Thursday, October 26, 2006
An Open Letter to Fox News Viewers
For an explantion of this blog, click here
Dear Fox News Viewer,
First, let me tell you who I am: I am Scoobie Davis of Scoobie Davis Online, a weblog that has countered the radical right-wing media for over four years. If you watch Fox News because you see it as a great way to stick it to Democrats, there's no need to read no further; this letter is not for you because at least you know what the score is. However, if you are an honest person who believes that Fox News chief Roger Ailes seriously makes an attempt to provide fair and balanced reporting, please read the following reasons why Roger Ailes' Fox News is a disgrace to journalism and insults the intelligence of the American people. One quick note: because of the sheer volume of examples of Fox News' war on the truth, this is far from an exhaustive list; at the end of this letter, I have a list of links for further study.
The Case Against Fox News and Roger Ailes
Who is Roger Ailes and what does he do at Fox News?
1) Rupert Murdoch chose Roger Ailes to be the president of the Fox News Channel despite the fact that Ailes had a reputation for being a ruthless, take-no-prisoners Republican operative (fellow GOP operative Lee Atwater said Ailes had "two speeds: attack and destroy"). During the 1990's, Ailes produced Rush Limbaugh's television show in which Limbaugh spread hateful conspiracy theories that the Bill and Hillary Clinton were involved in the death of Vince Foster (more on this later). When Ailes took over the reins of Fox News, he came up with the slogans "fair and balanced" and "we report; you decide" against all evidence, especially considering that:
2) Joe Peyronnin, who was president of Fox News when Ailes was hired, said "I had 40 people working for me, and [Ailes] asked some of them if they were liberal or not," Peyronnin said. "There was a litmus test. He was going to figure out who was liberal or conservative when he came in, and try to get rid of the liberals."
3) Empirical studies confirm that the more people watch Fox News, the more ignorant they become regarding important foreign policy issues--specifically on issues regarding the Iraq War. Peer-reviewed survey research by the University of Maryland's prestigious Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) found that Fox News viewers were less informed about the Iraq War than those who received their news from other sources. On the question of whether weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, the study found that those who watched Fox News very closely had a higher rate of misconception than more casual Fox News viewers! The upshot is that as people watch more Fox News programming, they become more ignorant--hardly the goal of any journalistic outlet.
4) To compound the egregiousness of the study's findings, Ailes' response was nothing short of libel. Ailes referred to the PIPA study as "an old push poll." This is astounding. First,
The poll's questionnaire is available to the public and there is not even the faintest resemblance of it to a push poll. Ailes knows this. Having been a colleague of Republican operative Lee Atwater (who is largely credited with developing the push poll as a political dirty trick), Ailes could not have used the term out of naivete. The PIPA study was conducted by highly-regarded researchers whose research does not even faintly resemble a push poll; had the researchers engaged in push-polling, it would have been a serious breach of professional ethics. Ailes' accusation is knowingly false, defamatory, and a serious breach of the code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists.
5) Ailes also engaged in questionable journalistic behavior when--as the head of Fox News, an alleged journalistic entity--he gave political advice to presidential aide Karl Rove right after the 9/11 attacks--a charge that Ailes unconvincingly denied.
6) Giving political advice to the Bush administration is bad enough, what makes it particularly egregious is that during the Clinton administration, Ailes was propagating the Scaife-funded paranoid conspiracy theory that Bill and Hillary Clinton were responsible for the death of Vince Foster.
7) Despite Ailes' serious cases of journalistic misconduct, he claims to speak for journalists. A case in point is the interview in which former president Clinton responded forcefully to questions by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace about his response to terrorism(quick note:Fox News edited clips of the Clinton/Wallace interview in a flagrantly unfair manner). Ailes termed Clinton's behavior an "attack" on Wallace and "an assault on all journalists." This is laughable on several accounts. First, Fox News has a reputation of attacking journalists.
