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Fox News Channel

Type	Cable television network
Country	United States
Availability	United States and others; see "International transmission" for other availability
Owner	News Corporation
Key people	Roger Ailes, Chairman & CEO
Launch date	October 7, 1996
Official website	foxnews.com

Since its inception, the Fox News Channel has been the subject of controversy. Critics of the channel accuse it of political bias towards the right, accusations the network has denied.

Accusations of bias

Critics such as FAIR and Media Matters for America have asserted that Fox News reporting contains conservative editorializing within news stories. Other observers have referred to the network as "Faux News", "GOP-TV", "Fox Noise Channel", and "Fixed News".

Democratic National Committee 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 misgivings from 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 fun of Barack Obama's name (comparing it to "Osama," as in 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 cancelling it.

CNN's Larry King said in a Jan. 17, 2007 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, "They're a Republican brand. They're an extension of the Republican Party with some exceptions, Greta van Susteren. But I don't begrudge them that. Roger Ailes is an old friend. They've been nice to me. They've said some very nice things about me. Not 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 biased: "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, tabloidy network." Fox News host Bill O'Reilly has stated that "Fox does tilt right," but that the network does not "actively campaign or try to help Bush-Cheney."

Accuracy in Media, a conservative media watchdog, has raised questions about a conflict of interest in Fox News' co-sponsorship of the May 15 2007 Republican presidential candidates debate, pointing out that News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, is a client of Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. AIM expressed concerns that Fox is biased in favor of Giuliani's candidacy for the Republican Party presidential nomination, stating that "its handling of this debate raises serious questions about the channel's commitment to being 'fair and balanced.'"

Ownership and management

• Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is the Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, 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 America, he is the publisher of the conservative New York Post newspaper and the conservative magazine of opinion, The Weekly Standard. Accusations against him include the "dumbing down" of news and introducing "mindless vulgarity" in place of genuine journalism, and having his own outlets produce news that serve his own political and financial agendas. According to the BBC website: "To some he is little less than the devil incarnate, to others, the most progressive mover-and-shaker in the media business" .

• CEO Roger Ailes was formerly a media/image consultant for Republican Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. Controversy was generated in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on New York City, when it was revealed that Roger Ailes was sending political advice via "back channel messages" to the Bush administration through its chief political aide, Karl Rove. According to Bob Woodward, in his book Bush At War, the messages consisted of warnings that the American public would quickly lose support for the Bush administration unless it employed "the harshest measures possible" in response to the 9/11 attacks.

• George W. Bush's cousin, John Prescott Ellis, was Fox News' projection team manager during the general election of 2000. After speaking numerous times on election night with his cousins George and Jeb, Ellis, at 2:16 AM, reversed Fox News' call for Florida as a state won by Al Gore. Critics allege this was a premature decision, given the impossibly razor-thin margin (we now know it was 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 claim 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, possibly depressing voter turnout for Bush.

Reports, polls and studies

According to a Journalism.org survey of 547 journalists from various publications and news outlets, Fox News Channel was found to be most easily identifiable for serving a partisan ideological position:

At the same time, the single news outlet that strikes most journalists as taking a particular ideological stance - either liberal or conservative - is Fox News Channel. Among national journalists, more than twice as many could identify a daily news organization that they think is "especially conservative in its coverage" than one they believe is "especially liberal" (82% vs. 38%). And Fox has by far the highest profile as a conservative news organization; it was cited unprompted by 69% of national journalists.

The "signature political news show" of the Fox News Channel, Special Report with Brit Hume, was found to have a strong bias in their choice of guests, overwhelmingly choosing conservatives over 'non-conservatives' to appear in interviews. This was the finding of the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), noted in a study taken across a 19 week period from June 2003 to December 2003. They found the ratio of conservative guests to liberals to be 50:6.

A study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, in the Winter 03-04 issue of Political Science Quarterly, reported that viewers of the Fox Network local affiliates or Fox News were more likely than viewers of other news networks to hold three 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 organization" (Compared with 56% for CBS, 49% for NBC, 48% for CNN, 45% for ABC, 16% for NPR/PBS). However, the belief that "Iraq was directly involved in September 11" was held by 33% of CBS viewers and only 24% of Fox viewers, 23% for ABC, 22% for NBC, 21% for CNN and 10% for NPR/PBS
• 33% of Fox viewers believed that the "U.S. has found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" "since the war ended". (Compared with 23% for CBS, 20% for both CNN and NBC, 19% for ABC and 11% for both NPR/PBS)
• 35% of Fox viewers believed that "the majority of people 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 contributor 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 Journal's online editorial page, called the poll "pure propaganda." According to OpinionJournal.com and the Seattle Times, although not confirmable on the PIPA site, 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.

A poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports 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". In a separate academic content analysis of election news, it 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 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 that "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 on his personal blog, and contends that its conclusions are invalid . He points 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 our statistical method and the actual assumptions upon which it relies" .

Mark Liberman, who helped to post Groseclose and Professor Jeff Milyo's rebuttal, later posted how the statistical methods used to calculate this bias poses faults. Mark Liberman is a professor of Computer Science and the Director of Linguistic Data Consortium at the University of Pennsylvania. Mark concludes his post saying he thinks "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."

According to the results of a 2006 study by The Project for Excellence in Journalism, the network 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. Further research has shown that there is a correlation between the presence of the Fox News Channel in cable markets and increases in Republican votes in those markets. The Project on Excellence in Journalism study showed that 68 percent of Fox cable stories contained personal opinions, as compared to MSNBC at 27 percent and CNN at 4 percent. The documentary Outfoxed claims that FOX reporters and anchors use the traditional journalistic phrase "some people say" in a very clever way; instead of citing an anonymous source in order to advance a storyline, FOX personalities allegedly use the phrase to inject conservative opinion and commentary even in reports in which it probably shouldn't be. 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 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.

Internal memos

As with many news sources, 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 Moody. In the documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, 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 Fox News executive 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: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, which included Moody quotes such as, "he soldiers in the foreground should be identified as 'sharpshooters,' not 'snipers,' which carries a negative connotation."

Two days after the 2006 election, web blog The Huffington Post reported they had acquired a copy of a leaked internal memo from Mr. Moody that recommended: "... let'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 with reports of Iraqi insurgents cheering the firing of Donald Rumsfeld and the results of the 2006 Congressional election.

Criticisms of pundits

Notable pundits

• Bill O'Reilly the host of The O'Reilly Factor is notable for controversial comments and is usually a frequent target for media critics.
• John Gibson is the host of an afternoon hour of news coverage called "The Big Story", and is frequently cited as an example of Fox News blurring the lines between objective reporting and opinion/editorial programming. Gibson angered some liberals 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?" . An opinion piece on the Hutton Inquiry decision, in which John Gibson said the BBC had "a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism that was obsessive, irrational and dishonest" and that the BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan, "insisted on air that the Iraqi Army was heroically repulsing an incompetent American Military" . In reviewing viewer complaints, Ofcom (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 view programmes opinions expressed 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 Wilson a "liar", claimed that "the far left" is working for Al Qaeda and openly admitted 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 . He also said he believed that non-Christians are wrong, and will have to answer to God for following the wrong faith. Gibson has also called on white Americans to have more children for fear that the white race might become "outnumbered" by minorities in the U.S. . Recently, Gibson ran a segment on the exchange between Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani 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, completely unrelated to the argument. Gibson said that the movement has "infected" many people "including Ron Paul" based on Paul's echoing of the reasons for the attack listed in the 9/11 Commission Report. Ron Paul has never subscribed to 9/11 conspiracy theories, and believes that Al-Qaeda purpetrated the attacks.
• Business anchor Neil Cavuto, who is also Fox News' vice president of business news and a current member of the network's executive committee, has been 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 Bin Laden was rooting for John Kerry in the presidential election, critics contend, in an attempt to create a backlash among voters casting ballots for Bush, against Bin Laden's alleged pick . Cavuto has also received criticism for gratuitous footage and photos of scantily clad supermodels and porn stars on his show, Your World with Neil Cavuto .
• Brit Hume created controversy when he made the factually incorrect claim that "U.S. soldiers have less of a chance of dying from all causes in Iraq than citizens have of being murdered in California," based on deaths per unit of area. Based on population, however, a United States soldier in Iraq is actually 60 times more likely to be killed than an individual in California. . Hume also drew criticism from Media Matters for America, Al Franken, and Keith Olbermann when, in 2005, he allegedly distorted a quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt to make it sound like Roosevelt would have supported President George W. Bush's Social Security privatization plan.
• Alan Colmes is touted by Fox as "a hard-hitting liberal" , but he admitted to USA Today that "I'm quite moderate" and most left-wing activists consider him too weak to provide an effective balance for self-professed "arch-conservative" Sean Hannity and little more than a token liberal, placed within Fox News in an attempt to credit Fox's Fair and Balanced slogan. Liberal viewers have long found Colmes' style infuriating, particularly in contrast to the outspoken Hannity; and Colmes himself has sometimes taken more right-leaning positions, such as supporting Rudy Giuliani for mayor of New York City and defending Mississippi Senator Trent Lott after the latter made alleged racially insensitive remarks at the 100th birthday party for the late Sen. Strom Thurmond. He has been characterized by several newspapers as being Sean Hannity's "sidekick" . Liberal commentator Al Franken lambasted Colmes in his book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, accusing him of refusing to ask tough questions during debates and neglecting to challenge erroneous claims made by Hannity or his guests.
• Steven Milloy, the "junk science" commentator for FoxNews.com, consistently labels scientific research suggesting that corporate activities are harming the environment or the public health as "junk science". Specifically, Milloy has been critical of the science behind global warming and secondhand smoke as a carcinogen. In a February 6 2006 article in The New Republic, Paul D. Thacker revealed that ExxonMobil had donated $90,000 to two non-profit organizations run out of Milloy's house. In addition, tobacco-industry documents reveal that Milloy was receiving almost $100,000 a year from Philip Morris during the time he was arguing, from a supposedly independent platform, that secondhand smoke was not carcinogenic. Milloy's website, junkscience.com, was reviewed and revised by a public relations firm hired by RJR Tobacco. Milloy's supposedly independent non-profit organization was described in a confidential memo as a "Philip Morris tool to affect legislative decisions". In response to Thacker's disclosure of this conflict of interest, 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." However, Milloy remains employed by Fox News.

