Counterbias: Fox News Is Biased? Next You'll Tell Me The Pope Is Catholic

Fox News Is Biased? Next You'll Tell Me The Pope Is Catholic

Mar 14 2004
Counterbias.com
John F. Szamosi

Who says Fox News isn’t "fair and balanced"? It started out as the “red headed stepchild” of CNN’s second marriage, but soon became the standard bearer in the realm of cable news, and is now the great American story for the modern media. Even more impressive than its rise to prominence is how Fox News has gone about its business without ever smearing the other cable networks. They never implied that MSNBC and CNN are biased, with the exception of Bill O’Reilly making this claim repeatedly in his three novels, or Fox News’ famous motto: Fair and Balanced (which itself implies that everyone else isn't). They never criticized MSNBC for using Peter Arnett as a war correspondent. Okay, there was one ad criticizing MSNBC, but they deserved it.

Fox News is far superior to CNN and MSNBC, both of which sacrifice entertainment for accuracy. Maybe accuracy was popular when cable was reserved for the liberal elitist crowd, but there’s a new audience here, folks; we don’t want education, we want fun--and happy bombs tearing into Saddam's evil cronies!

Another reason to love Fox News is its complete lack of sensationalism. I can hardly watch MTV, VH1, BET, or E! Entertainment Television without being bombarded with “news” about celebrities. Fox doesn’t only talk about celebrities in trouble; their morning show, Fox and Friends, talks about sports sometimes! What was really impressive was during Michael Jackson arrest in November 2003, when Fox News didn’t focus on a private airfield for two hours nonstop like some cable news channels: instead, they took commercial breaks! It was impressive on Fox's part, though underappreciated I’m sure, to unwaveringly focus on Michael Jackson. The network was so intent on reporting this story, that Fox didn’t bother their viewers with news about a catastrophic al Qaeda attack in Turkey. Al Qaeda is so September of 2001 anyway.

I will admit that I believed the smears against Fox News; for example, that they only employed loud-mouthed conservatives repeating RNC talking points. That Fox News was, in fact, unfair and unbalanced, as opposed to Fox’s claim of being fair and balanced. I believed this because I wasn’t a regular viewer of Hannity And Colmes. After watching the show very often during the past year, I have come to the conclusion that I was misinformed, and I’m ashamed to have believed the liberal lies.

Hannity And Colmes is certainly the absolute best debate show on at nine on Fox News during the work week. I don’t care what critics say about the show; there is absolutely no bias towards the right. Who cares that Sean Hannity is given more airtime than Alan Colmes; he's more insightful and intelligent anyway! Plus, if I missed Sean’s radio show, I can tune into Hannity And Colmes and essentially hear a short version of it. It’s also apocryphal to imply that the strength of the guests on the show slants to the right. Granted Ann Coulter, Rich Lowry, Bill Bennett, Newt Gingrich, and Franklin Graham are on quite often, while their equals on the liberal side, such as Katrina vanden Heuvel, Paul Krugman, and Al Franken, have been on about five times total.

To the liberal naysayers: Susan Estrich is on like twice a week! She worked for Michael Dukakis’ 1988 Presidential campaign, and when someone says “political seriousness” I think “Michael Dukakis’ Presidential campaign.” How many campaigns has Paul Krugman worked for? Katrina vanden Heuvel worked for which administration(s)? Paul Krugman is only a columnist for the New York Times, an Economics professor at Princeton, and a contributor to Fortune magazine. What could he possibly know? Katrina vanden Heuvel is the editor of The Nation, America's pre-eminent progressive periodical; what makes her an appropriate choice to be on a left-right debate show? To be even more serious, I hereby state that any claim of conservative bias in Hannity and Colmes is pure fiction, like Sean’s latest novel Deliver Us from Evil.

I feel compelled to write this column, because it’s hard to watch those despicable so-called liberals trash this very decent network. So what if Fox News happens to be less interested in facts and more interested in hearsay? What does it matter if they’re the only news channel that uses the Bush Administration’s term “homicide bomber” instead of “suicide bomber”? This doesn’t make them deferential to a conservative President. Why should you care that the chairman of Fox News, Roger Ailes, is a hardcore Republican, who doubles an advisor to the President? Of course, if you're interested in honest and objective reporting, these facts may bother you. But judging by the number of people who watch Fox News, more and more Americans couldn’t care less about real fairness and true balance.

That--let me toss my sarcasm away for a second here--is a tragedy.