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October 5, 2006 11:58 AM
"Fair and Balancing" -- Fox News is 10 Catherine Seipp looks back on the first 10 years of FOX, years that reshaped the cable news business: “I remember once I was at a media party here in L.A., and some guy from the lefty KPFK radio station, overhearing me mention the words “Fox News” in conversation with someone else, remarked: ‘I like you already!’ Why? ‘Because it’s great to hear someone slam Fox News.’” Still, when Fox News chief Roger Ailes came to Los Angeles this summer to speak to the Television Critics Association, I noticed the audience was less antagonistic than I’ve seen them be over the years to, say, Bill O’Reilly. A couple of years ago, I saw the Fox News star face a room full of TCA types at a press conference here, and the hostility in the room was palpable. For his part, O’Reilly was on his disapproving questioners like a terrier shaking a sock toy. “If conservative Americans like us, it’s because they don’t hear any conservative point of view on NPR, very little on PBS,” he snapped at Fox News, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this week, is as unbeloved as ever by the rest of the media. But at least lately my colleagues seem to be resigned to the cable news channel’s existence - even though that “fair and balanced” tag still sticks in pretty much everyone’s craw.someone complaining about Fox’s right-of-center viewpoint. “And the other thing I want to yell at you guys about,” he added, warming up, “is every time you write about me, you put a little perjorative adjective in front of my name: ‘the conservative Bill O’Reilly.’ Now I didn’t see ‘the liberal Bill Moyers,’ did you? Did anybody see that? What’s that all about? If you want to think I’m conservative, that’s fine. But there’s no doubt that Bill Moyers is a liberal. Do a Nexus search on me and you’ll always have that adjective in front of me. Always. Knock it off!” “The elite media seems to have to take a swipe at me no matter what,” O’Reilly reminded me when I interviewed him. The snappiest Ailes got in L.A. this summer was when someone asked about Fox News’ plans to expland into local news programming. “What are you worried about?” Ailes snapped. “That we’re going to do fair and balanced reporting at the local stations?” “We haven’t had to fire our executives or our reporters or our anchors or anybody else for making up the news,” Ailes continued. “Maybe we’re a little too in-your-face at times. But basically what we do is cover the story, and we haven’t been forced to eat our words because we’re actually telling people what’s going on. Sometimes there’s more than one point of view, and we try to reflect that.” Not everyone sees it that way, of course. I still remember Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan’s review of the 2004 documentary “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War On Journalism,” for the way Turan blandly revealed the iron fist between the fuzzy liberal mitten. “Perhaps the most disheartening thing about Outfoxed,” the film critic complained, “is the realization that, unlike any administration, liberal or conservative, a news organization cannot be voted out of office.” Yes, he actually said it: If only we had the power to simply get rid of all sources of news we don’t like, just think how much better the world would be. But, alas, we don’t. How disheartening. Now it’s true that the Fox slogan “fair and balanced” is rather disingenious; “fair and balancing,” might be a better term, because there’s no question that the news channel sits firmly to the right of most of the mainstrem media. But there’s something about Fox News, more than any other liberal-tilting news organization, that particularly sticks in the craw of those who see things differently. I remember once I was at a media party here in L.A., and some guy from the lefty KPFK radio station, overhearing me mention the words “Fox News” in conversation with someone else, remarked: “I like you already!” Why? “Because it’s great to hear someone slam Fox News.” I gently explained that, as it happened, I wasn’t slamming Fox News; I was complaining about people in the media who piously slam Fox News at every opportunity. I also said that he shouldn’t assume every time someone talks about Fox News this necessarily means they hate Fox News. Even if you work for a far-left institution like KPFK, you should realize that the entire world isn’t like KPFK, but I suppose people hear what they want to hear. As Ailes noted this summer when he spoke to the TCA: “We’ve had some reporters write that [Fox News is popular] because the American people are stupid - actually wrote that. And we just don’t believe that.” “I happen to be a guy who doesn’t get up every morning hating my country,” Ailes added, “Because I just don’t want to live in Somalia. I think we have it very good here, and I think we have a responsibility to treat our country the same way our country treats us.” PajamasMedia Special Correspondent CATHERINE SEIPP writes the weekly “From the Left Coast” column for National Review Online, a monthly column for Independent Women’s Forum and freelances other places, such as the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal op-ed pages. She previously wrote columns for: Buzz, Mediaweek, UPI, New York Press and Salon. Her work has also appeared in Reason, Penthouse, TV Guide, the National Post and Forbes. Published by Pajamas Media, the Best of the Blogs, and POLITICSCENTRAL. ——— Comments (14)dougf :Jinx :Thank god for Fox News. It truly is the full