Fox News; Unfair & Unbalanced

Americans woke up to a changed world on November 5th. Barack Obama will be our nation's 44th President, despite a hard fought campaign by not only John McCain, but also a major cable TV news network that increasingly crossed the line from objective journalism and reporting to advocacy of a particular party and candidate.

 This past election season we learned not only about the candidates, but also about the biases of the news organizations reporting on them. Although MSNBC often leaned left, it was the Fox News Channel that was, as CNN's Larry King described it, “an extension of the Republican Party.”

 Throughout the campaign, Fox used bigotry and fear in their failed effort to help John McCain reach the White House. “Fox & Friends” co-host Steve Doocy questioned why nobody was mentioning that Barack Obama was raised as a Muslim and was educated in a madrassa, even though both claims were false. Fox's E.D. Hill characterized a benign gesture between Barack and Michelle Obama as “a terrorist fist jab.”


 Fox's Sean Hannity invited a raving anti-Semite on his show “Sean Hannity's America,” because the two men shared a mutual disdain for Senator Obama. Hannity featured Andy Martin on his pseudo-documentary “Obama & Friends: The History of Radicalism.” As a conservative writer and frequent political candidate, Martin has a history of railing against Israel and Jews, with one of his campaign committees pledging, “to exterminate Jew power in America.” Hannity not only allowed Martin free reign to claim that Obama had once trained to overthrow the government, he never challenged Martin on his shameful record of anti-Semitism.

 The Fox double standard is most obvious on a segment of “The O'Reilly Factor” called the “internet cop.” Here Bill O'Reilly and guest Amanda Carpenter from conservative Townhall.com expose the hatred they both agree is so common in the left-wing blogosphere. While hate is not a funny topic, it is humorous to watch these two hypocrites vehemently attack the left, while ignoring the violent hatred prevalent at Carpenter's own right-wing website Townhall.com.

 On October 14, Carpenter told O'Reilly that unlike the liberal blogs, Townhall.com would not let stand someone writing something exceptionally nasty and untrue. O'Reilly and Carpenter never notice the nasty, dangerous Townhall entries like this from a commentator: “There is a cancer growing in this country, and it is called Marxist leftism…it is reaching its culmination in the Obama campaign. Pray to God they are defeated by the ballot, which will make the bullet unnecessary.”

 The right-wing bias at Fox News is also very much a gay issue, as its conservative worldview often has the network presenting our community in a negative light. Bill O'Reilly in particular always seems eager to use LGBT people and our families to incite fear of gays.

 Last May, O'Reilly claimed that under a California bill requiring school textbooks to recognize the accomplishments of historical LGBT figures, teachers would not be able to say bad things about Jeffrey Dahmer because Dahmer was “a gay cannibal.” In July, O'Reilly said it was “insane” for the San Diego Padres to “cluster” gay adults around children by hosting both a gay event and a children's hat giveaway on the same night.

 O'Reilly's most egregious attacks occur when he goes after our young people. In November of last year, O'Reilly criticized the inclusion of a lesbian couple as “cutest couple” in their Illinois high school yearbook. While O'Reilly said he would be OK with the cutest couple being heterosexual “because that is the norm of society,” he felt it was inappropriate for the two girls to declare themselves anything other than friends, because “private behavior belongs in private settings.” “You don't allow sexuality to intrude in your high school yearbook, because there are minors…and we don't want to normalize homosexuality in a public way in an academic setting.”

 The Fox motto is “fair and balanced,” and while they do have plenty of Democrats appearing on the network, Fox Democrats such as Pat Caddell, Susan Estrich, Juan Williams and Kirsten Powers spend much of their on-air time criticizing other Democrats. They all seem to be either lukewarm towards the ideals of their own party, or are loath to jeopardize the steady paycheck they earn as enablers for Fox's conservative political agenda.

 The most prominent left-winger on Fox is Alan Colmes, the liberal half of the show “Hannity & Colmes.” While Colmes seems like a decent man, he is no match for his overpowering and relentless co-host. It is often painful to watch as Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Dick Morris, Karl Rove, and others from Fox's limitless stable of right-wing ideologues ridicule and bully the often ineffectual, timid Colmes.   The show has never been well matched.

 The result from the November 4th election indicates that spreading division and fear is not necessarily a winning strategy in presidential elections. In the past, the Fox News Channel has relied on these same tactics to attack both liberal politicians and the gay community, especially Bill O'Reilly with his constant tirades against what he calls “San Francisco values.” At this time of transition in power at the national level, perhaps it's time for Fox to make its own transition to become a news outlet worthy of the motto and journalistic ideal, “fair and balanced.”