"OutFoxed": How Fox News Is Destroying American Journalism

And there's this.
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FAIR Report Reveals Fox News Bias
By Naman Hampton
Published: Friday, September 21, 2001
"I challenge anybody to show me an example of bias in Fox News Channel." -Rupert Murdoch (Salon, 3/1/01)

It was early Tuesday morning in the underground, and the shocking events were unfolding through the magic of live TV. "Anyone mind if we change it from Fox News to CNN?" somebody asked. Out of the 40 somber students present, not one person raised an objection. Why could that be?

"It seems like everybody at Guilford knows Fox news is biased," says sophomore Ryan Maher. "No wonder people wanted to watch CNN instead."

For years, conservatives have touted Fox News Channel as being an oasis of objectivity in a desert of liberally biased news channels. By wrapping itself in slogans such as "We Report, You Decide" and by adamantly denying any tilt towards the right, Fox News Channel seems to have manufactured a reputation of impartiality.

However, a recent report from the analysts at Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) confirms the suspicions of many Guilford students and blasts that reputation of impartiality into smithereens.

The report starts with a statistical study of interviewees on the network's "signature political news show" Special Report with Brit Hume. While Special Report's intent is to provide leveraged political analysis, FAIR found that out of 56 partisan guests in a five-month period, 50 were Republicans and six were Democrats.

Also, 65 of the show's total 92 guests were avowed conservatives. Conservatives outnumbered all other points of view, including non-political guests, by over 70 percent.

In the five months of FAIR's study, Special Report had only 8 female guests and 6 people of color. That's 91 percent male, 93 percent white. And among the few non-male and non-white guests, FAIR found a startling homogeneity of ideals: "Seven of the show's eight female guests were either conservative or Republican, although women in general tend to be less conservative and more Democratic than men. Although African-Americans and Latinos show an even more pronounced progressive tilt, five of six people of color appearing on the show were either conservative or Republican; the sixth was an Iraqi opposition leader championed by congressional Republicans."

But Special Report with Brit Hume is not the only show that came under criticism from FAIR. The O'Reilly Factor with Bill O'Reilly (Fox's "star performer") has run a shocking 56 segments about Jesse Jackson. That means one out of every 12 shows featured racially charged segments with titles like "How personal are African-Americans taking the moral failures of Reverend Jesse Jackson?" and "Has Jesse Jackson lost his moral authority?"

According to FAIR, it's not just the specialty programming that seems to be infected with right wing bias: it's the news programs as well. In 1996, Fox's news anchor Tony Snow endorsed Bob Dole for president in a Republican National Committee magazin. Snow also gave a speech before the Republican Youth Caucus at the 2000 Republican National Convention, after which Trent Lott followed up with a cheer of "How about Tony Snow in 2008?"

Some conservatives have tried to validate Fox's conservatism by pointing to the abundance of "liberal" mainstream media outlets like CNN. FAIR used CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports as a comparison to Fox's Special Report. According to the results, 38 out of 67 guests on Wolf Blitzer Reports were Republicans. That's 57 percent: a "modest but significant tilt towards Republicans."

If you wish to learn more, FAIR's entire report can be found online at www.fair.org along with other statistically based reports of media bias and inaccuracy.

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Here's one from the Pew Research Center.
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=215

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If I may digress a little - what weight - if any - do you folk give Murdoch in dragging down American television "news" reporting to the infotainment drek it appears mostly to be today?

His wretched Channel 9 here certainly, I think, had a deleterious effect on TV news.

