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Fox News

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The FOX News Channel is a US cable and satellite news channel launched in 1996. It is available to 80 million subscribers in the U.S. and to further viewers internationally, and broadcasts primarily out of its New York City studios. It markets itself as a uniquely neutral news source, using the mottos "fair and balanced" and "we report, you decide," but has been variously accused of right-wing, conservative or Republican bias.

Launched on October 7, 1996 to 17 million cable subscribers, the nascent network quickly rose to prominence in the late 1990s as it started taking market share away from CNN; the channel now bills itself as the "most watched cable news channel" in the United States.

Programming

Fox News presents a wide variety of programming. The following is the usual weekday lineup:

  • 6 a.m.: Morning programming begins with "Fox and Friends," hosted by Steve Doocy, E.D. Hill, and Brian Kilmeade. This is similar to other cable news network programming in the mornings: CNN's American Morning with Bill Hemmer and Soledad O'Brien and MSNBC's Imus.
  • 9 a.m.: Late morning and early afternoon programming starts with Fox News Live, a show featuring news, guest analysis, and interviews. Like other American cable stations, there is news mixed with feature-like stories, as well as commentary and short debates between people on opposite sides of issues, usually between associates of candidates and officials, think tank members, and journalists.
  • 1 p.m.: Linda Vester's talk show with a live audience, "Dayside".
  • 6 p.m.: Primetime starts with the personality-driven news/talk shows Special Report With Brit Hume, hosted by political reporter Brit Hume from Washington, D.C..
  • 7 p.m.: Shepard Smith broadcasts The Fox Report With Shepard Smith, offering various reports on the day's events.
  • 8 p.m.: The network's top-rated show, The O'Reilly Factor. The taped broadcast features commentary from Bill O'Reilly.
  • 9 p.m.: Conservative Sean Hannity and liberal Alan Colmes debate political issues of the day with guests and analysts during Hannity and Colmes.
  • 10 p.m: Greta Van Susteren broadcasts On the Record with Greta Van Susteren. This has a heavy emphasis on human interest features stories, especially crime.

From time to time, FOX News also produces a newsmagazine show for its Fox affiliates called The Pulse.

The channel is now available internationally, though its world programming is the same as its American programming, as opposed to CNN International, which airs regional programming that is largely independent of its U.S. broadcasts.

Ownership

Like the rest of the Fox Network, FOX News Channel is owned by Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. It is a sister channel to Sky News, which is based in the United Kingdom. It is also carried in the UK, with global weather forecasts instead of most advertisments, by the British Sky Broadcasting satellite television network, of which James Murdoch is chief executive officer and in which News Corporation holds a 38 percent stake.

Management

The CEO, Chairman, and President of FOX News is Roger Ailes. After he began his career in broadcasting, Ailes started Ailes Communications, Inc and was successful as a political strategist for Presidents Nixon and Reagan and in producing campaign TV commercials for Republican political candidates. His work for former President Richard M. Nixon was chronicled in the book The Selling of the President: 1968 by Joe McGinniss.

Ailes withdrew from consulting and returned to broadcasting in 1992. He ran the CNBC channel and America's Talking, the forerunner of MSNBC for NBC. More recently, Ailes was named Broadcaster of the Year by Broadcast and Cable Magazine in 2003.

Personalities

Several FOX News anchors have conservative backgrounds. Managing editor and host Brit Hume is a contributor to the conservative American Spectator and Weekly Standard. Daytime anchor David Asman previously worked at the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Manhattan Institute, a conservative thinktank. Former Fox News Sunday host Tony Snow is a conservative columnist, radio host, and former chief speechwriter for the first Bush administration.

FOX News anchors with liberal backgrounds include primetime host Greta Van Susteren who donates to Democratic candidates. FOX News also employs several liberal authors and politicians, such as former Democratic vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, longtime liberal and former daytime talkshow host Geraldo Rivera, author Eleanor Clift, Nation magazine correspondent David Corn, and Democratic strategist Susan Estrich.

Allegations of bias

FOX News asserts that it is more objective and factual than other American networks, and its promotional statements include "fair and balanced" and "we report, you decide." The network thus intends to provide an alternative to such news sources as CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, or CBS, for those who believe that the other networks are dominated by a liberal bias. There is a widespread perception that FOX lies to the political right of most other prominent news sources; there is much dispute, however, as to whether the channel is actually a neutral source, or carries a bias in favor of right-wing, conservative, or Republican interests.

FOX and its supporters maintain that its critics only call the network 'right of center' because it is not 'left of center.' It should also be noted that by Fox taking a different stance than most other major news media, it has been able to differentiate itself from all other news networks and thus draw away viewers that are dissatified with the other news networks. Sort of along the lines of opening up a chicken restaurant when all other restaurants in the area are only serving hamburgers.

FOX News CEO Roger Ailes defended the network in an online column for the Wall Street Journal ([1]), stating that FOX's critics intentionally confuse opinion shows such as The O'Reilly Factor with regular news coverage and ignore instances in which FOX has broken stories which turned out harmful to Republicans or the Republican Party.

Some critcise FOX News for calling Palestinian and other Arab militants "terrorists," while many other channels tend to use the generic word "militant," or descriptive words such as "gunman" and "suicide bomber." It is argued that, although "terrorist" may be accurate, the word carries a negative connontation and does not give enough detail. FOX has also drawn criticism for its use of the term "homicide bomber" after White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer requested that the term replace the standard "suicide bomber." Critics maintain that this substitution is an instance of letting the White House dictate news content and is detrimental to the accuracy of the articles.

