Fox News: Fair and Balanced?
An analysis of the FNC evening line up
JoeUser Forums
In a nutshell, FNC is simply a mirror of the other major news organizations. Instead of liberals picking and reading the news, it's conservatives. But unlike the other news organizations, FNC seems more inclined to present both points of view. Take a look and judge for yourself or as they say, we report, you decide. For each show, I rated it on a scale from 1 to 10. 1 would be extremely liberal like say Gerhaldo's previous show on CNBC (who ironically is now on Fox, that conservative!). And 10 being extremely conservative like say Rush Limbaugh.
| Time | Show | Comments | Rating |
| 6pm | Special Report with Brit Hume | Brit Hume is fairly conservative himself. The Fox News panel is quite conservative with editors of The Weekly Standard. But on the other hand, it's no more conservative than the CNN's "Capital Gang" is liberal. | 7 |
| 7pm | Fox Report with Shepard Smith | Shepard delivers news with an attitude. While he's probably somewhat conservative, this show is popular because it covers a lot of stuff in an interesting way with Smith not being afraid to make fun of obvious dumb stuff. | 6 |
| 8pm | O'Reilly Factor | O'Reilly really is an independent. Of course, liberals consider him conservative because to someone far left, anyone who deviates from their mold is a conservative. O'Reilly is pro-gay rights. Pro-Gun control. And slams nonsense at every turn. Sure, he's obnoxious but he's not a mouth piece for the Republicans by a long shot. | 5 |
| 9pm | Hannity & Colmes | This show is pretty evenly balanced. In fact, I would argue it is mildly liberal only because Colmes comes across as so reasonable and Hannity comes across as such a blatant tool of the right. | 5 |
| 10pm | On the Record with Greta Van Susteren | Greta Van Susteren is definitely not a conservative. But she's not a raging liberal either. She, like O'Reilly is an independent. She's against tort reform and was a vocal opponent of the Clinton impeachment. | 5 |
So what's the verdict? I'd say Fox leans a little to the right but it's not a hive of right-wing propaganda as some hysterical members on the left think. Al Franken's book, while humorous at times, really bespeaks the cluelessness of Franken than in showing his targets as "liars".
What I think you're really seeing is the left getting a taste of its own medicine. ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, MSNBC, and especially CNN have always given a somewhat leftwing point of view. Not anything extreme like some of the right wingers claim but easily if not more so left of center than FNC is right wing.
Even as someone who takes a pro-choice position on abortion, I couldn't help but cringe when I'd see CNN put "Anti-Choice" as a caption for a pro-life demonstrator. Moreover, when CNN's "Capital Gang" has one true conservative, one ghastly pseudo-conservative who always seems to be against anything Republicans are doing, with the rest reliable Democrats in their views, it's hard to see how the left can complain about Brit Hume's panel.
CNN's anti-war coverage was breathtakingly absurd. And continues to paint things in Iraq far worse than they really are. You'd think they'd show some objectiveness after the admission that they purposely distributed Saddam's propaganda to retain access in Iraq.
And while some argue whether O'Reilly is conservative or not, there's no doubt about Chris Mathews and Hard Ball being left of center. I don't have a problem with Hard Ball, I like the show, I only don't like it when people try to pretend that something's "objective" when it's clearly not.
But wait, what about talk radio? I'll trade you talk radio for the New York Times. Of course, liberals don't see any bias in the New York Times. Liberal opinions tend to come out as being merely the "voice of reason". The Wall Street Journal is certainly not going to counter the New York Times in terms of shaping editorial opinion across the country in all media.
The point being, Fox News isn't exactly middle of the road but unlike most "objective" news organizations, its modestly conservative anchors and commentators do seem to try to give both sides a shot which is a lot more than can be said of its competitors. It should, therefore, be no surprise why FNC is so much more popular than its competitors.