test of a leftist fascist if they hate Fox News. You merely have to ask them "If, out of 8 news networks, 7 are left-wing and 1 is right-wing, why does just that one bother you? Isn't 7 out of 8 enough." This proves their intolerance. McCarroll :Fox certainly has more liberals before its camera than CNN or any of the rival cable networks have conservatives. Odgani :Fox. They inform, inspire laughter, infuriate, give a taste of the sublime, balance the news even when the journalist is a liberal wacko—yeah, Fox has 'em. Great news. A relative of mine watches CNN and has as virulent a case of BDS as I've ever seen. Facts are always wrong. daveinboca :Fox does the old college try at getting both sides of the story. O'Reilly may be overbearing, but he does give the last word to his guest. His book Culture Warrior raises valid points on how the secular-progressives try to dominate the marketplace of ideas by eliminating alternate POVs. There is an MSM/Academicide/Hollyweird cabal advancing an agenda which tries to ban "hate speech" and with McCain-Feingold, control talk radio as paid political announcements---two worrisome edge-of-the-wedge rollbacks of the First Amendment. Fox also is honest on the immigration issue, something the corporate Repubs are not. And last and foremost, Fox does not suffer from BDS and the Hate-America Syndrome. And is not buffaloed into bogus science like the O'Brien twins on CNN, par exemple. Synova :I don't care for O'Reilly and I find the various court/crime reporting (think Aruba) to be so off-putting that I don't even know who covers that for FOX or CNN or MSNBC. Ick. But the straight news really is pretty much straight news. It's not that different, actually, from the other news channels. What I have found to be true every single time is if someone says, "Oh, Faux News" and rolls their eyes or makes some remark about how biased it is... they've never watched it. Maybe they've seen O'Reilly once as they flipped past but someone told them FOX news was biased lies and that was that. DL From Heidelberg :Fox really ought to take on CNN International. CNN has decided its global competitor is Al Jeezera and it uses blatant anti-Americanism to attract the Euro-left and Islamic world, reinforcing all the negative stereotypes (aka DNC talking points) they want to hold about the U.S. Tantor :The problem with the Left is that they have a big problem with free speech. Deep down in their lefty hearts, they don't believe in it. They believe that only they should be allowed to speak. That's a deeply un-American attitude. Tantor Andrew Ian Dodge :O'Reily is a populist pinhead but the debates between him at Cavuto on the Oil business was classic. Cavuto is a great host and he raises the bar for the rest of Fox. Long live Fox! Ralph Gizzip :When all it's competition is to the left it makes a centrist Fox News seem to the right by comparison. RobertSYV :There is an underlying reason that Fox News and all of the conservative talk radio programs have become so popular and continue to grow to such an extent; they are saying what the majority of the country thinks and feels and are sick and tired of all these holdovers from the 60s trying to ram old worn out attitudes and philosophies down our throats. Larry Rasczak :Saying O'Reily is a populist pinhead is a slam at populist pinheads. He used to be worth listening to, heck I even bought his book. Then he started taking his own press clippings seriously and now he is just a particularly stupid and unusually loud demigog. Ralph is right when he says "When all it's competition is to the left it makes a centrist Fox News seem to the right by comparison." There is "no question that the news channel sits firmly to the right of most of the mainstrem media." but being to the right of the mainstream media is sort of like being less leaky than the Titanic, or thinner than Michael Moore. It's pretty hard not to be. I used to be a big Fox Fan but I left when they became intollerably stupid. Thing like hiring Giraldo, becoming obsessed with the missing blonde dijiour, and covering strictly local stories like car chases and fires instead of real news because they had exciting video clips. AJackson :Actually, I wish Fox was LESS balanced. They always have a bunch of libs from NPR to 'balance' things. I get enough of the lib viewpoint from the other networks, NPR, and most newspapers. I watch Fox to try to balance the liberal spin I get from the other media. Daniel Lucraft :Over in the UK, conservatives drool at the idea of Fox, since it would be illegal under our 'impartiality' laws (a joke anyway when the BBC is able to camp out in the centre-left for decades). But now we have our own Fox! 18 Doughty Street Talk TV. www.18doughtystreet.com It's internet based so it gets around the impartiality laws, and it's been put together by a bunch of conservative bloggers. Go see. Comments have been archived for this page. |
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“I happen to be a guy who doesn’t get up every morning hating my country,” Ailes added, “Because I just don’t want to live in Somalia. I think we have it very good here, and I think we have a responsibility to treat our country the same way our country treats us.”
What he said.
Didn't Jennings have some higher duty, either patriotic or human, to do something other than just roll film as soldiers from his own country were being shot? "No," Wallace said flatly and immediately. "You don't have a higher duty. No. No. You're a reporter!"
As repugnant to hear now as it was offensive then.
Yea, FOX !!
Oct 5, 2006 03:35 PM