"Let us suppose that tomorrow morning, 10 members of
Bush's National Guard unit say that he hadn't served. Do
you think The New York Times or Washington Post would be
all over that?"
THE CONTRARIAN
<font size=4>Taking on mainstream media, Fox's Hume faces political views head-on
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By Geoff Edgers, Globe Staff | September 1, 2004
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Brit Hume, the Fox News Channel anchor, made a not-so-surprising discovery Monday morning as he thumbed through coverage of the Republican National Convention. All the major newspapers had done stories on the antiwar protests the day before. And he disagreed with most of the pieces.
That evening, broadcasting from the Fox box overlooking the stage at Madison Square Garden, Hume spoke of the contrast between what he saw and what they reported. <font color=purple>"I read about soccer moms, and other nice people, middle-class people, people like you and me who had come to express and protest their president, and express their views in a peaceful way,"<font color=black> he said.
This was not the scene on C-Span, Hume said. <font color=purple>"The F-word was much in abundance in the signs and on the protesters' lips,"<font color=black> he said.
It was a perfect Hume moment. Without raising his voice, he had once again reminded viewers why he, and Fox, are not like the others. For Hume, the contrarian's stance has always been second nature.
Hume, 61, might look and talk like your average news anchor. But in a profession that prides itself on being unbiased, he is unique: He reveals his political leanings. He identifies himself as a conservative. This week, at the Republican convention, that is one of the reasons he and his colleagues are getting star treatment.
On Monday night, for example, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw waited patiently at the top of a stairway for the crowd to file down. Nobody bothered him. As Hume descended a few minutes later, fans stopped to thank him, shake his hand, and ask him to pose for pictures.
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"Keep up the good work, and God bless you,"<font color=black> said Billy Jack, a Texas delegate.
Why does Jack watch only Fox? <font color=purple>"Because Fox stands for fair and balanced, man,"<font color=black> he said, quoting its slogan.
Some would disagree. As the network has grown in popularity -- Hume's 6 p.m. program easily beats its counterparts on CNN and MSNBC, according to the latest ratings -- so has the chorus of critics who see Fox as a mouthpiece for the Republican Party. They point to Roger Ailes, the former Republican strategist who created the network, and Bill O'Reilly, the television host known to shout down guests.
Fox has inspired a documentary, <font color=blue>"Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism,"<font color=black> by Democratic activist Robert Greenwald, and comedian-turned-commentator Al Franken played off the Fox slogan for his best-selling book, <font color=blue>"Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right."<font color=black>
Hume particularly angered Franken last year when, in a brief commentary during his <font color=purple>"Grapevine"<font color=black> segment, Hume compared the rate of deaths in the war in Iraq to the rate of murders in California. Franken, who felt Hume's comparison was crude, inaccurate, and bent on lessening the impact of those war deaths, has been demanding an apology for months.
For his part, Hume said he is not aware of Franken's demand. But Hume, who spent 23 years at ABC News, does admit it bothers him when people question his news judgment. Unlike O'Reilly, he steers panel discussions with a calm voice. His views on the news business are not quite so polite. He believes it is in decline, and that the nightly network news will eventually be a thing of the past. He also disagrees that you can maintain objectivity simply by reporting both sides.
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"Fairness is not an attitude,"<font color=black> Hume said. <font color=purple>"It's a professional skill that must be developed and exercised. I'm conservative, but when I'm doing this I'm a journalist. I believe it is possible for my political views to enter into my reporting if I'm not careful. The best way to keep that from happening is to face them."<font color=black>
Pushing Hume on just how he feels about particular issues, it is clear he is as much a questioner of the status quo as a conservative. He declines to take a side on abortion, saying it is too difficult, and said that he is not a registered Republican.
Hume said that when he finished his tenure as chief White House correspondent in 1996, he wanted a new challenge. He had hoped to work at a cable station being developed by ABC, but the network's plans fell through. Then he met with Ailes, who was set to launch Fox News Channel. Ratings-wise, the Fox approach is a smash. On Monday, when the networks did not cover the GOP convention live, an estimated 3.9 million viewers watched the event on Fox, while CNN had 1.3 million viewers and MSNBC had 854,000, according to Nielsen Media Research. Still, Fox is slammed as a slanted voice for conservatives.
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"I won't say I like it, but the one thing that would threaten us is if our competitors thought, 'Fox must be doing something right, and we better find out what it is. We're biased, we're illegitimate, and we're no good.' As soon as they think that, they're not going to fix the problem,"<font color=black> Hume said.
He has been particularly proud of Fox's willingness to cover the controversy involving the Vietnam veterans and Democratic nominee John F. Kerry. Hume said he is not sure whom he believes, Kerry or the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. But he does say it is a perfect example of how bias, when unchecked, can enter into news judgment. The mainstream media, he said, has been hesitant to give attention to the anti-Kerry veterans.
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"Let us suppose that tomorrow morning, 10 members of Bush's National Guard unit say that he hadn't served. Do you think The New York Times or Washington Post would be all over that?"<font color=black><font size=3>
Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com.
© Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |