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Editorials, opinion pieces, are at end just that; opinions. Some may have more or less foundation than others, but essentially they proceed from a premis and are developed by their author to support that premis. That is the function of the critter; to convince the reader of the author's point. An editorial may be based on or refer to news, and often they are, and news may be editorialized, and often it is. All too often the line between editotial and news gets fuzzy. News is supposed to be fact, while editorials are granted considerably more lattitude. News may be said to be "What Happened", while an editorial more closely would be described as "What one person, the author of the editorial, thinks about what happened"

Editorials are not by nature or tradition the product of rigorous academically valid research based on the analysis of multiply corroborated, externally verifiable, readily and consistently repeatable or confirmable observations of phenomona aranged and presented by capable, acreditted researchers in such manner and detail as to permit any other similarly acreditted, capable researchers to reproduce the same results through employment of the described methodology to independently derived data pertaining to the phenomonon at study. Upon peer review and the cofirmation of reproducibility of result, an academic study may be adduced to be factual, and be published in an apopropriate academic journal.

The more esteemed the journal, the more weight is carried by the publication of studies published therein. Among the more esteemed political journals extant is the Yale Journal of American Politics, to its field much as the AMA Journal or The Harvard Journal of Law are to their respective fields; in a few words, a definitive source, an acknowledged authority, an accepted reference.

The self-avowed liberal/progressive lobbying group, Americans For Democratic Action, employs a well known rating scheme referred to as the "ADA Score", by which that organization has for many years ranked the relative liberal/conservative stance of members of both Houses of Congress. The scoring methodology is objective, based on the legislators' recorded votes on issues. A "Perfect" Democrat would score 100, while a "Perfect" Republican would score 0. Not surprisingly, by this methodology, Teddy Kennedy and Bill Frist are the opposite endstops.

Applying an ingenious adaptation of the same scoring methodology two highly acreditted academic researchers and over 20 research assistants conducted an independent, academically valid, forensically sound study of major US news outlets, both print and electronic. The study was presented at a seminar held at Yale University in September of 2003, was peer reviewed, and accepted for publication. It since has been referenced by numerous mainstream media entities, and at this time stands as the definitive work relating to the issue.

By correlating the number and length of "On the Record" references made by legislators to any of a spectrum of "Think Tanks" with the voting records of the legislators, the researchers established a scale which could be applied to media. Again not surprisingly, the correlation between references and votes was quite clear; liberal, or Democratic legislators refered more often, and at greater length, to liberal think tanks than to conservative think tanks, while the converse was true of conservative, or Republican legislators. The researchers determined there was a near-absolute-one-on-one equality of ADA Score using the "reference" method as compared with the ADA Score derived by the recorded vote method.

The researchers then turned their attention to The Media. Applying the reference method, they analyzed news media references to the same spectrum of think tanks. The results of the study present some difficulties both for those who maintaIn there is no general liberal media bias, and for those who contend that FOX News is inordinately rightward biased.

Excerpts from A Measure of Media Bias (Download Note: 29 page PDF file)[/color]

(Tim Groseclose
Department of Political Science, UCLA, and Graduate School of Business, Stanford University

Jeff Milyo
Harris School of Public Policy University of Chicago

Yale Journal of American Politics
September 2003)

Quote:

Few studies provide an objective measure of the slant of news, and none has provided a way to link such a measure to ideological measures of other political actors. That is, none of the existing measures can say, for example, whether the New York Times is more liberal than Tom Daschle or whether Fox News is more conservative than Bill Frist. We provide such a measure. Namely, we compute an ADA score for various news outlets, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Drudge Report, Fox News' Special Report, and all three networks' nightly news shows. Our results show a very significant liberal bias. All of the news outlets except Fox News' Special Report received a score to the left of the average member of Congress. Moreover, by one of our measures all but three of these media outlets (Special Report, the Drudge Report, and ABC's World News Tonight) were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than to the median member of the House of Representatives. One of our measures found that the Drudge Report is the most centrist of all media outlets in our sample. Our other measure found that Fox News' Special Report is the most centrist. These findings refer strictly to the news stories of the outlets. That is, we omitted editorials, book reviews, and letters to the editor from our sample. To compute our measure, we count the times that a media outlet cites various think tanks. We compare this with the times that members of Congress cite the same think tanks in their speeches on the floor of the House and Senate. By comparing the citation patterns we can construct an ADA score for each media outlet ...

