muslim custom." - In August 2006, two Jordanian-Arab freelancers who were working for Fox News as producers, resigned from the network, citing its coverage that month of the IsraelIsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
's conflict with the militant group Hezbollah in LebanonLebanonLebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
. Their resignation letter read in part: "We can no longer work with a news organization that claims to be fair and balanced when you are so far from that...Not only are you Fox News an instrument of the Bush White House, and IsraelIsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i propagandaPropagandaPropaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
, you are war mongers with no sense of decency, nor professionalism."
- On January 19, 2007, reports and commentary by Fox News personalities featured an anonymously sourced article in the conservative web magazine InsightInsight (magazine)Insight on the News was an American conservative print and online news magazine. It was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate then owned by the Unification Church, which owned The Washington Times and now owns United Press International and newspapers in Japan,...
that claimed that associates of Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton had discovered that Senator Barack ObamaBarack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
had attended a "Muslim seminary" as a child in Indonesia. The term "Muslim seminary" refers to a specifically religious form of madrassa (school). It was determined within days that Obama had instead, as he had said in his memoirs, attended first a Catholic and then a modern public elementary school. The latter was, as Obama had written, "predominantly Muslim" (as Indonesia is predominantly Muslim), and not a seminarySeminaryA seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...
of any kind. On January 31, 2007, the Washington Post suggested that because of FNC's reporting of the Insight article, Obama had "frozen out" the network's reporters and producers while giving interviews to every other major network. After the incident John MoodyJohn Moody (journalist)John Moody is Chief Executive Officer of NewsCore, the internal wire service of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. He was previously Senior Vice President, News Editorial for the Fox News Channel.-Early life, education and career:...
, a vice president at Fox, wrote to staff: "For the record: seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC. The urgent queue is our way of communicating information that is air-worthy. Please adhere to this."
- In March 2007, the Democratic Party in Nevada pulled out of a planned debate to be hosted by Fox. Its spokesmen cited a joke by Fox News CEO Roger AilesRoger AilesRoger Eugene Ailes is president of Fox News Channel, chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group. Ailes was a media consultant for Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W...
, which hinged on President George W. Bush confusing the names of Barack Obama and Osama bin LadenOsama bin LadenOsama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
, as evidence that Fox News is biased against the party. Fox News chairman David Rhodes responded to the cancellation by saying that the Democratic Party is "owned by MoveOn.org" (which had created a petition against the debate). - On May 25, 2008, Fox News political contributor Liz TrottaLiz TrottaElizabeth Trotta is an American journalist and conservative commentator, best known for contributions to various Fox News programs.-Biography:Trotta was born in New Haven, Connecticut...
stated on the air, while talking about the presidential election, "And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh Obama. Well, both, if we could."; she then laughed. She apologized for the remark on-air on Fox News the next day, saying, "I am so sorry about what happened yesterday and the lame attempt at humor." Trotta and Fox News were criticized for the remark by The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
editorial board and others. - In June 2007, when Louisiana Democratic Congressman William J. JeffersonWilliam J. JeffersonWilliam Jennings "Bill" Jefferson is a former American politician, and a published author from the U.S. state of Louisiana. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for nine terms from 1991 to 2009 as a member of the Democratic Party. He represented , which includes much of the...
was indicted on corruption, racketeering, and bribery charges, Fox News ran a video of Michigan Democratic Congressman John ConyersJohn ConyersJohn Conyers, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1965 . He is a member of the Democratic Party...
, also black. Conyers criticized the network for "a history of inappropriate on-air mistakes" and the network's "lackluster" apology (which did not name him), and a second, more specific apology was issued. In November 2006 Fox News had aired footage of then-Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (also black) while talking about Sen. Barack Obama.
Fox News responses
In June 2004, CEO Roger Ailes responded to some of the criticism with a rebuttal in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal, saying that Fox's critics intentionally confuse opinion shows such as The O'Reilly FactorThe O'Reilly Factor
The O'Reilly Factor, originally titled The O'Reilly Report from 1996 to 1998 and often called The Factor, is an American talk show on the Fox News Channel hosted by commentator Bill O'Reilly, who often discusses current controversial political issues with guests.The program was the most watched...
with regular news coverage. Ailes stated that Fox News has broken stories harmful to Republicans, offering "Fox News is the network that broke George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
's DUI
Driving under the influence
Driving under the influence is the act of driving a motor vehicle with blood levels of alcohol in excess of a legal limit...
four days before the election" as an example. The DUI story was broken by then-Fox affiliate WPXT
WPXT
WPXT is the CW-affiliated television station for Southern Maine and Northern New Hampshire licensed to Portland. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 43 from a transmitter in South Gray along I-95/Maine Turnpike/Gold Star Memorial Highway...
in Portland, Maine
Portland, Maine
Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...
, although Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron
Carl Cameron
Carl Cameron is an American television journalist and commentator for Fox News Channel.-Early life and education:As a child Cameron spent several years in Iran, where his father worked as an archaeologist....
also contributed to the report and, in the words of National Public Radio ombudsman Alicia C. Shepard, Fox News Channel "sent the story ping-ponging around the nation" by broadcasting WPXT's coverage. WPXT News Director Kevin Kelly said that he "called Fox News in New York City to see if we were flogging a dead horse" before running the story, and that Fox News Channel confirmed the arrest with the campaign and ran the story shortly after 6 p.m.
Upon the release of Outfoxed, Fox News issued a statement denouncing MoveOn.org, Greenwald and The New York Times for copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
. Fox dismissed their judgments of former employees featured in the documentary as the partisan views of disgruntled workers who never vocalized concern over any alleged bias while they were employed at the network. Ailes also shrugged off criticisms of the former Fox employees by noting that they worked in Fox affiliates and not at the actual channel itself. Fox News also challenged any news organization that sought to portray Fox as a "problem" with the following proposition: "If they will put out 100 percent of their editorial directions and internal memos, Fox News Channel will publish 100 percent of our editorial directions and internal memos, and let the public decide who is fair. This includes any legitimate cable news network, broadcast network, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post."
Former Fox News personality Eric Burns
Eric Burns
Eric Alfred Burns is an American critic, writer, poet, columnist and Role Playing Game developer who lived in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire...
has suggested in an interview that Fox "probably gives voice to more conservatives than the other networks. But not at the expense of liberals." Burns justifies a higher exposure of conservatives by saying that other media often ignore conservatives.
See also
- BBC controversies
- CBS controversies
- CNN controversies
- Press TV controversiesPress TV controversiesPress TV has been the subject of several controversies.-Controversy:The UK newspaper The Guardian described Press TV as "the controversial 24-hour news channel funded by the Iranian government."...
External links
- foxnews.com
- News Corporation — Fox's parent company.
- Museum of Broadcast Communications: Ailes, Roger
- Guardian Unlimited special report: Fox – the naked truth, October 5, 2004, Zoe Williams, The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- The Fifth Estate: Sticks and Stones, CBCCanadian Broadcasting CorporationThe Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
— Bob McKeown investigates Fox News for The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 45 min.