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Fox News

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The Fox News Channel is a U.S. cable and satellite news channel. It is owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, and is a subsidiary of News Corporation, under major shareholder and chief executive officer Rupert Murdoch. As of January 2005, it is available to 85 million subscribers in the U.S. and to further viewers internationally, broadcasting primarily out of its New York City studios. An audio simulcast of the channel is played on XM Satellite Radio channel 121. XM also provides Fox News Talk for talk radio programs syndicated by and featuring Fox News personalities.

File:FNC logo.png
Fox News Channel's slogans are "Fair and Balanced" and "We Report, You Decide"

Launched on October 7, 1996, to 17 million cable subscribers, the nascent network quickly rose to prominence in the late 1990s as it started taking market share away from competitor CNN. As of 2005, Fox News regularly beats CNN in long-term viewers (Nielsen's Points ratings), although CNN typically outnumbers Fox News by having a greater number of individual viewers (Nielsen's Cume ratings).

History

File:IraqWarCoverage-FNC.jpg
Fox News Channel Iraq war coverage

Rupert Murdoch established Fox News to counter a news media that he believed was predominantly liberal.[1] Murdoch had significant experience with cable news after starting the Sky News rolling news service in the United Kingdom.

In February 1996, after Roger Ailes (who would later be the president of Fox News) was relieved of duties at America's Talking, in preparation for conversion of the network to MSNBC, Murdoch called Ailes to start the network. A group of Ailes loyalists who followed him throughout the NBC empire joined him at Fox. From there, they proceeded to select space in New York and worked individuals through five months of grueling 14 hour workdays and several weeks of rehearsal shows before launch, on October 7, 1996.

At launch, only ten million households were able to watch Fox News, with none in the major media markets of New York City and Los Angeles. According to published reports, many media reviewers had to watch the first day's programming at Fox News studios because it wasn't readily available. The rolling news coverage during the day consisted of 20 minute single topic shows like Fox on Crime or Fox on Politics surrounded by news headlines. Interviews had various interesting facts at the bottom of the screen about the topic or the guest. The flagship newscast at the time was called The Schenider Report, with Mike Schneider giving a fast paced delivery of the news. During the evening, Fox had opinion shows: The O'Reilly Factor (then called The O'Reilly Report), The Crier Report hosted by Catherine Crier, and Hannity & Colmes.

To get cable systems to take Fox News, the channel paid systems up to $11 per subscriber in subsidy to take up the network, in a move common to newly launched cable channels. This contrasted with the normal practice, in which cable operators pay stations carriage fees for the programming of channels. When Time Warner bought out Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting, a federal antitrust consent decree required Time Warner to carry a second all-news channel in addition to Time Warner's own CNN. Time Warner selected MSNBC as the secondary news network, instead of Fox News. Fox News claimed that this violated an agreement to carry Fox News, and Ailes used his connections to persuade Mayor Giuliani to carry Fox News and Bloomberg Television on two underutilized city-owned cable channels, which he did.

New York City also threatened to revoke Time Warner's cable franchise for not carrying Fox News. A lawsuit was filed by Time Warner against the City of New York claiming undue interference and for inappropriate use of the city's educational channels for commercial programming. News Corporation countered with an antitrust lawsuit against Time Warner for unfairly protecting CNN. This led to an acrominous battle between Murdoch and Turner, with Turner publicly comparing Murdoch to Adolf Hitler while Murdoch's New York Post ran an editorial questioning Turner's sanity. Giuliani's motives were also questioned, as his then-wife was a producer at Murdoch-owned WNYW-TV. In the end, Time Warner and News Corporation signed a settlement agreement to permit Fox News to be carried on New York City cable system beginning in October 1997, and to all of Time Warner's cable systems by 2001. In return, Time Warner was given some rights to News Corporation's satellites in Asia and Europe to distribute Time Warner programming, would receive the normal compensation per subscriber paid to cable operators, and News Corporation would not object to Atlanta Braves baseball games being carried on TBS (which they could because of the Fox television network's contract with Major League Baseball).