... Previous Studies of Media Bias
One of the most curious and surprising statistics in all of American politics is that an overwhelming number of journalists are liberal. For instance, Elaine Povich (1996) reports that only seven percent of all Washington correspondents voted for George Bush in 1992, compared to 37 percent of the American public.1 Lichter, Rothman and Lichter, (1986) and Weaver and Wilhoit (1996) report similar findings for earlier elections. The reason this statistic is curious and surprising is that many consider the media the watchdog of government, sometimes calling it the "Fourth Branch of American Government." If so, it is by far the least representative of the branches. These statistics suggest that journalists, as a group, are more liberal than almost any congressional district in the country. For instance, in the Ninth California district, which includes Berkeley, twelve percent voted for Bush, nearly double the rate of journalists. In the Eighth Massachusetts district, which includes Cambridge, nineteen percent voted for Bush, more than triple the rate of journalists. In the 14th California district, which includes Palo Alto, 26 percent voted for Bush, more than four times the rate of journalists ...

... Conclusion
Although we expected to find that most media lean left, we were astounded by the degree. A norm among journalists is to present "both sides of the issue." Consequently, while we expected members of Congress to cite primarily think tanks that are on the same side of the ideological spectrum as they are, we expected journalists to practice a much more balanced citation practice, even if the journalist's own ideology opposed the think tanks that he or she is sometimes citing. This was not always the case. Most of the mainstream media outlets that we examined[/color] (ie all those besides Drudge Report and Fox News' Special Report) were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than they were to the median member of the House.

Interesting stuff, huh?

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So, the Drudge Report at Fox is centrist. How about O'Reily and Limbaugh, to two most popular talkers on Fox? I guess they don't count. Even you so-called conservatives don't name Drudge as a source of information. Come on! Give me a break.

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c.i. wrote:

... I guess they don't count ...

Now, don't be hasty. No sense gettin' down on yourself. Lets count, c.i. , and see how your assessment of the study stacks up:

1) The Drudge Report is an Internet Site with no connection whatsoever with FOX or with Messr. Murdoch. It is essentially nothing more than a compilation of links to articles published by other media and for some reason or other thought worthy by Mr. Drudge of being called to the attention of his readers. That's all it is, really, just links to articles appearing elsewhere. Rarely is Mr. Drudge's own commentary, itself comparatively rare, cited as a "Source" by most folks here, however there is no way of knowing whether somebody first became aware of an article from, oh, say Al Jazeera or The LA Times via Drudge, and then themselves referenced that article as appeared on its parent site. I would suspect that would be a not infrequent happenstance.

2) Radio commentator Rush Limbaugh is not and never was aired over TV's FOX News. Mr. Limbaugh's program is syndicated through his own EIB Network, heard on hundreds of of radio stations in every State of The Union as well as American Armed Forces Radio, numerous other radio outlets abroad, and via internet streaming.

3) The study dealt strictly with news presentation, exempting commentary, book reviews, editorials, and letters-to-the-editor, thus neither FOX's Mr. O'Reilly nor, for instance, CBS' Mr. Rooney were "Factors".

hmmmmm ... that comes to ... uhhh ... lessee here ... 0 for 3 ... OK, then, looks like you guessed right. Bummer, c.i. , sorry to learn that Mr. Green

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If O'Reilly doesn't count, then I've not missed anything on Fox, because I don't watch/listen to him. There are so many other channels to choose from..... Wink

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Did I mention that I get most of my news from the San Jose Merc and the NYT but not tv news? They're probably "liberal" papers too, but what the heck, I enjoy reading those two papers. Like I must keep repeating, I don't watch tv that much. Wink

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No need to repeat c.i. , I believe your credentials in this regard have been quite well established.

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Well well well, I just got back from the Outfoxed airing party. It was a very disturbing bit of documentary.

Fox news and it's affiliates reach 3/4 of the world's population - over 4 billion people are touched by one or more of Murdoch's newspapers, radio stations, tv stations and movie production company.

