DISPELLING REPUTED GOP SLANT
Fox News keeps a low profile
"Both CNN and Fox like to claim they're not biased at all, but the truth is, CNN is liberal and Fox is conservative. Is it really so horrible to speak the truth? And that is the truth."
BY VERNE GAY
STAFF WRITER
NEWSDAY
September 1, 2004
To get to the Fox News Channel's so-called "work space" at Madison Square Garden, a visitor has to cross a bridgespan before descending a steep steel staircase that seems better suited to a submarine than a convention. The visitor then quickly realizes that this work space - where dozens of techs, producers, reporters and anchors are headquartered this week - isn't in the Garden at all, but hidden deep in a basement at the old Farley post office building across the street.
There is a practical reason for Fox's remove from the media horde a block away. The basement offers plenty of room; a handful of other media outlets are here, too. (Fox of course has a skybox at Madison Square Garden as well.)
CNN has taken over a diner on the corner of 34th Street and Eighth Avenue, and has advertised its presence with a huge sign. MSNBC has a booth on Herald Square, where Chris Matthews' "Hardball" originated.
By contrast, Fox News is nearly an invisible presence at the Garden this week - no hoopla, no fancy street booths and no braggadocio.
There is a practical reason for that, too. The network has been targeted by some groups, including one that staged a protest against primetime host Bill O'Reilly yesterday afternoon at Fox's Sixth Avenue studios.
The network is also trying to keep delegates at arms' length. Brit Hume, chief Washington correspondent and anchor of its nightly news program, "Special Report," said, "We're not chummy with these people. ... We're not trying to be part of the story."
Fox, however, has become part of this week's political story. Founded in 1996, the network was an also-ran until the 2000 Republican convention in Philadelphia where it surpassed CNN in primetime ratings for the first time. As such, this convention - expected to be a ratings bonanza for FNC just as last month's Democratic convention was for CNN - is a symbolic threshold, too.
The paradox of this success is apparent. Fox is the cable news ratings leader, but it's also battling a growing impression, particularly among Democratic critics, that it is a tool of the Republican Party.
It is this impression that Fox wants to dispel at the Red State convention. So far, the task hasn't been easy. When Major Garrett, a veteran journalist who joined Fox's Washington bureau from CNN two years ago, appeared briefly Sunday on a Jumbotron outside the Garden, he was booed by protesters. He was later stopped by a pair of delegates, he recalled, who said, "'Thank you for what you do.'"
Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics who also runs the political Web site Crystal Ball, says, "Both CNN and Fox like to claim they're not biased at all, but the truth is, CNN is liberal and Fox is conservative. Is it really so horrible to speak the truth? And that is the truth."
One industry TV news executive who asked not to be named says Fox's low profile this week "is strategic and smart. At some point, Fox News is not going to be so trendy anymore and my view is that staying power goes to those [networks] with credible content. It doesn't mean Fox can't go to the edge, but if they slobber right, it's going to be apparent and counterproductive."
This week, Fox - as expected - is overwhelming CNN and MSNBC among viewers. CNN easily won primetime ratings during the Democratic convention, but on Monday night from 8 to 11:30, Fox News' coverage was seen by an average 3.868 million viewers, compared with 1.262 million for CNN.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc. |