Discredited military & counterterrorism editor

• The New York Times ran an article entitled "At Fox News, the Colonel Who Wasn't" by Jim Rutenberg, revealing that Joseph A. Cafasso, 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: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism.

Other criticisms

Criticism of Media Coverage

• Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, a documentary film on Fox News by liberal activist Robert Greenwald, 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, a former employee identified as "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-wing propaganda", after being told what to say about Ronald Reagan. O'Donnell worked for Washington, D.C. Fox affiliate WTTG, not the Fox News Channel. Fox News has stressed that affiliates are separate entities from Fox News Channel, and Fox News has no editorial oversight of any Fox affiliate. The network made an official response and a review of select employees featured in the film and their employment (or non-employment) with Fox News.
• CNN founder Ted Turner accused Fox News of being "dumbed down" and "propaganda" and equated the network's popularity to Adolf Hitler'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 League, to whom Turner had apologized in the past for a similar comparison, said Turner is "a recidivist who hasn't learned from his past mistakes."
• Special Report with Brit Hume regularly features a panel of political commentators touted as an "allstar panel" and "diverse" by Fox News. The panel generally consists of three people: Fred Barnes, a self-described neoconservative hawk, Mort Kondracke, a self-described "moderate independent" (Kondracke has said that he is "disgusted with the Democratic Party" and that the only reason he isn't a Republican is because "Republicans have failed to be true to themselves as conservatives", referring to deficit spending in the Ronald Reagan administration), and Mara Liasson, touted as a liberal by the program. In addition, Brit Hume himself maintains a conservative point of view, even taking up that position on the Sunday night equivalent of his own panel, arguing from the conservative Republican position against other, noticeably more liberal, Fox News panelists such as Juan Williams, who rarely makes an appearance on the Special Report. Critics contend this overwhelmingly tilts the so-called "diverse" political discussions into one-sided conservative commentary. The third panel, consisting of Liasson, is regularly switched to include Charles Krauthammer, a neoconservative, leaving the panel with three conservatives and one moderate on her off days.
• Media watchdog group Media Matters criticized Fox News for it's focus on soft news stories. The network is targeted for its coverage of missing women, troubled celebrities, and gratuitous footage and photos of scantily clad supermodels and porn stars. .