Fox news' tag-line, as we all know, is "Fair and Balanced News" and yet it's anchor starts the show (or segments of the show) with "# of days until Bush is Re-elected".

I'm sure that this documentary is biased, but the things I saw/hered tonight have no business being on any news channel, let alone one that advertises as fair and balanced - a downright fraudulent and dangerous assertion.

I am thoroughly disgusted.

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Interesting, littlek ... could you give more examples?

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There were numerous interviews with former employees. There were some with anonymous voices. They showed what were called official Fox memos telling their 'journalists' what to say and what not to say.

There was a lot of footage. They regularly told the guests they had on the show to "shut up" and Murdoch?/O'Reilly? said in a press conference that they'd only said it once to his knowledge - then the documentary cut to bites of footage where they said it over and over again.

They had a young man (Jeremy Glick) on who'd just lost his father in the WTC disaster. They interviewed him to find out how he could be against the Iraq war even though his father died in the WTC. Glick responded eloquently and persistently on his position. O'Reilly told him to shut up out of respect for his father, who he knew would be for the war. The kid persisted. O'Reilly said he knew his mother was watching and was ashamed for her (in effect). And when the kid continued to speak his mind, very calmly, O'Reilly told the crew to cut his mic and then, the doc narrator said, called security on him.

Look up Jeremy Glick.

O'Reilly lied about the Glick interview when being interviewed by Tery Gross on Fresh Air (or some show on NPR).

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Here's a link for outfoxed.org : http://www.outfoxed.org/FeaturedInterviewees.php

They addressed the 2000 election fiasco in FL. According to outfoxed, the guy doing the projections for the standings for Fox was Bush's first-cousin. He said before anyone really could, that Bush was going to win. Fox aired it as Bush did win (way before enough votes could have been tallied). And then, and this really scares me, all the other major tv news networks also aired, within seconds, that Bush won.

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http://www.outfoxed.org/Screenings.php

Austin, Boston, Cambridge and Seattle will be showing outfoxed in public venues over the next week.

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I'm sorry to c&p, but this needs to be put out there. I skipped the first little bit of the interview.

Quote:

O'REILLY: You are mouthing a far left position that is a marginal position in this society, which you're entitled to.

GLICK: It's marginal -- right.

O'REILLY: You're entitled to it, all right, but you're -- you see, even -- I'm sure your beliefs are sincere, but what upsets me is I don't think your father would be approving of this.

GLICK: Well, actually, my father thought that Bush's presidency was illegitimate.

O'REILLY: Maybe he did, but...

GLICK: I also didn't think that Bush...

O'REILLY: ... I don't think he'd be equating this country as a terrorist nation as you are.

GLICK: Well, I wasn't saying that it was necessarily like that.

O'REILLY: Yes, you are. You signed...

GLICK: What I'm saying is...

O'REILLY: ... this, and that absolutely said that.

GLICK: ... is that in -- six months before the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan, starting in the Carter administration and continuing and escalating while Bush's father was head of the CIA, we recruited a hundred thousand radical mujahadeens to combat a democratic government in Afghanistan, the Turaki government.

O'REILLY: All right. I don't want to...

GLICK: Maybe...

O'REILLY: I don't want to debate world politics with you.

GLICK: Well, why not? This is about world politics.

O'REILLY: Because, No. 1, I don't really care what you think.

GLICK: Well, OK.

O'REILLY: You're -- I want to...

GLICK: But you do care because you...

O'REILLY: No, no. Look...

GLICK: The reason why you care is because you evoke 9/11...

O'REILLY: Here's why I care.

GLICK: ... to rationalize...

O'REILLY: Here's why I care...

GLICK: Let me finish. You evoke 9/11 to rationalize everything from domestic plunder to imperialistic aggression worldwide.

O'REILLY: OK. That's a bunch...

GLICK: You evoke sympathy with the 9/11 families.

O'REILLY: That's a bunch of crap. I've done more for the 9/11 families by their own admission -- I've done more for them than you will ever hope to do.

GLICK: OK.

