FOX News

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The FOX News Channel is a US cable and satellite news channel. It is part of the Fox Network, a subsidiary of Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. 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.

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 & 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 news 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. Usually hosted by Jon Scott, Bridgette Quinn, and David Asman.
• 1 p.m.: Linda Vester's talk show with a live audience, Dayside.
• 3 p.m.: Shepard Smith's news program, Studio B.
• 4 p.m.: Fox's flagship business program, Your World, hosted by Neil Cavuto.
• 5 p.m.: John Gibson hosts My Word, an news/commentary program.
• 6 p.m.: Primetime starts with the personality-driven news/talk show 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, formerly of Inside Edition fame.
• 9 p.m.: Conservative Sean Hannity and liberal Alan Colmes debate political issues of the day with guests and analysts during Hannity & 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.

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. Its self-promotion includes the phrases "Fair and Balanced" and "We Report, You Decide". However, this claim would contradict the Propaganda model which claims that any commercial media organisation will inevitably be biased in order to remain competitive. FOX News aims 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. Thus supporters and critics of FOX News seem to agree that it is to the right of other American network news. Supporters variously argue that FOX is neutral and its competition is strictly liberal, or that FOX is an anti-liberal corrective that makes American television as a whole more balanced. Critics variously insist that FOX has a right-wing or conservative bias, or that its news is tailored to the interests of the Republican Party.

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.

The claim that FOX is rightist begins with Murdoch's and Ailes' own Republican connections. Critics point to Murdoch's ownership of conservative newspapers such as the New York Post and the London Times. In the case of Ailes, critics consider not only his Republican campaign work in general, but also his involvement in the controversial Willie Horton ad in particular. He also produced the Rush Limbaugh television show.

Some criticize 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 (PIPA), 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. However, many conservative critics, such as opinion columnist Ann Coulter ([7]), argue that these are not misperceptions but are based on evidence that other news organizations have tended to downplay. For example, they claim that there has been some contact between some in the Iraqi government and operatives in al-Qaeda, that Iraq had the capability to build WMD's, or that the "Coalition of the Willing" is proof of at least some international support for the actions of the US government.

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.

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.

International transmission

Canada

On November 18, 2004 the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced that a digital licence would be granted to FOX News, meaning that Canadian cable and satellite operators will soon be able to broadcast FOX as a digital specialty channel. The CRTC's previous refusal to grant Fox News a licence had been contested by some Canadians, who believed the decision to be politically motivated, since services such as CNN and BBC World had been available for many years.

United Kingdom

FOX News 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. It is a sister channel to BSkyB's Sky News.

Other Countries

FOX News Channel is also carried in more than 20 countries including Italy, the Netherlands and Israel, mostly through News Corporation-owned cable and satellite systems.

External links

• FOX News - the channel's official website
• News Corporation - FOX's parent company
• Museum of Broadcast Communications: Ailes, Roger
• BBC News: US channel's BBC remarks censured

de:Fox News Channel