Criticism of Ethics and Misleading Labeling

• Fox News Channel faced criticism for its perceived pushing of the War on Christmas. A large number of notable Fox News commentators, including John Gibson, Brit Hume, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity devoted much of the air time during the fall 2005 season to alleged acts of "anti-Christian" campaigns by the American Civil Liberties Union to have Christmas decorations removed from public displays. On an episode of Fox News Watch, liberal Fox News pundit Neil Gabler attacked the network's other personalities for pursuing the story. In his words, "Fox News has been pumping the hell out of this thing."
• During the Terri Schiavo controversy in early 2005, Fox came under attack for its coverage of the affair, led by Fox news personality Sean Hannity, who camped outside of the hospital where Schiavo lay dying after her feeding tube was removed. Every major personality on Fox News — Brit Hume, Bill O'Reilly, Neil Cavuto, and John Gibson — called for her feeding tube to be reinserted, and claimed that opposition to such a move came entirely from secular Americans and Democratic politicians, despite polls showing overwhelming public support among "mainstream Protestants" (hovering around 77%) for the tube's removal; in fact, a majority of Republicans also supported removal of the feeding tube. . The main controversy surrounding Fox's coverage of the event, however, centered around the refusal of the network to inform its viewers that one of the main proponents of continuing tube feeds was Randall Terry, a notorious figure in conservative circles for his often violent acts and his calls for the murder of abortion doctors and so-called activist judges. When a Republican "talking points" memo authored by Senator Mel Martinez's staff went into circulation , suggesting ways in which the Republicans could use the issue for political gain, Fox News personalities immediately attacked the memo and claimed that liberals and/or Democrats had forged the memo. Later, after the memo was proven to be genuine, Fox did not do a followup acknowledging their error.
• A news article on the Fox News website during October 2004 by Carl Cameron, chief political correspondent of Fox News, contained three fabricated quotes attributed to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. The quotes included: "Women should like me! I do manicures," "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great?" and "I'm metrosexual a cowboy." Fox News retracted the story and apologized , citing a "jest" that became published through "fatigue and bad judgement, not malice."
• The network has also drawn criticism for falsely or poorly identifying guests on political programs. A recent example is an interview on Hannity & Colmes in which two guests were brought on, one a Republican and the other supposedly a Democrat, to debate an issue. However, the Democrat, former congressman Jimmy Hayes, was actually a Republican. Neither Hayes nor the hosts acknowledged the misidentification. Also, during a recent edition of The O'Reilly Factor, congressman Mark Foley, a Republican gripped in scandal for writing sexually suggestive e-mails to underage congressional pages, was misidentified as a Democrat in the onscreen text. When biologist Richard Dawkins, who is an outspoken atheist, appeared on the factor, he was simply labeled: "Atheist".
• When Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, who won in the 2006 election as an Independent, was featured on Hannity's America, Fox News ran the chyron under his name as a Democrat. Lieberman, formerly a Democrat, frequently speaks out against the Democratic Party, and is a frequent guest on Hannity & Colmes.

Criticism of individuals

• Critics of the network contend that Fox specializes in "political sabotage" by putting up moderate to conservative "Democrats" as token liberals against more staunchly conservative Republicans. Examples of the so-called Fox News liberal include:
  • Alan Colmes - Co-host of Hannity & Colmes who is supposed to represent the political left opposite conservative Sean Hannity, but who admitted to USA Today that he is "quite moderate."
  • Pat Caddell - Who has called the Democratic party a "confederacy of gangsters" and defended Ann Coulter when she called John Edwards a "faggot."
  • Susan Estrich - Known for her opposition to liberal Democrats and support for the Democratic Leadership Council, and who once told Sean Hannity that she was his "biggest liberal friend."
  • Zell Miller The former Democratic Georgia senator is a hawkish conservative in which misleads viewers into thinking the senator speaks out against his party. Miller who is a Democrat was a frequent guest on Fox News, a major critic of the Democratic Party. Miller spoke at the 2004 National Republican Convention.
  • Mort Kondracke A pundit on Special Report with Brit Hume and The Beltway Boys, is featured as the "liberal" panelist in a discussion. Kondracke is a political moderate who spoke out against liberal groups MoveOn.org and Daily Kos after the groups successfully help the Democrats pull from Fox News-sponsored debates. Kondracke believes that the values of the Democratic Party is "Stalinism".