Management

The CEO, Chairman, and President of Fox News is Roger Ailes. After he began his career in broadcasting, Ailes started Ailes Communications, Inc and was successful as a political strategist for Presidents Nixon and Reagan and in producing campaign TV commercials for Republican political candidates. His work for former President Richard M. Nixon was chronicled in the book The Selling of the President: 1968 by Joe McGinniss. Ailes withdrew from consulting and returned to broadcasting in 1992, including Rush Limbaugh's television program during 1992-1996. He ran the CNBC channel and America's Talking, the forerunner of MSNBC for NBC. More recently, Ailes was named Broadcaster of the Year by Broadcast and Cable Magazine in 2003.

Programming

Fox News presents a wide variety of programming, with up to 15 hours of live programming per day. Most of the programs are broadcast from Fox News headquarters in New York City with its street-side studios on Sixth Avenue (1211 Avenue of the Americas) in the west extension of Rockefeller Center.

The following is the usual weekday lineup (as of Jan. 2005, all times Eastern):

Fox News also produced several newsmagazine shows for its Fox affiliates including Fox Files and The Pulse, although both were cancelled after short runs due to poor ratings.

Fox News Sunday currently airs on many Fox affiliates and is similar in format to other Sunday morning political discussion programs., and is rebroadcast later in the evening on FNC.

Personalities

Former personalities

Ratings

Fox News currently leads the cable news market, earning higher points ratings than its chief competitors CNN and MSNBC combined by average viewership. Measured by unique viewers, however, CNN achieves 11% higher ratings than Fox News. Many commentators attribute this to Fox's somewhat longer duration "talk" programs interspersed with news updates which cause viewers to tune in for longer periods as compared to CNN's generally shorter news segments. Others say Fox News, the sole network to appeal to conservatives by openly rejecting the bias of the "mainstream liberal media," garners more loyal fans than CNN, MSNBC, and others. Fox faces no real competition in markets where CNN typically vies with MSNBC and, often, others for more liberal and progressive viewers. [2] [3] [4]

The BBC reported that Fox News saw its profits double during the Iraq conflict, due in part to what the report called patriotic coverage of the war. By some reports, at the height of the conflict, they enjoyed as much as a 300% increase in viewership, averaging 3.3 million viewers daily [5].

In 2004, the perceived gain in ratings began to become more apparent. Coverage of the Democratic National Convention in Boston ranked higher in the ratings than its two closest cable competitors combined. In September, Fox News Channel's ratings for its broadcast of the Republican National Convention beat those of all three broadcast networks. During President Bush's address, Fox News notched 7.3 million viewers nationally, while NBC, CBS, and ABC scored ratings of 5.9, 5.0, and 5.1, respectively.

In April 2005, however, CNN sent out a press release stating that Fox's viewership of adults betwen the ages of 25 and 54 had dropped over a period of six months since the peak of the November 2004 elections (to a total drop of over 58% [6], [7]), though Fox still held eight of the ten most-watched nightly cable news shows, with The O'Reilly Factor and Hannity & Colmes coming in first and second places, respectively. And since then Fox's ratings have surged. [8]

News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, has campaigned against plans by Nielsen to change the method used to compile ratings from the traditional 'diary' method to the electronic 'people meter'. A longstanding criticism of the diary method of compiling ratings is that consumers may misrepresent their viewing behavior in order to 'vote' for prefered programming such as PBS or Fox News. A grassroots campaign financed and organized by Fox, Don't Count Us Out has alleged that the new method of compiling ratings is biased against minority viewers pointing to dramatic falls in the viewing figures of network TV programs aimed at minority audiences. Supporters of Nielsen, including Jesse Jackson, have noted that the Nielsen sample actually over-represents minority viewers and that the dramatic falls in viewing of broadcast programming are matched by a rise in the ratings for cable programming, in particular Black Entertainment Television [9]

Controversies and allegations of bias

See also: Media bias and Propaganda model

Fox News asserts it is more objective and factual than other American networks. Fox News Channel's two most common slogans are "We Report, You Decide" and "Fair and Balanced". Some viewers criticize it as having a conservative political bias; supporters note that it produces objective reporting and is more balanced than allegedly liberal United States media.[10] Some allege Fox News' bias is systemic, and implemented to both target and build a conservative audience. Regardless of its reporting practices, it is noted for having a significantly higher proportion of personal opinion/commentary -- such as those offered by Neil Cavuto, John Gibson, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Alan Colmes -- than actual news reporting. This criticism has persisted throughout the life of Fox News, and critics have come to call FNC the "Faux News Channel," "GOP TV," and the "Fascist News Network." They point to the following as evidence of bias:

Ownership and management

  • Photocopied memos from Fox News executive John Moody instructing the network's on-air anchors and reporters on using positive language when discussing anti-abortion viewpoints, the Iraq war, and tax cuts; as well as requesting that the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal be put in context with the other violence in the area.

