Picking on Fox News?

Aw, poor Fox "news" is finally being called on the carpet for their bias. Its about time.

From JULIA ANGWIN, Staff Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

(July 20) - During presidential election years, conservative politicians have often attacked the media for their liberal bias. But during this year's campaign, liberals are fighting back with what they see as a powerful issue -- the alleged conservative slant of the Fox News Channel, a unit of the media conglomerate Staff Reporter.

The assault on Fox News started on July 8, with a report from media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting claiming that in the six months through Dec. 19, 2003, 57% of guests on Fox News's popular evening news show, "Special Report with Brit Hume" were conservatives.

The next week, left-leaning advocacy groups MoveOn.Org and Center for American Progress sponsored the release of a documentary "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," which uses clips from the cable channel to show what the filmmakers claim is a pattern of right-wing bias and support for the Republican agenda.

Yesterday, MoveOn.Org and political watchdog Common Cause filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission claiming that Fox News Channel's slogan "fair and balanced" violates the federal agency's prohibition against deceptive advertising. At the same time, the Independent Media Institute, an advocacy group for alternative journalism, announced it had filed a challenge against Fox News' trademark on the term "fair and balanced."

This type of concerted campaign against a single news outlet is rare, but not surprising given the tenor of this year's hotly contested presidential election. "In a razor-thin race like this, you need to fire up your base," says Thomas Hollihan, professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. "An issue like this gets those hard-core liberals focused and attentive. It's a kind of issue that people can talk about at work."

The campaign against Fox News Channel partly reflects the growing importance of cable news channels as the main arena in which these elections are played out. Four years ago, more Americans said they got their political news from the broadcast evening news than cable news, according to a study by Pew Research Center, an independent opinion research group based in Washington, D.C. But this year, the study shows that the cable channels have eclipsed the nightly network news. And among cable channels, Fox News Channel wins the highest ratings.

Fox News Channel was founded in 1996 by Roger Ailes, a former Republican political consultant, who wanted to create an alternative to what he believed was the liberal bias of mainstream media such as CNN. Mr. Ailes loaded up the prime-time schedule with conservative commentators such as Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, but focused on straight news during the daytime lineup.

"If they can attack Fox News to this extreme, then all news organizations are at risk to be targeted by similar attacks," says Fox News Spokesman Rob Zimmerman. "It's best to ignore nuts."

Critics such as MoveOn.Org and Common Cause charge that Fox News leans to the right even during its straight news segments. "We think Fox News is really the poster child for how the concept of journalism in media has been deconstructed," says MoveOn.Org Co-Founder Wes Boyd. "It's no longer about the search for the truth. Fox has taken up a truly partisan role."

Common Cause President Chellie Pingree adds that the campaign against Fox News is meant to highlight increasing media consolidation, which many feel threatens to limit diversity. "That goes well beyond one news network," she says. Both Ms. Pingree and Mr. Boyd point out that their campaign is not linked to the Democratic party.

But conservative strategists say they aren't buying it. "They're doing the dirty work of the Democratic party and everybody knows it," says Brent Bozell, a conservative media watchdog. Mark Tapscott, director of the Center for Media and Public Policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, calls the anti-Fox News campaign "corporate guerilla harassment."

Democratic consultants and strategists say they are pleased that MoveOn.Org is taking a page from the conservative playbook. In 1970, Vice President Spiro Agnew famously attacked the press as "nattering nabobs of negativism," helping boost President Richard Nixon's popularity. Since then, many conservative politicians have found that attacking the liberal media strikes a chord with voters.

"For years, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly and the other right-wing bozos have been rabble-rousing people on the right," says Karl Struble, a Democratic media adviser. "Now, Democrats and progressives are fighting back."

Paul Maslin, a Democratic pollster who was an adviser to former presidential candidate Howard Dean, says that progressives are finally capitalizing on the fact that "people don't like the media in general." Mr. Maslin says that when Mr. Dean criticized the media conglomerates that control much of the nation's news outlets, his standing in the polls soared.

"That was one of the most popular things he ever said," Mr. Maslin says. "I wish he'd said it even more. The fact is it's potent."

Comedian Al Franken also found bashing Fox News to be lucrative. His book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," became a bestseller last year after Fox News sued him for trademark infringement. Fox later dropped the suit after a federal judge ruled the title was protected by the First Amendment.

In an interview, Mr. Franken says he is pleased with the current campaign against Fox News. "Fair and balanced is like the big lie," he says. "When they sued me on my book, I didn't know if they were suing for infringement of the trademark or stealing the joke of using fair and balanced ironically."

But others say the campaign against Fox News may be misguided. After all, Fox News's top-rated program, "The O'Reilly Factor," only attracts about two million viewers on an average night.

Thomas Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, an independent Washington, D.C., think tank says the public doesn't care much about the issue. "This is about elite politics. It's about shaping the way in which politics is covered rather than directly trying to influence the public."

And MoveOn.org's legal complaints may not go far. In a statement issued last night, FTC Chairman Timothy Muris said, "I am not aware of any instance in which the Federal Trade Commission has investigated the slogan of a news organization. There is no way to evaluate this petition without evaluating the content of the news at issue. That is a task the First Amendment leaves to the American people, not a government agency."