• Another point of contention among Fox's critics is its perceived habit of ridiculing, in some cases viciously, protesters. For example, during the 2004 Republican National Convention, Bill O'Reilly referred to some of the protesters as "terrorists" (though he added, "most protesters are peaceful"). Fox News online columnist Mike Straka referred to anti-war protesters at the September 24, 2005 march in Washington, D.C. as "jobless, anti-American, clueless, smelly, stupid traitors" and "protesters from hell". '

• Iranian-Swedish newspaper commentator Behrang Kianzad wrote in the Expressen newspaper that "there are lies, damned lies and Fox News", in response to a Fox News story about allegedly Muslim violence in the city of Malmö. The report focused on the borough of Rosengård where 2 out of 1000 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 Fox News producers resigned from the network, citing its coverage of the Israel's conflict that month with Hezbollah in Lebanon. 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 an instrument of the Bush White House, and Israeli propaganda, you are war mongers with no sense of decency, nor professionalism." During an interview with Amy Goodman on the Democracy Now! radio program, Serene Sabbagh, one of the producers who resigned, said, "I was devastated at the way that Fox was handling the coverage from Lebanon in the U.S., and I felt there was bias, the slant, the racist remarks, the use of the word "we" meaning Israel, and it was just unbearable up until basically the massacre at Qana... I switched to Fox News to hear some of their anchors claiming that these little kids that were killed... were human shields used by Hezbollah. And one of the anchors went as far as saying they were planted there by Hezbollah to win support in this war... this is when I decided, me and my colleague Jomana, to hand in our resignation." The two women, Serene Sabbagh and Jomana Karadsheh, are both Jordanian Arabs.

• Their was an report issued by Insight Magazine, an online tabloid in connection to the Washington Times, in which ran an article about presidental hopeful Senator Barack Obama being raised a Muslim and attending an extermist madrassa when he lived in Indonesia at his youth. The article placed the blame on aggressive supporters of another presidental hopeful, Senator Hillary Clinton. Controversy flared when on January 19, 2007's taping of Fox & Friends. Reporters Gretchen Carlson and Brian Kilmeade were openly critical of Obama and Clinton and weatherman Steve Doocy uttered the infamous words: "This Is Huge!" Fox News has a notorious reputation of having strong dislike towards Clinton and any accusations by attributed her or the former president. , Media Matters for America, July 11, 2007 http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/hillary_clinton?f=h_hot, retrieved 2007-07-11 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)</ref> Reasonable fact checking by CNN revealed that Obama had actually attended a secular public school. On 31 January 2007, the Washington Post, noted that because of FNC's hasty propagation of the Insight article, Obama has "frozen out" the network's reporters and producers after giving interviews to every other major station. Because of the incident, John Moody, a vice president at Fox, was forced to reiterate the necessity of fact-checking: "For the record: seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air." This was one of many misteps from Fox News to caused a controverisal move by the Democratic Party to defect from the presidential debates sponsored by Fox.
• The Democratic Party in Nevada has cited a recent joke on March 8, 2007, by Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, in which he deliberately confused Barack Obama with Osama bin Laden, that Fox News is biased against the party. As a result of this, the Democrats pulled out of a planned debate hosted by Fox. Fox News chairman David Rhodes responded to the cancellation by saying that the Democratic Party is owned by MoveOn.org.
• When Louisiana Democratic congressman Bill Jefferson was indicted for corruption, racketeering and bribery charges, Fox News ran the wrong video in which Michigan Democratic congressman John Conyers was shown with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Conyers criticize the network for it's error, and failure to issue an apology for the mistake. Fox News Channel has a history of airing incorrect footage of African American Congressmen. Fox News Channel apologized for "airing the wrong video" but did not specifically mention John Conyers by name. A second, more specific apology was issued after criticism from Congressman Conyers.

Fox News responds

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 Factor with regular news coverage. Ailes noted that Fox News has broken stories harmful to Republicans, stating "Fox News is the network that broke George W. Bush's DUI four days before the election" as an example. The story was broken by then-Fox affiliate WPXT in Portland, Maine, though Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron also contributed to the report.

Upon the release of the Robert Greenwald documentary "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."

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.