Reports, polls and studies

  • A study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, in the Winter 03-04 issue of Political Science Quarterly, reported that viewers of the Fox Network local affiliates or Fox News were more likely than viewers of other news networks to hold three views which the authors labeled as misperceptions:[13] (PDF),
    • 67% of Fox viewers believed that the "U.S. has found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al Qaeda terrorist organization" (Compared with 56% for CBS, 49% for NBC, 48% for CNN, 45% for ABC, 16% for both NPR and PBS). However, the belief that "Iraq was directly involved in September 11" was held by 33% of CBS viewers and only 24% of Fox viewers.
    • 33% of Fox viewers believed that the "U.S. has found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" "since the war ended". (Compared with 23% for CBS, 20% for both CNN and NBC, 19% for ABC and 11% for both NPR and PBS)
    • 35% of Fox viewers believed that "the majority of people [in the world] favor the U.S. having gone to war" with Iraq. (Compared with 28% for CBS, 27% for ABC, 24% for CNN, 20% for NBC, 5% for both NPR and PBS)
    • Fox viewers were unique in that those who paid greater attention to news were moderately more likely to have these misperceptions than those who paid less or no attention to news.
  • A study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism in 2005 found that, in covering the Iraq War in 2004, 73% of Fox News stories included editorial opinions, compared with 29% on MSNBC and 2% on CNN. The same report found Fox less likely than CNN to present multiple points of view. On the other hand, it found Fox more transparent about its sources [14]. (Full report)

Criticisms of on-air conservative personalities

  • Bill O'Reilly is one of Fox News' most well-known and popular personalities, and he often faces criticism for a perceived pro-(Iraq) war, conservative slant, and for, allegedly, using his show to "serially misinform his audiences." [15] O'Reilly himself maintains that he is politically independent (due to libertarian positions on social issues like homosexuality and marijuana legislation). Some critics accuse O'Reilly for frequently using incendiary, emotive, or nationalist rhetoric toward those who hold disagreeing positions, such as the time he suggested terrorists blow up San Francisco. O'Reilly acknowledges his show is not so much news, but more an editorial program. [16]
  • John Gibson is the host of an afternoon block of news coverage called "The Big Story", and is frequently cited as an example of Fox News blurring the lines between objective reporting and opinion/editorial programming. Gibson angered some liberals immediately after the 2000 presidential election controversy when, during the opinion segment of his show, Gibson advocated the burning of all ballots involved in the election dispute once George W. Bush was sworn into office: "Is this a case where knowing the facts actually would be worse than not knowing? I mean, should we burn those ballots, preserve them in amber, or shred them? George Bush is going to be president. And who needs to know that he's not a legitimate president?" [17]
  • Business anchor Neil Cavuto, who is also Fox News' vice president of business news and a current member of the network's executive committee, has been described as a "Bush apologist" by critics [18] after conducting an allegedly deferential interview with President George W. Bush [19] wherein Cavuto told Bush that domestic lack of support for the partial privatization of Social Security was due to Americans being "distracted" by Michael Jackson's child molestation trial. Cavuto has been a syndicated columnist on Townhall.com [20] and NewsMax.com [21], both conservative outlets of news and opinion.

Criticisms of on-air liberal personalities

Alan Colmes is touted by Fox as "a hard-hitting liberal" ([22]), but is dismissed by many on the left as being a political moderate and too weak to provide an effective balance for self-professed "arch-conservative" Sean Hannity. As executive producer of Hannity & Colmes, Sean Hannity is also Colmes' de facto boss ([23]). Liberal viewers have long found Colmes' quiet, deferential style infuriating, particularly in contrast to the outspoken Hannity; and Colmes himself has sometimes taken more right-leaning positions, such as supporting Rudy Giuliani for mayor of New York City and defending Mississippi Senator Trent Lott after the latter made racially insensitive remarks at the 100th birthday party for the late Sen. Strom Thurmond. Liberal commentator Al Franken lambasted Colmes in his book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, accusing him of refusing to ask tough questions during debates and neglecting to challenge erroneous claims made by Hannity or his guests.

