Fox News Channel - Legitimate Source Or Right Wing Shill?

Almost from its inception in 1996, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel has come under fire for being a “right wing” news network, with little or nothing in the way of objectivity or unbiased news reporting. It has been the target of comedians, pundits, other members of the press, and most recently, President Barack Obama, who called it “Not a news organization” and actively sought to restrict FNC’s participation in the White House press pool.

No doubt some of the criticism of Fox News comes from its phenomenally successful ratings. Anyone who is on top has no shortage of competitors gunning for their failure. As of spring 2010, FNC was pulling 1.8 million viewers for its prime time lineup, as compared to 747,000 for MSNBC and 595,000 for CNN. Likewise, FNC commentators Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity routinely trounce their cable opponents in the ratings by substantial margins.

So where is the right wing bias?  The vast majority of evidence offered by Fox News critics routinely revolves around the success of shows such as “The O’Reilly Factor” and “Hannity”.    Unfortunately, these claims do not hold water, since the hosts are political commentators, not news reporters.  Commentators can and always will have a bias that is very visible and forthright.  Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck are conservative commentators, much like MSNBCs Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are liberal commentators.  It is unreasonable to make any accusations of news bias based on the ideological bent of any commentator.

So that leaves us with the news. The news reports that occur at the top and bottom of every hour. When you start looking for evidence of bias there, it becomes strangely silent. Several radio talk show hosts including Atlanta’s Neal Boortz, have put forth challenges for anyone to come up with a viable example of right wing bias in the news reporting at Fox. So far, no takers.

That’s not to say that a news reporter cannot have a political slant, or that the slant will not become visible in his or her reporting of the news. It does happen. The most prominent case was that of MSNBC reporter Susan Roesgen, who while covering a 2010 Tea Party event, ceased reporting on it and began actively arguing with the people she was interviewing. This effectively crossed the line of objectively reporting the news and degenerated into clearly partisan cheerleading for a specific point of view.

As stated earlier, President Barack Obama blasted Fox News as “not a news organization”, and for a while it was speculated that the White House was discouraging administration officials from appearing on the network, although that did not stop former DNC chair Howard Dean or other DNC leaders from appearing regularly. In fact, then Candidate Obama appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s show for an interview in the days leading up to the 2008 election (something GOP Candidate John McCain refused to do).

President Obama’s attempts to remove Fox News from the White House press backfired when the other members of the so-called “liberal media” networks stepped forward to defend Fox, basically saying, “you take all of us or none of us”. Indeed, Fox News was eventually given a front row seat for White House press conferences, the same seat vacated by AP’s Helen Thomas.

So is the Fox News Channel “right wing”?  Or are they baseless assumptions drawn from a few minutes of watching “Hannity”?  True, the bulk of FNC’s op ed shows are conservative, but that has more to do with business savvy than ideology.   The conservative shows get ratings.  Liberal shows do not.  It’s strictly a numbers game.

If a network leans right or left, it is going to be the result of their op ed shows.  I’m inclined to credit Fox for solid news reporting (remember, it was Fox who broke the story of George W. Bush’s DWI in the weeks running up to the 2000 campaign, hardly something a network so in the tank for conservatives would do), as well as the business savvy to put together a lineup that has demonstrated itself to be undefeatable in the all important ratings game.

But as always, there are other schools of thought.  We report, you decide indeed…….

Billy is the Director of Content for LeadsByFone, a lead generation company serving the water removal and restoration industry.  He is based in Atlanta.