See also

• The Corporation - Documentary film that documents the history and alleged failings of corporations. It includes a lengthy section dealing with what it sees as Fox News censoring its own reporters.
• Media bias
• CNN controversies
• BBC controversies

References

1. Interview transcript: Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, the Financial Times, October 6, 2006
2. The Most Biased Name in News - Fox News Channel's extraordinary right-wing tilt, FAIR, July/August 2001
3. 33 internal FOX editorial memos reviewed by MMFA reveal FOX News Channel's inner workings, Media Matters, July 14, 2004
4. ‘FAUX News’ parody site draws FOX News lawyers, The Register, June 25, 2003
5. GOP-TV Stuck inside Republican hell with the ‘fair and balanced’ Fox News Channel, The Boston Phoenix, September 3 - 9, 2004
6. 'Worst': Fox News P.R., MSNBC Transcript, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Jan 30, 2007
7. 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for June 26, MSNBC Transcript, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, June 27, 2007
8. Dean On President Clinton Standing Up To Right-Wing Propaganda On Fox News Sunday, The Democratic Party, September 25, 2006
9. Fox News Boss Hits Edwards' Boycott, CBS News, March 9, 2007
10. Richardson backs out of Fox debate amid online protest, The Las Vegas Sun, March 9, 2007
11. Obama to Nix Fox Debate, ABC News's Political Radar, April 09, 2007
12. Fox News Boss Hits Edwards' Boycott, CBS News, March 9, 2007
13. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/04/clinton_joins_b.html
14. Richardson backs out of Fox debate amid online protest, The Las Vegas Sun, March 9, 2007
15. Obama to Nix Fox Debate, ABC News's Political Radar, April 09, 2007
16. Nevada Dems Nix Fox Debate, The Politico, Mar. 12, 2007
17. http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/fnc/king_says_fox_news_is_a_republican_brand_but_theyve_been_nice_to_me_51252.asp
18. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/fox_john_edwards_and_the_two_a.html
19. O'Reilly: "FOX does tilt right", Media Matters for America
20. http://www.postchronicle.com/commentary/article_21282180.shtml
21. http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007May15/0,4670,GiulianiapossBusinessABRIDGED,00.htm
22. http://www.aim.org/aim_column/5461_0_3_0_C/
23. Rupert Murdoch: Bigger than Kane by Andrew Walker, BBC News, July 31, 2002
24. Fox executive spoke five times with cousin Bush on Election Night, CNN.com, December 12, 2000
25. 2000 Official Presidential General Election Results
26. Cousin John's calls tipped election tally by Melinda Wittstock, The Guardian, November 19, 2000
27. Moore's Myths by John R. Lott Jr. and Brian Blase, New York Post, July 12, 2004
28. Press Going Too Easy on Bush by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Journalism.org
29. Fox's Slanted Sources; Conservatives, Republicans far outnumber others by Steve Rendall, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), July/August 2001
30. PIPA / Knowledge Networks Poll Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War. Program on International Policy Attitudes October 2003
31. Political Science Quarterly (PDF), The Academy of Political Science, Winter 2003-2004
32. Crazy-Like-A-Fox News Viewer by Ann Coulter, Townhall.com, May 13, 2004
33. The O'Reilly Factor, February 22, 2006)
34. Elite, Arrogant, Condescending by Roger Ailes, OpinionJournal.com, June 2, 2004
35. Best of the Web Today James Taranto. OpinionJournal, The Wall Street Journal. October 7, 2003.
36. Best of the Web Today James Taranto. OpinionJournal, The Wall Street Journal. May 11, 2004.
37. Study shows TV news viewers have misperceptions about Iraq war Kay McFadden. The Seattle Times, October 20, 2003.
38. Broadcast Bias
39. Stephen Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter, The Nightly News Nightmare: How Television Portrays Presidential Elections, Second Edition, Rowman & Littlefield, 2006
40. Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist December 14, 2005
41. A Measure of Media Bias by Time Groseclose and Jeffery Milyo, UCLA
42. Geoff Nunberg, "'Liberal Bias', Noch Einmal". Language Log, July 05, 2004
43. Mark Liberman, "Groseclose and Milyo respond". Language Log, 2 August 2004