Other criticisms

  • Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, a documentary film on Fox News by left wing activist Robert Greenwald, makes allegations of bias in Fox News by interviewing a number of former employees who discuss the company's practices. For example, Frank O'Donnell, a former employee identified as "Fox News producer", says: "We were stunned, because up until that point, we were allowed to do legitimate news. Suddenly, we were ordered from the top to carry [...] Republican, right-wing propaganda", after being told what to say about Ronald Reagan. O'Donnell actually worked for Washington, D.C. Fox affiliate WTTG, which while a local affiliate, is not the Fox News Channel cable network. Fox News has always stressed that affiliates are separate entities from Fox News Channel, and Fox News has no editorial oversight of any Fox affiliate. The network made an official response and a review of selected employees featured in the film and their employment (or non-employment) with Fox News.
  • A news article in October 2004 by Carl Cameron, chief political correspondent of Fox News, containing three fabricated quotes attributed to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. The quotes included: "Women should like me! I do manicures", "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great?" and "I'm metrosexual [Bush's] a cowboy". Fox News retracted the story and apologized, citing a "jest" that became published through "fatigue and bad judgement, not malice."
  • An opinion piece on the Hutton Inquiry decision, in which John Gibson said the BBC had "a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism that was obsessive, irrational and dishonest" and that the BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan, "insisted on air that the Iraqi Army was heroically repulsing an incompetent American Military" [24]. In reviewing viewer complaints, Ofcom (the United Kingdom's statutory broadcasting regulator) ruled that Fox News had breached the program code in three areas: "respect for truth", "opportunity to take part", and "personal view programmes opinions expressed must not rest upon false evidence". Fox News admitted that Gilligan had not actually said the words that John Gibson appeared to attribute to him; OfCom rejected the claim that it was intended to be a paraphrase. (See Ofcom complaint, response and ruling). In June 2004, CEO Roger Ailes responded to some criticism with rebuttal in an online column for the Wall Street Journal ([25]), claiming that Fox's critics intentionally confuse opinion shows such as The O'Reilly Factor with regular news coverage. Ailes claimed that Fox News has broken stories which turned out harmful to Republicans and the Republican Party, stating "Fox News is the network that broke George W. Bush's DUI four days before the election" as an example (the story was broken by then-Fox affiliate WPXT in Portland, Maine).
  • On November 2, 2005, as 4,000 people in Detroit paid their final respects to civil rights hero Rosa Parks during the four hours of her funeral ceremony, Fox News devoted just 23 minutes of air time to live coverage, compared with 108 minutes of coverage on CNN and 100 on MSNBC. [26] In place of Parks' funeral Fox News featured (among other things) an extensive discussion, complete with visuals, of the top-five ranked celebrities from In Touch Weekly magazine's "Best Cleavage in Hollywood" poll. [27]

Trademark disputes

File:Keither olbermann al franken faux news t shirt.jpg
Keith Olbermann and Al Franken discuss Fox News' Trademark Dispute.

In the late 1990s, as Fox News reached most major cable markets, a handful of observers began to use world wide web to mock FNC's putative bias, triggering the first publicly aired trademark disputes between Fox News and its critics. In late 2001, Faux News Channel.com created the "Faux" Fox News logo[28].

In 2003, Penguin Books published Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, by the comedian and writer Al Franken. The book criticized many conservative individuals and institutions on grounds of inaccuracy; it included Fox News among the media outlets described as biased. Before the book was released, Fox brought a lawsuit, alleging that the book's subtitle violated Fox's trademark in the promotional phrase "Fair and Balanced". On that basis, Fox moved for a preliminary injunction to block the publication of the book. The United States District Court Judge hearing the case denied the motion, characterizing Fox's claim as "wholly without merit, both factually and legally". Fox then withdrew the suit.

In December 2003, the Independent Media Institute brought a petition before the United States Patent and Trademark Office seeking the cancellation of Fox's trademark in the phrase "Fair & Balanced" for being deceptively misdescriptive.[29] After losing early procedural motions, the IMI withdrew its petition and the USPTO dismissed the case.[30]

International transmission

The channel is now available internationally, though its world programming is the same as its American programming, unlike CNN International, which airs regional programming that is largely independent of its U.S. broadcasts.

