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Over the last few years, there has been an overwhelming attack on the nation’s No. 1 cable news network, Fox News. However, this attack is not aimed at achieving a worldwide standard of objective and unbiased reporting in all media; it is aimed at squelching one of the only television news outlets that hasn’t bowed to the unfortunate status quo and political correctness of the liberal mainstream media.
In an era where access to information is becoming more readily available, Americans have more options for television news than ever before. The “big three” news networks of ABC, CBS and NBC are quickly losing ratings as Americans turn to 24-hour news channels to find out what’s going on in their world. The new leader in the ratings game for cable news networks is Fox News, which currently receives a greater average viewership than both its chief rivals, CNN and MSNBC, combined. With nicknames like “Faux News,” “GOP TV” and “Republican News Network,” which allude to a conservative bias, it is evident many feel that Fox News is not “fair and balanced” as the network’s slogan suggests. Although “bias” is a harsh word and journalists tout themselves as being completely objective, it is impossible to report on an issue without at least some of one’s personal beliefs entering the story. Often times, a story is influenced more by what is left out and considered irrelevant than by what is included. Fox News simply lacks the more liberal viewpoint that is and has been so prevalent in the mainstream media.
A study conducted by the Roper Center at University of Connecticut in 1998 found that 78 percent of Americans believe there is a significant bias in the news. A 1997 survey conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs found that the number of people who found the news media to be liberally biased outnumbered those who viewed the news media as conservatively biased by more than two to one. Armed with these facts, one can easily see where a news organization such as Fox News Channel could feel that there needs to be a voice that counters that of the majority of the media. While the underlying ethical obligation of any journalist is to be objective and completely unbiased, one can defend the organization’s viewpoint that the scope of media needs to be corrected.
The National Survey of the Role of Polls in Policymaking conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates, which included TV and radio journalists as well as newspaper journalists, found that members of the press were a full seven times more likely to identify themselves as Democrats rather than Republicans.
The social responsibility theory states that the media should help further the social contract. Counterbalancing a problem that has been expounded over time by the media is clearly furthering the social contract, even though we all know that two wrongs don’t make a right. If presenting a side of an issue in a light opposite other news outlets results in the public gleaning information from both sides of the issue, then the ends justify the means and the decision is therefore ethical.
Fox News Channel obviously does not will that media bias should be a universal law. Instead, Fox News Channel views the liberal media bias as a fact of life and is trying to offset the liberal bias with more conservative viewpoints of its own. Although Fox News may at times appear to hold a conservative bias compared to other networks, keep in mind that, in contrast with the mainstream media, almost any viewpoint that stands for family values, says that capitalism and the free market economy is a good thing, or that maybe, just maybe, there are things in this world that are worth fighting to the death for will seem like a conservative bias.
Fox News reports facts in a clear and concise manner. Real journalists report the real facts, not just numbers without giving their actual significance. The news can’t tell you what the “truth” is; it’s different for each individual person. If you’re looking for “truth” take a philosophy class. I, for one, would rather get the facts and decide for myself.
John Burbank is a fifth-year journalism major.