Further accusations followed a 1997 case in which FOX News fired two reporters, Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, who had refused instructions from superiors to revise a story on bovine growth hormone in ways that the reporters saw as being in conflict with the facts, and had threatened to report FOX to the FCC. The reporters sued under a Florida whistleblower law. A jury ruled that FOX had indeed ordered the reporters to distort the facts. FOX successfully appealed against judgement on the grounds that their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and press protected them from such litigation, and that the FCC's policy against distortion of news was not a sufficiently significant rule for its breach to invoke the whistleblower law ([2], [3]).

During the 2000 Presidential Election John Prescott Ellis, a full cousin of George W. Bush, was a consultant who analysed data from the Voter News Service. During the night Ellis had contact with both Jeb and George Bush several times by telephone. FOX had initially called the state of Florida for Al Gore, and when it retracted its call around 10:00 P.M., it was the last major network to do so. At 2:16 A.M. on Wednesday morning, FOX became the first major network to declare Bush the winner of Florida and thus the election ([4]).

In 2001, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a media "watchdog" group, released a report titled "Fox: The Most Biased Name in News" ([5]). The report claims that of the guests on the network's signature political show, Special Report with Brit Hume, 89 percent were Republicans, 65 percent were conservatives, 91 percent were male, and 93 percent were white, while, by comparison, on CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports 57% of the guests were Republican and 32 percent were conservatives. FAIR also claimed that since 1998, one out of every 12 episodes of The O'Reilly Factor has featured a segment on Jesse Jackson, with themes such as "How personal are African-Americans taking the moral failures of Reverend Jesse Jackson?"

A study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, sponsored by the Ford, Carnegie, and Tides foundations, reports that viewers of FOX News were more likely to hold misconceptions than viewers of any other network ([6], link in PDF). The study lists three beliefs, which it labels "misperceptions," that are more common among FOX News viewers:

  • That evidence of a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq had been found;
  • That weapons of mass destruction had been discovered in Iraq; and
  • That the U.S. had received wide international support in its decision to go to war.

Eighty percent of FOX News viewers polled held at least one of these three beliefs, more than any other radio or television news source. PIPA claims that this trend persists even after adjusting for viewership and political preference. The report also claims that the viewers who watched FOX News more often tended to have more of these beliefs.

In the view of opinion columnist Ann Coulter the three misperceptions were "deceptive," based on "liberal talking points," and "designed to falsely portrary FOX News viewers as ignorant" ([7]).

A report in the Los Angeles Times on November 1, 2003 quoted Charlie Reina, a former FOX News producer, saying FOX News executives require the network's on-air anchors and reporters to cover news stories from a right-wing viewpoint and distributed a daily memo explaining what stories to highlight and how to report them. Media Matters subsequently compiled the photocopied memos online ([8]). Sharri Berg, vice president of News Operations at Fox News Channel said in response, "Like any former, disgruntled employee, Charlie Reina has an ax to grind."

In early 2004, when the Hutton Inquiry had just closed, FOX News broadcast an opinion piece by presenter John Gibson which claimed that the BBC had "a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism that was obsessive, irrational and dishonest" and that the BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan, in Baghdad during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, had "insisted on air that the Iraqi Army was heroically repulsing an incompetent American Military" [9]. Viewers filed twenty-four complaints with Ofcom, the United Kingdom broadcasting regulator, regarding the incident. In its case, FOX News claimed that the "heroic repulsion" quote was mere paraphrasing and pointed to a Google search for "BBC anti-american" as proof of bias. Ofcom subsequently released a report censuring FOX News for not giving the BBC a chance to respond, failing to back up Gibson's claims with reliable evidence after complaints were made, and not making it clear that Gibson was paraphrasing Gilligan's words ([10]).

A documentary film, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, makes specific allegations of bias in FOX News.

In October 2004, Carl Cameron, chief political correspondent of FOX News, wrote a news article containing three purported quotes from Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry; for example, "It's about the Supreme Court. Women should like me! I do manicures." The quotes, which appeared to make Kerry look foolish, turned out to be fabricated ([11]). FOX News later retracted the story and apologized ([12]), citing a "jest" that became published through "fatigue and bad judgement, not malice." -- New York Times,October 3, 2004 p.A28.

It should also be noted that Fox News takes an adversarial role in relations with all other news medias. If another news media makes a mistake or gives a biased report (most commonly a Liberal slant), Fox News is usually the first to point it out. Possibly as a way to attack the liberal biases Fox sees in the other news agencies. Possibly simply as a competitive strategy to discredit other news agencies to hopefully bring their audiences to Fox. Either way, this naturally angers the other news medias and cements the adversarial relationship between them. Each quick to point out the others' faults. Each scrutinizig each other's reporting. However, this is good thing for the general public as it keeps all news agencies on their toes and should result in more factual reporting by all news media.

Ratings success

FOX News currently leads the cable news market, earning better ratings than its chief competitors CNN and MSNBC combined; Nielsen ratings show that though more unique individuals watch CNN, FOX News viewers are likely to watch for longer periods of time, which results in higher ratings for it. Television observers credit the success to what they see as FNC's better production values, better graphics and more personable hosts.

The BBC reported that FOX News saw its profits double during the Iraq conflict, due in part to what the report called "patriotic" coverage of the war. By some reports, at the height of the conflict, they enjoyed as much as a 300% increase in their numbers, to average 3.3 million viewers daily. [13]

In September 2004, FOX News Channel made television history when ratings for its broadcast of the Republican National Convention beat those of all three broadcast networks. During President Bush's address, FOX News notched 7.3 million viewers nationally, while NBC, CBS, and ABC scored ratings of 5.9, 5.0, and 5.1, respectively.

The founder of CNN, Ted Turner, said, upon the debut of FOX News, that his network would "squish Rupert like a bug", referring to FOX media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

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