Australia

Fox News Channel is broadcast on the three major Pay-TV providers, Austar, Optus Television and Foxtel. Foxtel is 25% owned by News Corporation. The Australian syndication previously featured some local programming, including a John Laws current affairs programme in place of "Fox & Friends". Currently, it is a direct feed of the US broadcast.

Brazil

Since 2002 Fox News has been broadcast to Brazil, but the commercials are replaced with weather forecasts (except for their own ads). It is broadcasted by Sky Brazil (satellite operator, a joint-venture between News Corporation and Globopar) and in the digital packages of NET (cable television operator, a joint-venture between Telmex and Globopar).

Canada

On December 14, 2000, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved Fox News Canada on behalf of the Global Television Network, for broadcast. Fox News Canada was to be a domestic Canadian version of Fox News. [31] The channel, or specialty television service, was never implemented by Fox, and the deadline for commencement of the service expired on November 24, 2004. That same day, a similar licence was granted to Rogers Communications for "MSNBC Canada", which went to air in September, 2001. During this period, it was stated by supporters of Fox News that the station was being "banned in Canada," ignoring its CRTC licence. The CRTC's previous refusal to grant Fox News an outright license had been contested by some Canadians, as well as American fans of the channel, who believed the decision to be politically motivated.

On June 18, 2003, the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association (CCTA), an organization representing approximately 90 cable companies in Canada, applied to add Fox News, ESPN, HBO, and other non-domestic programming to the CRTC's Lists of Eligible Satellite Services on a digital basis. In their application the CCTA duly noted that, absent a change in CRTC policy, some of the channels were likely to be ineligible for addition to the lists as some were partially or totally competitive with licensed Canadian programming. Some Canadian channels additionally might hold exclusive rights. In a lengthy response, the CRTC stated that "the Commission considers that CCTA has not raised sufficient question as to the validity of the existing policy, or sufficient argument or evidence as to the benefits of its proposed approach, to warrant a policy review at this time" and noted that "CCTA has not provided the information generally required for the Commission to consider requests to add services to the Lists. Accordingly, the Commission is not in a position to examine whether it would be appropriate to authorize for distribution any of the specific services noted in CCTA’s request" ([32]).

The CCTA applied on April 15, 2004 solely to add Fox News, along with the NFL Network. [33] CCTA's acting president Michael Hennessy said that the previous "bulk approach... ...was just too big", adding it raised "significant issues" with respect to broadcast rights and competition with existing domestic services ([34]) On November 18, 2004 the CRTC announced that a digital license would be granted to Fox News ([35]). In its proposal, Fox News stated, with reference to Fox News Canada, that "Fox News does not intend to implement this service and therefore will not meet the extended deadline to commence operations" ([36]). On December 16, 2004, Rogers Communications became the first Canadian cable or satellite provider to broadcast Fox News, with other companies following suit within the next several days.

United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland

Fox News is also carried in Britain and Ireland, with global weather forecasts instead of most advertisements, by the British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) satellite television network, in which News Corporation holds a 38 percent stake. It is a "sister channel" to BSkyB's Sky News, however Sky is obliged by law to uphold a neutral editorial stance. Fox News is usually broadcast as an encrypted channel but during major news stories it may be broadcast Free to air on Sky News Active.

New Zealand

In New Zealand Fox News is broadcast on the 'PRIME' terrestrial network's nightime period. Because of their position on the date line, New Zealanders only see Fox News' early morning programming, notably "Fox and Friends." Like other foreign markets, a global weather map replaces American advertising, though ad breaks are interlaced with 'PRIME' advertisements. The weather map temperatures are presented in degrees celsius.

Other countries

Fox News Channel is also carried in more than 40 countries including Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Finland, Grenada, Germany, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, New Guinea, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, The United Kingdom and Venezuela, mostly through News Corporation-owned cable and satellite systems. (Service to Japan stopped in the summer of 2003.)

References

  1. ^ ""Broadcast News"". The New Yorker. November 29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
  2. ^ ""War coverage lifts News Corp"". The British Broadcasting Corporation. November 29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
  3. Scott Collins Crazy Like a Fox: The Inside Story of How Fox News Beat CNN, ISBN 1591840295.
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