i wonder if Langworthy knows that the filename for this photo on the Chron site from a story about a Bush rally in minnestota is "brainwashedchild.jpg?" Edit: corrected link. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/2804076 -- I'm a Fox fan and an NPR devotee — that's my job DAVID LANGWORTHY says there's a reason viewers are flocking to Fox News, and it has a lot to do with the 'mainstream' media's performance. By DAVID LANGWORTHY In this season of polling numbers ad nauseam, several in particular jump out and grab you like a line from a swift boat veterans ad: They're the ones showing the remarkable ascendancy of Fox News as a source of information in the political world. This is truly consequential. A June 2004 survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reports that since 2000, the number of Americans tuning into Fox News has jumped from 17 percent to 25 percent, while other cable outlets' audience shares were flat at best. The summer's Republican convention marked yet another milestone for Rupert Murdoch's "fair and balanced" network. For the first time, more convention viewers watched Fox than tuned into any of the three major broadcast networks. I don't ever expect to be fully "Hannitized," but I'm a Fox fan, at least after hours. I'm also a devotee of National Public Radio and, occasionally, Pacifica Radio. I believe it's part of my job as an op-ed editor to hear the divergent viewpoints offered by these news sources. During afternoons spent selecting and editing content for the Chronicle's Outlook pages, I have my radio tuned into KUHF-FM and the news broadcast of National Public Radio's All Things Considered. This is a matter of longstanding habit, but also a tool for professional survival. I cannot count the times the NPR voice coming out of my office radio has alerted me to changes affecting Outlook content. At home it's another story. I click my remote to 360, the DirecTV channel for Fox News, and I usually keep it there, with an occasional jump to CNN (or Fox Sports Southwest since the Astros started winning again). As entertainment, I think the Fox nightly lineup of commentators — Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes, even Greta Van Susteren — wins hands down over CNN. Evidently, a lot of other folks agree. According to the Pew Survey, Fox's O'Reilly Factor has almost twice the audience of CNN stalwart Larry King. Why? Because it's more entertaining. But my errand here isn't to play entertainment critic. I'm fascinated by Fox because, as a card-carrying member of the "mainstream" media, I believe we are doing our part and more to feed the Fox beast. A while ago on these pages, we carried an opinion piece ("Where is media swarm looking into Dem 527 groups," Outlook, Sept. 2) by Benjamin Ginsberg. He is the lawyer who came under intense, connect-the-dots scrutiny because he represented both the Bush-Cheney campaign and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Ginsberg's main gripe is that there are the same connections on the Democratic side that received nowhere near the media attention that his did. In the op-ed, he supplied chapter and verse. I can't help but agree with Ginsberg. The 527s on the Kerry/Democratic side have been given a virtual free pass compared with the swifties, and people notice it. Those same folks vote with their remotes for Fox News. Which brings us to the Dan Rather/CBS handling of supposed memos from George W. Bush's days in the Texas Air National Guard. At the very least, CBS' handling of this story suggests what the theater folks call "a willing suspension of disbelief." In its eagerness to nail Bush on his military service, CBS checked its professional skepticism at the door. Where was the network's vetting process? These incidents and the way they were handled by the mainstream media during the summer of Campaign 2004 will be fodder for journalism ethics classes a generation from now, if not sooner. It won't be a pretty picture. Meanwhile, they grow Fox's audience. Try as we may, we in the mainstream media cannot belittle Fox News or wish it and its imitators away. Is it fair and balanced? For my money Fox news coverage is as down the middle as CNN's — or CBS's. Hannity, O'Reilly and the rest of the network's commentators aren't — but they're not paid to be. Is Fox a major force in setting the political agenda? Without a doubt. So I would encourage more of my colleagues in the mainstream media to take a look at Fox regularly, as a matter of professional duty. It is an eye opener. It raises some honest questions about where the real political "mainstream" lives. Langworthy, the Chronicle's Outlook editor, is a member of the Editorial Board. (david.langworthy@chron.com)
I think a lot of it has to do with format as well. Fox News is different from CNN - Larry King is certainly different from Bill O'Reily. It's a different show format. Every four years around the election, someone like an O'Reily becomes popular. Last time it was Chris Matthews. There are other factors, too. Certainly, Fox's overall message is different than CNN's, but as the author notes, it really isn't any more or less down the middle than CNN, or MSNBC, in my opinion. As for the random Dem. 527 groups lack of backlash...well, backlash to what?? The Republican ones were clearly the more accusatory, aggresive and effective ads - that's why people talk about them. When something came out against Bush (in the form of CBS and Dan Rather) it was talked about and scrutinized just as much, if not moreso.
uhmmm, CBS is not a 527, and as an ostensibly impartial member of the media shouldn't take sides in an election.
Who said it was? My point, which I thought was pretty clear, is that people talk about the more "sensational" stories, regardless of their sources.
To be fair CBS didn't fabricate the story either, they just used fabricated evidence to try and point out a new angle on an existing story. It doesn't excuse it, but it is different than CBS making something up out of thin air. I can say that Fox continually puts forward the idea that the DNC is involved despite having no proof. They don't come out and say that is who did it, but they regularly advance the idea.
...said the editorial in a newspaper owned by one of the largest conservative media corporations in the country.
After all, everyone knows George W. Bush was not a child of privilege. He grew up poor, living in public housing, before he got that scholarship to Yale. They let him into Skull and Bones because his grandma was the cook at the frathouse.
And you would feel the same way if it were Fox running with the story about Kerry instead of CBS and Bush, right? Be honest. Look, I'm not exactly a big Fox News fan myself (they spend waaaaay too much time blabbering on about Scott Peterson, but that's another thread) but it seems that many of the shows on Fox are opinion shows. Fore-head boy (Bill Oreilly) doesn't claim that his show is anything other than an opinion show. With that being the case, the boobs that host the shows have a right to their opinion whether you agree with it or not, right? I don't watch Fox a whole lot but I don't see anything wrong with their actual news...which is splattered inbetween Scott Peterson updates.
watch aaron brown, or paula zahn on CNN, then catch brit hume's show on fox to get a flavor for the difference of the news programs. and you're absolutely right about fox's opinon shows. i'm constantly amazed at how many times people cite o'reilly as an example of how fox is biased. it's an opinion show! it's supposed to be biased!
Come on, the Chron editors probably don't name the picture files. It seems pretty obvious to me that the webmasters are responsible for that, probably just a joke between themselves.
I would feel exactly the same if it were FOX doing a story on Kerry. I said it doesn't excuse CBS, and I think this is big strike against CBS. CBS was wrong, they were irresponsible. I've never felt differently about CBS or anyone who has a part in shoddy journalism. They should be ashamed of themselves. That is exactly how I would feel if FOX did the same thing. All I said was that CBS didn't make the story up. The story about Bush's lack of service during his time in the guard has been around. What CBS did is to use fake documents to support an old story, or try to make it fresh. That's different than formulating the story themselves.
Fox was certainly one of the first (and loudest) to crow about the nuclear capabilities of Iraq after the SOTU, and that "evidence" was fabricated.
and the Chronicle apologizes "A photograph accompanying this story, which ran on the Chronicle's Web site on Sept. 17, was given an inappropriate file name by one of the site's copy editors. It came across as an editorial commentary on the subject, and such commentary has no place in our news coverage. The Chronicle regrets this error in judgment and apologizes to those offended by it." the file is now called "bushdo.jpg"
