FOX News
The FOX News Channel is a 24-hour news channel launched in 1996 on United States cable and satellite networks as well as in syndication. It is available to 80 million subscribers in the U.S. and broadcasts primarily out of its studios in New York City.
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 the Cable News Network (CNN). It has since surpassed CNN to become the number one news channel in the United States. FOX News Channel asserts that it is less biased and more factual than other American networks, using promotional statements such as "fair and balanced", "we report, you decide". Their commentators argue that other news channels are dominated by a liberal bias. Many liberals and rival media organisations accuse FOX News of having a conservative bias and of pushing agendas rather than reporting the news in a neutral manner.
The FOX News Channel was launched just three months after MSNBC went on the air. Even though they began broadcasting around the same time, FOX News has attracted a large and growing viewership, while MSNBC remains mired in a distant third place among the three U.S. cable news channels.
Like the rest of FOX, it 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.
The CEO, Chairman, and President of FOX News is Roger Ailes, formerly a political strategist for Presidents Nixon and Reagan. Previously, Ailes ran the CNBC network for the NBC network and produced 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.
Daytime anchor David Asman previously worked at the conservative The Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Manhattan Institute, a conservative thinktank. Sunday host Tony Snow is a conservative columnist and former chief speechwriter for the first Bush administration. Managing editor Brit Hume is a contributor to the conservative American Spectator and Weekly Standard. Talkshow host Bill O'Reilly was a columnist at the conservative WorldNetDaily.com and was a registered Republican.
Every hour from 9AM to 3PM Eastern Time, the FOX News Channel broadcasts Fox News Live providing a wide-ranging assortment of hard news, guest analysts, and interviews. In primetime, the network presents a slew of personality-driven news-talk shows such as Special Report With Brit Hume, hosted by political reporter Brit Hume from Washington, D.C. The network bills The Fox Report With Shepard Smith as the signature evening newscast, offering various reports on the day's events hosted by Shepard Smith. The network's top-rated show is The O'Reilly Factor, hosted by the opinionated journalist Bill O'Reilly who has declared his show a "no spin zone." In addition, conservative Sean Hannity and moderate-to-liberal Alan Colmes, both radio talk show hosts, debate political issues of the day on Hannity & Colmes.
The network syndicates Fox News Sunday hosted by Tony Snow to Fox Network affiliates across the United States. From time to time, FOX News also produces a newsmagazine show for its Fox affiliates called The Pulse.
The channel is now available internationally, but unlike CNN's international service it tends to concentrate on domestic issues which might be seen as less newsworthy outside North America.
The channel has come under heavy criticism for claiming to be "fair and balanced" and announcing "we report, you decide" while allegedly putting a conservative slant on news. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a left-leaning media watchdog group, put together a report, Fox: The Most Biased Name in News, that lays out the evidence of this purported bias:
Conservative news stories: The network sometimes dedicates whole segments and shows to conservative stories they feel have been downplayed. FOX News specials are hosted by conservatives. Reporters take time off to look for stories that are explicitly conservative or place liberals in a bad light. Many say management asks them to make stories more conservative. And FOX staff even apologize for running stories that make conservatives look bad.
Charlie Reina, a Fox News producer for six years, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times on November 1, 2003 as alleging that Fox News executives require the network's on-air anchors and reporters to cover news stories from a right-wing viewpoint:
"The roots of FNC'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.
"Virtually no one of authority in the newsroom makes a move unmeasured against management's politics, actual or perceived. At the Fair and Balanced network, everyone knows management's point of view, and, in case they're not sure how to get it on air, The Memo is there to remind them."
A Fox spokesman called Reins' remarks the "rantings of a disgruntled former employee."
Fox and their supporters, however, contend that what left-leaning observers like FAIR perceive as a conservative bias is, in fact, lack of a liberal bias. Pointing to items such as this 1997 American Society of Newspaper Editors' survey [1] in which 61 percent of journalists responding identified themselves as "Liberal/Democrat (or) leaning that way", and the book Bias by former CBS reporter Bernard Goldberg, they claim that a left-wing prejudice permeates the so-called 'mainstream' media. Consequently, they say, Fox is perceived as being 'right of center' only because they are not 'left of center'.
A small controversy eruped between Newscorp's two most important franchises, "The Simpsons" and Fox News. On an NPR radio program, Fresh Air, the creator of "The Simpsons," Matt Groening said that Fox News threatened to sue him because of a parody of Fox News on one of their episodes. Fox News claimed they never threatened a law suit, and Groening later retracted the stament. Still, many wonder what the actual truth is.
Since ascribing any type of bias, whether left or right, is a somewhat subjective act, it is unlikely that this issue can effectively be proven one way or the other. As such, the only media outlets that can positively be called 'liberal' or 'conservative' are those which choose to identify themselves as such.History
FOX News on Television
Criticism
