Good rundown on FOX from the Baltimore Sun. Love em or hate em, they are gaining while the rest are losing.
Fair Game
CEO Roger Ailes won't apologize for Fox News' success or its tone. By his account, those alleging bias are the ones playing politics.
Radio & TV: David Folkenflik Originally published Aug 13, 2003
Roger Ailes sure looks happy these days. And why shouldn't he? The chairman and CEO of Fox News Channel has seen his creation soar in the ratings ahead of CNN and well past all other rivals. Since its birth seven years ago, Fox News has thrown both CNN and MSNBC into tumult with its successful pursuit of conservative viewers and others who feel alienated from the mainstream media.
And now, Ailes has found help in his continued quest for wider credibility.
Just last week, there was Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the liberal Baltimore Democrat who leads the Congressional Black Caucus, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Ailes at Morgan State University.
The two men were on the podium to announce the joint sponsorship of a pair of debates this fall for Democrats running in the presidential primaries, one of which would be held at the Baltimore campus. Cummings, never stingy with compliments, praised Ailes lavishly.
"He understands the importance of the debates and has a firm commitment to educating the public," Cummings said, putting on his best public-servant face. The congressman noted that Fox News "is the most watched cable news network and has the best opportunity to reach a wide audience."
At the lectern, Ailes resembled no one so much as Alfred Hitchcock, though he seemed far giddier than the famously dour director. He proclaimed his longstanding interest in civil rights issues, invoking his work decades ago as a television producer for several shows with Malcolm X and his interactions with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "In the universe of the five cable news channels, Fox News now has more than 50 percent of the [audience]," he said proudly.
Ailes clinched the debate deal with a personal touch. He had first met with Cummings and other black lawmakers to address concerns that they were being shut out of Fox airwaves. Then, earlier this spring, he hammered out details of the debates at a black-tie dinner for White House correspondents. Cummings attended as Ailes' guest.
In his remarks, Ailes at once acknowledged and dismissed the central concern hovering over the event - the collaboration of liberals with a media outlet deemed conservative by many observers. Editorial practices on Fox, such as anchors' editorializing in favor of the war with Iraq and describing Palestinian terrorists as "homicide bombers" instead of "suicide bombers," have contributed to that impression.
But Ailes cited a long roster of Democrats who have appeared on his channel's programs. "That's a lot of side chatter," he said. "We don't believe that bias is when someone presents his point of view. We feel bias is when someone's point of view is eliminated."
Later, in an interview with The Sun, he said the persistence of questions about Fox's political orientation, such as one posed at the Morgan State event by WJZ-TV's Mary Bubala, betrayed the reflexively liberal nature of the news media.
"As long as there is an unfair journalist, that question will be asked," Ailes said. "As long as they never ask these questions of George Stephanopoulos and Tim Russert, they'll always ask it of me." ABC News' Stephanopoulos and NBC News' Russert both worked for years for prominent Democrats. Ailes was a television producer who became a hard-hitting media adviser to Republicans Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
By now, Ailes said, people should have realized that he has relinquished politics. But his political instincts die hard. In Ailes' worlds, the best defense is often a good offense.
A forthcoming book by liberal comedian Al Franken mocking Fox News with its own "fair and balanced" mantra - its title is Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right - has prompted a lawsuit by Fox. In papers for the suit, which hinges on what Fox News says is its right to protect its trademarked phrase, lawyers call Franken "a parasite" and a "C-level commentator" whose "views lack any serious depth or insight," according to published reports.
The tone comes straight from the top. When former Fox anchor Paula Zahn defected to CNN, Ailes compared her ratings to those that would be drawn by a "dead raccoon."
Asked in the interview with The Sun about the persistent question about Fox News' political inclinations, Ailes responded: "Fox News - we haven't retracted a story in seven years. We didn't do 'Tailwind.' We don't have a guy on cocaine making up stories, as the New York Times did ... We've got great journalists."
"Operation Tailwind" was a botched CNN investigative piece on the military that was wholly retracted, while Ailes' remarks about the Times referred to former reporter (and confessed drug user and story fabricator) Jayson Blair.
A strong argument can be made that Fox's track record of no retractions, even if true, does not reflect well on the cable channel. Fox termed reporter Geraldo Rivera's unfounded and much-discussed "friendly fire" dispatch from Afghanistan in December 2001 "an honest mistake" after The Sun debunked it. But the cable network never formally retracted the piece.
Other Fox stories have proven wrong. Anchor Brit Hume once corrected a story that proved to be a hoax.
But Ailes, who built up a head of steam during the interview, also turned the question of bias on his competitors. He argued that Fox News' success has forced others to acknowledge issues of balance for the first time.
"CNN for years had 4,000 liberals and Bob Novak," Ailes said, alluding to the prominent conservative columnist and commentator. Fox News, by contrast, has 14 or 15 conservative commentators and an equal number of liberals, by Ailes' count. (CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson said her network had no response to Ailes.)
Critics, however, say Fox News stacks the deck when it comes to being "fair and balanced." Conservatives have found a champion in Sean Hannity, the opinionated Fox host who has simultaneously become a talk-radio phenomenon. He is paired on Fox with Alan Colmes, a liberal whose personality is far less electric. Similar manipulation, according to critics, occurs in other ways, too.
In an online column July 30 (available at www.npr.org), National Public Radio ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin wrote skeptically about the practice of NPR correspondents appearing on other media outlets, often as analysts or commentators. Mara Liasson and Juan Williams of NPR are frequent contributors to Fox News.
Dvorkin wrote: "Fox hosts often imply that NPR reporters are the embodiment of liberal journalism by placing them against openly conservative personalities. This may confirm in the minds of some viewers that NPR must be as ideologically committed in its own way as Fox is to the conservative cause."
In a 2001 interview with The Sun for a profile of Williams, Liasson said she was not serving as a liberal commentator on Fox News but as a political analyst. She did not return a message seeking comment yesterday.
In a separate quarterly report filed last month about listeners' concerns, Dvorkin wrote: "Complaints about NPR's political bias have increased 100 percent" from the three-month period ending March 31, 2003. "Most of these accuses (sic) NPR of a liberal bias."
Count Ailes among those who detect such a bent. "NPR is liberal. Never are there conservatives on NPR," Ailes said. "Give me a break - who are they kidding?"
"Nobody's ever told, on our channel, left or right, what to say. [Democrat] Al Sharpton's been on our shows. He's not a right-winger. If you wake Mara Liasson up at 3 in the morning and say, 'What are you?' she'll say, 'Liberal!' "
"Who are we kidding?"
Kidding or not, whether you like it or not, Fox News is having a serious effect on how other media outlets are operating. And Ailes is the man making it happen.
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