44. ^ Liberman, Mark (2005-12-23). "Multiplying ideologies considered harmful". Language Log. Retrieved 2006-11-06. Cite error: The named reference "Language Log" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
45. Liberman, Mark (2005-12-22). "Linguistics, politics, mathematics". Language Log. Retrieved 2006-11-06.
46. Project for Excellence in Journalism, State of the News Media 2006: An Annual Report on American Journalism
47. Project for Excellence in Journalism, Press Going Too Easy on Bush.
48. DellaVigna, Stefano & Ethan Kaplan (March 30, 2006). "The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting" (PDF). March 30, 2006. University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 2006-10-09. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
49. Trends 2005, Media Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 2005. (PDF file)
50. Online Papers Modestly Boost Newspaper Readership The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 2006.
51. "33 internal FOX editorial memos reviewed by MMFA reveal FOX News Channel's inner workings". Retrieved 2007-01-25.
52. Journalism 101 by Rich Tucker, CNSNews.com, November 07, 2003
53. Fox News, Source Watch
54. 33 internal FOX editorial memos reviewed by MMFA reveal FOX News Channel's inner workings, Media Matters for America, July 14, 2004
55. , Internal Fox Memo
56. , MSNBC interview about the leaked internal Fox memo
57. Fox Reporter on Florida Ballots: Burn Them or Shred Them?, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, December 20th, 2000
58. Fox Reporter on Florida Ballots:Burn Them or Shred Them?, YAAAMS.org
59. Liar Liar by John Gibson, FoxNews.com, January 29, 2004
60. Standards Cases - Upheld cases; The Big Story: My Word, Ofcom, January 28, 2004
61. Matthews, Gingrich, Hannity, others seize on new bin Laden tape to discredit war critics, Media Matters for America, January 20, 2006
62. Fox's Gibson on "golden opportunity" missed: If France had been selected for 2012 Olympics, terrorists would "blow up Paris, and who cares?", Media Matters for America, July 8, 2005
63. Waking to Reality; Bush Numbers Drop as Americans Reject Spin (editorial), Daily Camera, June 13, 2005
64. Cavuto defended suggestion that bin Laden was wearing Kerry campaign button in videotaped message, Media Matters for America, November 4, 2004
66. ‘Sexed Up’ Claims Knocked Down by Brit Hume, FoxNews.com, August 27, 2003
67. Franken Accuses Hume of "Obscene...Trivializing" of Troop Deaths, Free Republic, September 26, 2003
68. Alan Colmes' Bio, FoxNews.com, October 10, 2002
69. An Aggressive Conservative vs. a "Liberal to be Determined" by Steve Rendall, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, November/December 2003
70. An Aggressive Conservative vs. a "Liberal to be Determined" by Steve Rendall, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, November/December 2003
71. ^ "Smoked Out: Pundit for Hire." Paul D. Thacker. The New Republic, 6 Feb 2006.
72. Philip Morris budget for "Strategy and Social Responsibility", detailing $180,000 in "fees and expenses" paid to Steven Milloy. Accessed 5 Oct 2006.
73. Activity Report, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., December 1996, describing R.J.R. Tobacco's input into Milloy's junkscience website. From the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library at the University of California, San Francisco. Accessed 5 Oct 2006.
74. Philip Morris Corporate Affairs Budget Presentation, 1994, from the Philip Morris Document Archive. Accessed 5 Oct 2006.
75. http://sec-global.com/services/ctp/vsg/news/020429.html
76. FOX News Channel Statement on 'Outfoxed', FoxNews.com, July 13, 2004
77. Details About Employees Featured in 'Outfoxed', FoxNews.com, July 13, 2004
78. Fox News 'propaganda' says mogul, BBC News, January 27, 2005
79. ADL: Ted Turner Hasn't Learned From His Mistakes, Anti-Defamation League, January 26, 2005
80. The Most Biased Name in News by Seth Ackerman, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, July/August 2001
81. Media Matters
82. Fox News Watch panelist Gabler: Fox News "pumping" Christmas "war", Media Matters for America, December 5, 2005
83. O'Reilly, Morris falsely painted Schiavo case as battle between religious, secular Americans, Media Matters for America, April 1, 2005
84. O'Reilly, Morris falsely painted Schiavo case as battle between religious, secular Americans, Media Matters for America, April 1, 2005