More importantly, Ailes has a history of confronting journalists. Ailes personally engineered the 1988 outburst by George H. W. Bush against Dan Rather. Here's what happened: A GOP mole within CBS leaked the questions rather would ask Bush. Bush, who knew the questions in advance, knew that Rather would be asking some hard-hitting questions about Iran-Contra. Nevertheless, at Ailes' prompting, Bush acted surprised and insulted Rather--Ailes even held the cue card for Bush to read the "spontaneous" zinger, "How would you like it if I judged your career by those seven minutes when you walked off the set in New York?" After the interview, Ailes flailed phony outrage over the event by orchestrating a jam-CBS's-switchboard campaign over Rather's supposed "disrespect" to the then vice-president.
8) Ailes' view of balance: The Fox News Democrat. Skeptics have argued that Ailes' use of the slogan "fair and balanced" is a cynical Rovian attempt to take one's own vulnerable point and try to make it a strength. The facts back up the skeptics argument. Generally, there are two variants of balance in Ailes' worldview when it comes to providing "balance" to left-of-center views:
(1) Have the left-of-center view put forth by untelegenic and weak debaters. This is certainly the case with Alan Colmes and Susan Estrich. For instance, Salon.com's David Talbot wrote about the process of choosing a left-of-center partner for Sean Hannity: "Years earlier, when hunting for a liberal punching bag to pair with Sean Hannity, Ailes had tried out a tough Salon writer. He apparently punched back so effectively in his audition that Fox picked bespectacled milquetoast Alan Colmes instead. Fox likes its liberals soft and chewy, the better to eat them, my dear." Perhaps the disparity between Hannity, a right-wing firebrand who went as far as to defend Ann Coulter's Moussaoui-like attacks on 9/11 widows, and the wimpy Colmes can explain the vast disparity between the number of right-of-center and left-of-center guests on Hannity & Colmes as well as how right-wing operatives are presented as journalists.
(2)The other variant is for Ailes to choose Democrats who have nothing nice to say about the Democratic Party such as Tammy Bruce, Zell Miller, and Pat Caddell. That's balance?
9) Ailes' choices for Fox News correspondents are revealing. He has chosen some of the most ethically-challenged people in the news business. One example is Steven Milloy who poses as a disinterested debunker of "junk science." In fact,
For Ailes to employ a fraud like Milloy is a clear violation of the principles that journalists "remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility" and "avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived." More information about Milloy's misconduct can be found in Chris Mooney's book The Republican War on Science.
10) Another ethically-challenged person to be hired as a Fox News correspondent is discredited journalist Bill Sammon who systematically and purposefully clipped quotes from a Washington Post article by another Fox News correspondent Ceci Connolly in order to libel Al Gore by portraying his actions 180 degrees from how they were clearly recorded in the article (I wrote an article about the full ethical implications of this shameful event).
These complaints against Ailes' war on journalism are far from exhaustive--in fact, they are a tiny sliver of what is wrong with Ailes and Fox News. For further study, I highly recommend the following resources:
1) Media Matters for America. Media Matters is dangerous to Fox News--not because, as Bill O'Reilly claims, it's Joseph Goebbels Nazi stuff--but because the web site examines the claims made on Fox News and other right-wing outlets and then analyzes it--which is the worst thing that Ailes wants. Media Matters has a section devoted to Fox News (click here and here). In addition, Media Matters has sections devoted to various Fox News personalities and shows such as Sean Hannity also click here; Bill O'Reilly also click here(who was Media Matters' Misinformer of the Year for 2004), Brit Hume, also click here; and the Beltway Boys.
2) The documentary film Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. Video clips of the film are available on YouTube. Also, here is Outfoxed's birthday greeting video to Fox News:
3) Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Here are just a few of FAIR's articles on Fox News: (1) The Most Biased Name in News; (2)Bill O'Reilly's Sheer O'Reillyness; 3) A article on Brit Hume's Special Report;
4) Al Franken's book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
5) Think Progress has informative articles on Fox News.
6) Newshounds is a blog that monitors Fox News. Their slogan: "We watch Fox so you don't have to."
I hope you find this letter informative. Feedback can be made in the comments section.