O'REILLY: So you keep your mouth shut when you sit here exploiting those people.

GLICK: Well, you're not representing me. You're not representing me.

O'REILLY: And I'd never represent you. You know why?

GLICK: Why?

O'REILLY: Because you have a warped view of this world and a warped view of this country.

GLICK: Well, explain that. Let me give you an example of a parallel...

O'REILLY: No, I'm not going to debate this with you, all right.

GLICK: Well, let me give you an example of parallel experience. On September 14...

O'REILLY: No, no. Here's -- here's the...

GLICK: On September 14...

O'REILLY: Here's the record.

GLICK: OK.

O'REILLY: All right. You didn't support the action against Afghanistan to remove the Taliban. You were against it, OK.

GLICK: Why would I want to brutalize and further punish the people in Afghanistan...

O'REILLY: Who killed your father!

GLICK: The people in Afghanistan...

O'REILLY: Who killed your father.

GLICK: ... didn't kill my father.

O'REILLY: Sure they did. The al Qaeda people were trained there.

GLICK: The al Qaeda people? What about the Afghan people?

O'REILLY: See, I'm more angry about it than you are!

GLICK: So what about George Bush?

O'REILLY: What about George Bush? He had nothing to do with it.

GLICK: The director -- senior as director of the CIA.

O'REILLY: He had nothing to do with it.

GLICK: So the people that trained a hundred thousand Mujahadeen who were...

O'REILLY: Man, I hope your mom isn't watching this.

GLICK: Well, I hope she is.

O'REILLY: I hope your mother is not watching this because you -- that's it. I'm not going to say anymore.

GLICK: OK.

O'REILLY: In respect for your father...

GLICK: On September 14, do you want to know what I'm doing?

O'REILLY: Shut up. Shut up.

GLICK: Oh, please don't tell me to shut up.

O'REILLY: As respect -- as respect -- in respect for your father, who was a Port Authority worker, a fine American, who got killed unnecessarily by barbarians...

GLICK: By radical extremists who were trained by this government...

O'REILLY: Out of respect for him...

GLICK: ... not the people of America.

O'REILLY: ... I'm not going to...

GLICK: ... The people of the ruling class, the small minority.

O'REILLY: Cut his mic. I'm not going to dress you down anymore, out of respect for your father. We will be back in a moment with more of THE FACTOR.

GLICK: That means we're done?

O'REILLY: We're done.

Then this happened right before the commercial break:

What you can not see here because it's a text transcript, is right after O'Reilly said "we're done" he made two motions with his hand. He (O'Reilly) waved at someone off camera as to say come here and get him (referring to Jeremy Glick) then he did a move with his thumb, he held his right thumb up and raised it up in a short little motion. It's as if he were hitch-hiking, like get him outta here. I am guessing he was telling someone on his staff or his bodyguard to throw Glick out of the studio.

Here's the sickening apology quote O'Reilly gave after the commercials:

OREILLY: "I have to apologize. If I knew that guy, Jeremy Glick, was going to be like that, I never would have brought him in here, and I feel bad for his family. I really do. " O'Reilly-Glick interview Transcript

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littlek's quote, "I'm sure that this documentary is biased, but the things I saw/hered tonight have no business being on any news channel, let alone one that advertises as fair and balanced - a downright fraudulent and dangerous assertion.

I am thoroughly disgusted."

Seems I'm not the only one reacting to Fox news - in the negative. Wink

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I never watch Fox news at all. What little I've seen is enough to keep me disinterested.

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I'd never watched it until tonight. At least not many years.

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FOX News charged from the gates, backed by billionaire Rupert Murdoch's wealth and a desire to tap into the discontent of conservatives. Instead of hiring exclusively from ex-democrats, they unabashedly gave reporting jobs to former republican workers, including Tony Snow who at one point, used to sub for Rush Limbaugh.

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You can listen to live interviews here: http://www.moveon.org/conf/presentation_av.phtml

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"OutFoxed": How Fox News Is Destroying American Journalism

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