F(au)x News: PR Arm of the GOP

Here’s enough reason for Democrats not to trust Fox News, and to correctly describe it as an extension of the republican party:

Journalists strive to report the news, not to be the news. So Fox News should have been a bit embarrassed to headline a story that ended with the Nevada Democratic Party canceling Fox’s sponsorship of a pre-caucus debate.

Then again, Fox is not a typical news organization. [...] Fox’s prime commitment is to the triumph of conservative politics, not to a well-informed public. From hiring hosts to selecting stories to framing questions for discussion, Fox demonstrates its dedication to advancing the ideological interests of the right.

As former Fox reporter/anchor Jon Du Pre put it in the documentary “Outfoxed,” “We weren’t necessarily, as it was told to us, a newsgathering organization so much as we were a proponent of a point of view … we were there to reinforce a constituency.”

[...]

What evidence, forged or otherwise, did Fox rely on in asserting that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) attended a Muslim madrassah? If CNN could go to the school and give the lie to the report, why couldn’t Fox? What outside panel was empowered to investigate how Fox could have aired such an outrageously inaccurate report? Who was fired for the inflammatory falsehoods?

A study by a University of Maryland center concluded, “Those who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions” about Iraq. For example, in 2003, 67 percent of those who relied primarily on Fox wrongly believed the U.S. “found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al Qaeda terrorist organization.” Only 40 percent of those who relied on print media harbored this illusion, debunked thoroughly by the 9/11 Commission.

Instead of providing “fair and balanced” reporting, Fox has created an audience ignorant of the facts, but fully supportive of management’s ideology.

An audience that decides for itself, based on “fair and balanced” coverage, ought not to reach monolithic conclusions. Yet, in our 2004 polling with Media Vote, using Nielsen diaries, we found that Fox News viewers supported George Bush over John Kerry by 88 percent to 7 percent. No demographic segment, other than Republicans, was as united in supporting Bush. Conservatives, white evangelical Christians, gun owners, and supporters of the Iraq war all gave Bush fewer votes than did regular Fox News viewers.

Media Continues to Kowtow to Conservatives

Not surprisingly media watchdog groups find that the elite news media continues to favor the conservative view point, often allowing conservative voices to dominate the public airwaves:

OUR KEY FINDINGS:

• Despite previous network claims that a conservative advantage existed on the Sunday shows simply because Republicans controlled Congress and the White House, only one show, ABC’s This Week, has been roughly balanced between both sides overall since the congressional majority switched hands in the 2006 midterm elections.
• Since the 2006 midterm elections, NBC’s Meet the Press and CBS’ Face the Nation have provided less balance between Republican and Democratic officials than Fox Broadcasting Co.’s Fox News Sunday despite the fact that Fox News Sunday remains the most unbalanced broadcast overall both before and after the election.
• During the 109th Congress (2005 and 2006), Republicans and conservatives held the advantage on every show, in every category measured. All four shows interviewed more Republicans and conservatives than Democrats and progressives overall, interviewed more Republican elected and administration officials than Democratic officials, hosted more conservative journalists than progressive journalists, held more panels that tilted right than tilted left, and gave more solo interviews to Republicans and conservatives.

Now that Congress has switched hands, one would reasonably expect Democrats and progressives to be represented at least as often as Republicans and conservatives on the Sunday shows. Yet our findings for the months since the midterm elections show that the networks have barely changed their practices.

Fox News Loosing Clout?

This is an important point at the center of the brouhaha over the republican partisan nature of Faux News:

[T]he money people are noticing the animosity against Fox News, and realizing that the Fox News brand isn’t necessarily something their clients should want to be associated with.

The corporate world is cautious about politics, and they don’t like to get in the middle of political spats.  They prefer their politics quiet and out of site.  It’s probably just better for them to put their ads on CNN and MSNBC, and leave Fox News for the penis pills and the like.

Mainstream Media Bias: NY Times at it Again

Just another example in a long list of mainstream media bias against opposition to Bush’s Iraq war:

A Divided House Denounces Plan for More Troops

That’s the NY Times headline covering the recent Democratic Party resolution rebuking Bush’s Iraq war escalation. Here’s the bias, as others have commented:

That would be the New York Times editorializing in its news story about yesterday’s House vote on the Iraq escalation. It gets even more ridiculous in the lede:

A sharply divided House of Representatives passed a resolution on Friday formally repudiating President Bush’s decision to send more than 20,000 new combat troops to Iraq.

Never mind that there were 17 Republicans voting against their own President and with the Democrats. On any other vote that would have been called "bipartisan."

Again, What Liberal Media!?

Great catch by Crooks and Liars:

Look at this Yahoo headline of a Reuters story:

Bomb kills 15, Bush critic Pelosi visits Baghdad

"Bush critic"?  That’s the best descriptive Yahoo can think of to give Pelosi?

Not "Speaker of the House" Pelosi? Not "Third in Line for the Presidency" Pelosi?

Not even "California Congresswoman" Pelosi?

But, yes, all you lurking Freepers, keep crying that the media is liberal.

Tell you what, when Yahoo News refers to Bush as "Constitution Ignorer" George W. Bush or "Human Rights Violator" George W. Bush, you might just have a point.