Sincerely,
Scoobie Davis
Dear Fox News Viewer,
First, let me tell you who I am: I am Scoobie Davis of Scoobie Davis Online, a weblog that has countered the radical right-wing media for over four years. If you watch Fox News because you see it as a great way to stick it to Democrats, there's no need to read no further; this letter is not for you because at least you know what the score is. However, if you are an honest person who believes that Fox News chief Roger Ailes seriously makes an attempt to provide fair and balanced reporting, please read the following reasons why Roger Ailes' Fox News is a disgrace to journalism and insults the intelligence of the American people. One quick note: because of the sheer volume of examples of Fox News' war on the truth, this is far from an exhaustive list; at the end of this letter, I have a list of links for further study.
The Case Against Fox News and Roger Ailes
Who is Roger Ailes and what does he do at Fox News?
1) Rupert Murdoch chose Roger Ailes to be the president of the Fox News Channel despite the fact that Ailes had a reputation for being a ruthless, take-no-prisoners Republican operative (fellow GOP operative Lee Atwater said Ailes had "two speeds: attack and destroy"). During the 1990's, Ailes produced Rush Limbaugh's television show in which Limbaugh spread hateful conspiracy theories that the Bill and Hillary Clinton were involved in the death of Vince Foster (more on this later). When Ailes took over the reins of Fox News, he came up with the slogans "fair and balanced" and "we report; you decide" against all evidence, especially considering that:
2) Joe Peyronnin, who was president of Fox News when Ailes was hired, said "I had 40 people working for me, and [Ailes] asked some of them if they were liberal or not," Peyronnin said. "There was a litmus test. He was going to figure out who was liberal or conservative when he came in, and try to get rid of the liberals."
3) Empirical studies confirm that the more people watch Fox News, the more ignorant they become regarding important foreign policy issues--specifically on issues regarding the Iraq War. Peer-reviewed survey research by the University of Maryland's prestigious Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) found that Fox News viewers were less informed about the Iraq War than those who received their news from other sources. On the question of whether weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, the study found that those who watched Fox News very closely had a higher rate of misconception than more casual Fox News viewers! The upshot is that as people watch more Fox News programming, they become more ignorant--hardly the goal of any journalistic outlet.
4) To compound the egregiousness of the study's findings, Ailes' response was nothing short of libel. Ailes referred to the PIPA study as "an old push poll." This is astounding. First,
The poll's questionnaire is available to the public and there is not even the faintest resemblance of it to a push poll. Ailes knows this. Having been a colleague of Republican operative Lee Atwater (who is largely credited with developing the push poll as a political dirty trick), Ailes could not have used the term out of naivete. The PIPA study was conducted by highly-regarded researchers whose research does not even faintly resemble a push poll; had the researchers engaged in push-polling, it would have been a serious breach of professional ethics. Ailes' accusation is knowingly false, defamatory, and a serious breach of the code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists.
5) Ailes also engaged in questionable journalistic behavior when--as the head of Fox News, an alleged journalistic entity--he gave political advice to presidential aide Karl Rove right after the 9/11 attacks--a charge that Ailes unconvincingly denied.
6) Giving political advice to the Bush administration is bad enough, what makes it particularly egregious is that during the Clinton administration, Ailes was propagating the Scaife-funded paranoid conspiracy theory that Bill and Hillary Clinton were responsible for the death of Vince Foster.
7) Despite Ailes' serious cases of journalistic misconduct, he claims to speak for journalists. A case in point is the interview in which former president Clinton responded forcefully to questions by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace about his response to terrorism(quick note:Fox News edited clips of the Clinton/Wallace interview in a flagrantly unfair manner). Ailes termed Clinton's behavior an "attack" on Wallace and "an assault on all journalists." This is laughable on several accounts. First, Fox News has a reputation of attacking journalists.