85. Only on Fox: John Gibson suggested that "Republicans stand for parents' rights and life, and Democrats have sided for questionable husband and dying", Media Matters for America, March 23, 2005
86. John Gibson's and Fox News' description of Schiavo case: "Terri's Fight", Media Matters for America, March 29, 2005
87. Who is Randall Terry?, Media Matters for America, March 21, 2005
88. Mel Martinez, Misplaced Pages
89. After GOP source of Schiavo memo was confirmed, Hume, Kristol failed to acknowledge their roles in suggesting Democrats had authored it, Media Matters for America, April 8, 2005
90. Dissecting a right-wing smear: How conservatives used trumped-up evidence to blame Democrats for Schiavo memo, Media Matters for America, April 7, 2005
91. Trail Tales: What's That Face?, FoxNews.com, October 1, 2004
92. Fox falsely labeled former Rep. Hayes as Democrat; ignored party reversal, Media Matters for America, January 9, 2006
93. Fox Goofs Again! Labels Joe Lieberman a Democrat by YouTube, YouTube, June 9, 2007
94. FOX News Goofs Again. Or Was It Deliberate? Labels Joe Lieberman a "Democrat." by Marie Therese, Newshounds: We Watch Fox So You Don't Have To, June 10, 2007
95. Who is Pat Caddell?, Media Matters for America, September 16, 2004
96. Hannity & Colmes substitute host Estrich: progressive standard-bearer?, Media Matters for America, June 9, 2004
97. FOX News contributor-to-be "Democrat" Zell Miller. Media Matters, December 16, 2004
98. Kondracke: "For all I know," Iraq insurgency "designed... to help elect John Kerry", Media Matters for America, September 17, 2004
99. [http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/11/kondracke-stalinists/ Upset Over Canceled Fox Debate, Kondracke Attacks ‘Left-Wing Liberals’ As ‘Junior-Grade Stalinists’ Think Progress & Newshounds March 2007
100. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/elections/conventions/chi-0409030248sep03,1,6976681.story?coll=chi-navrailnews-nav&ctrack=1&cset=true
101. Small Minority of Protesters Can Cause Big Trouble by Bill O'Reilly, FoxNews.com, August 26, 2004
102. Fox & Friends' Kilmeade called G8 protesters "morons without jobs," insisted new Goldberg attack book not skewed, Media Matters for America, July 6, 2005
103. Grrr! Protesters From Hell by Mike Straka, FoxNews.com, September 27, 2005
104. Mike Straka Believes All Demonstrators are "Jobless", News Hounds, September 27, 2005
105. ^ Expressen: Räven går i Rosengård Behrang Kianzad
106. Harrigan, Steve Swedes Reach Muslim Breaking Point Fox News, November 26, 2004
107. "CNN debunks false report about Obama". CNN. January 22, 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-26.
108. "Obama's Grudge Factor". Washington Post. January 31, 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-31.
109. "Dems cancel debate over Fox chief's Obama joke". CNN. 3-10-2007. Retrieved 3-11-2007. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
110. "Conyers responds to Fox News". Crook and Liars. 6-5-2007. Retrieved 6-5-2007. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
111. "Fox News' African-American elected official mix-up not its first". Retrieved 2007-06-05.
112. "Fox News apologizes again for tape goof".
113. Elite, Arrogant, Condescending; The L.A. Times' editor is terrified of Fox News. How pathetic. by Roger Ailes, OpinionJournal, Wall Street Journal, June 2, 2004

External links

• Official Site
• News Corporation - Fox's parent company.
• Museum of Broadcast Communications: Ailes, Roger
• News Hounds - Watchdog blog critical of Fox News Channel.
• Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism - The critical documentary's website.
• Outfoxed streaming Dutch VPRO documentary by Tegenlicht. Introduction, several seconds, in Dutch with story itself in English and Dutch subtitles; 50 min. Broadband internet needed.
• Guardian Unlimited special report: Fox - the naked truth, October 5, 2004, Zoe Williams, The Guardian
• The Fifth Estate: Sticks and Stones, CBC - Bob McKeown investigates Fox News for The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 45 min.
• "The Most Powerful Smell in News" - Origin of the "Faux News" logo.
• SimFaux - Faux News interactive TV news network simulation.
• Bangkok in Fox News - Bangkok foreign residents are furious at Fox News's coverage of the JonBenet Ramsey case

• Fox News Channel
• Criticisms