More importantly, Ailes has a history of confronting journalists. Ailes personally engineered the 1988 outburst by George H. W. Bush against Dan Rather. Here's what happened: A GOP mole within CBS leaked the questions rather would ask Bush. Bush, who knew the questions in advance, knew that Rather would be asking some hard-hitting questions about Iran-Contra. Nevertheless, at Ailes' prompting, Bush acted surprised and insulted Rather--Ailes even held the cue card for Bush to read the "spontaneous" zinger, "How would you like it if I judged your career by those seven minutes when you walked off the set in New York?" After the interview, Ailes flailed phony outrage over the event by orchestrating a jam-CBS's-switchboard campaign over Rather's supposed "disrespect" to the then vice-president.
8) Ailes' view of balance: The Fox News Democrat. Skeptics have argued that Ailes' use of the slogan "fair and balanced" is a cynical Rovian attempt to take one's own vulnerable point and try to make it a strength. The facts back up the skeptics argument. Generally, there are two variants of balance in Ailes' worldview when it comes to providing "balance" to left-of-center views:
(1) Have the left-of-center view put forth by untelegenic and weak debaters. This is certainly the case with Alan Colmes and Susan Estrich. For instance, Salon.com's David Talbot wrote about the process of choosing a left-of-center partner for Sean Hannity: "Years earlier, when hunting for a liberal punching bag to pair with Sean Hannity, Ailes had tried out a tough Salon writer. He apparently punched back so effectively in his audition that Fox picked bespectacled milquetoast Alan Colmes instead. Fox likes its liberals soft and chewy, the better to eat them, my dear." Perhaps the disparity between Hannity, a right-wing firebrand who went as far as to defend Ann Coulter's Moussaoui-like attacks on 9/11 widows, and the wimpy Colmes can explain the vast disparity between the number of right-of-center and left-of-center guests on Hannity & Colmes as well as how right-wing operatives are presented as journalists.
(2)The other variant is for Ailes to choose Democrats who have nothing nice to say about the Democratic Party such as Tammy Bruce, Zell Miller, and Pat Caddell. That's balance?
9) Ailes' choices for Fox News correspondents are revealing. He has chosen some of the most ethically-challenged people in the news business. One example is Steven Milloy who poses as a disinterested debunker of "junk science." In fact,
For Ailes to employ a fraud like Milloy is a clear violation of the principles that journalists "remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility" and "avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived." More information about Milloy's misconduct can be found in Chris Mooney's book The Republican War on Science.
10) Another ethically-challenged person to be hired as a Fox News correspondent is discredited journalist Bill Sammon who systematically and purposefully clipped quotes from a Washington Post article by another Fox News correspondent Ceci Connolly in order to libel Al Gore by portraying his actions 180 degrees from how they were clearly recorded in the article (I wrote an article about the full ethical implications of this shameful event).
These complaints against Ailes' war on journalism are far from exhaustive--in fact, they are a tiny sliver of what is wrong with Ailes and Fox News. For further study, I highly recommend the following resources:
1) Media Matters for America. Media Matters is dangerous to Fox News--not because, as Bill O'Reilly claims, it's Joseph Goebbels Nazi stuff--but because the web site examines the claims made on Fox News and other right-wing outlets and then analyzes it--which is the worst thing that Ailes wants. Media Matters has a section devoted to Fox News (click here and here). In addition, Media Matters has sections devoted to various Fox News personalities and shows such as Sean Hannity also click here; Bill O'Reilly also click here(who was Media Matters' Misinformer of the Year for 2004), Brit Hume, also click here; and the Beltway Boys.
2) The documentary film Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. Video clips of the film are available on YouTube. Also, here is Outfoxed's birthday greeting video to Fox News:
3) Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Here are just a few of FAIR's articles on Fox News: (1) The Most Biased Name in News; (2)Bill O'Reilly's Sheer O'Reillyness; 3) A article on Brit Hume's Special Report;
4) Al Franken's book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
5) Think Progress has informative articles on Fox News.
6) Newshounds is a blog that monitors Fox News. Their slogan: "We watch Fox so you don't have to."
I hope you find this letter informative. Feedback can be made in the comments section.
Sincerely,
Scoobie Davis
