"The fact is, daily life at FNC is all about management politics. I
say this having served six years there - as producer of the media
criticism show, News Watch, as a writer/producer of specials and (for
the last year of my stay) as a newsroom copy editor. Not once in the
20+ years I had worked in broadcast journalism prior to Fox -
including lengthy stays at The Associated Press, CBS Radio and
ABC/Good Morning America - did I feel any pressure to toe a
management line. But at Fox, if my boss wasn't warning me to "be
careful" how I handled the writing of a special about Ronald Reagan
('You know how Roger [Fox News Chairman Ailes] feels about him.'), he
was telling me how the environmental special I was to produce should
lean ('You can give both sides, but make sure the pro-
environmentalists don't get the last word.')
Editorially, the FNC newsroom is under the constant control and
vigilance of management. The pressure ranges from subtle to direct.
First of all, it's a news network run by one of the most high-profile
political operatives of recent times. Everyone there understands that
FNC is, to a large extent, 'Roger's Revenge' - against what he
considers a liberal, pro-Democrat media establishment that has
shunned him for decades. For the staffers, many of whom are too young
to have come up through the ranks of objective journalism, and all of
whom are non-union, with no protections regarding what they can be
made to do, there is undue motivation to please the big boss.
Sometimes, this eagerness to serve Fox's ideological interests goes
even beyond what management expects. For example, in June of last
year, when a California judge ruled the Pledge of Allegiance's 'Under
God' wording unconstitutional, FNC's newsroom chief ordered the
judge's mailing address and phone number put on the screen. The
anchor, reading from the Teleprompter, found himself explaining that
Fox was taking this unusual step so viewers could go directly to the
judge and get 'as much information as possible' about his decision.
To their credit, the big bosses recognized that their underling's
transparent attempt to serve their political interests might well
threaten the judge's physical safety and ordered the offending
information removed from the screen as soon as they saw it. A few
months later, this same eager-to-please newsroom chief ordered the
removal of a graphic quoting UN weapons inspector Hans Blix as saying
his team had not yet found WMDs in Iraq. Fortunately, the electronic
equipment was quicker on the uptake (and less susceptible to office
politics) than the toady and displayed the graphic before his order
could be obeyed.
But the roots of FNC's day-to-day on-air bias are actual and direct.
They come in the form of an executive memo distributed electronically
each morning, addressing what stories will be covered and, often,
suggesting how they should be covered. To the newsroom personnel
responsible for the channel's daytime programming, The Memo is the
bible. If, on any given day, you notice that the Fox anchors seem to
be trying to drive a particular point home, you can bet The Memo is
behind it.
The Memo was born with the Bush administration, early in 2001, and,
intentionally or not, has ensured that the administration's point of
view consistently comes across on FNC. This year, of course, the war
in Iraq became a constant subject of The Memo. But along with the
obvious - information on who is where and what they'll be covering -
there have been subtle hints as to the tone of the anchors' copy. For
instance, from the March 20th memo: "There is something utterly
incomprehensible about Kofi Annan's remarks in which he allows that
his thoughts are 'with the Iraqi people.' One could ask where those
thoughts were during the 23 years Saddam Hussein was brutalizing
those same Iraqis. Food for thought." Can there be any doubt that the
memo was offering not only "food for thought," but a direction for
the FNC writers and anchors to go? Especially after describing the
U.N. Secretary General's remarks as "utterly incomprehensible"?
The sad truth is, such subtlety is often all it takes to send Fox's
newsroom personnel into action - or inaction, as the case may be. One
day this past spring, just after the U.S. invaded Iraq, The Memo
warned us that anti-war protesters would be "whining" about U.S.
bombs killing Iraqi civilians, and suggested they could tell that to
the families of American soldiers dying there. Editing copy that
morning, I was not surprised when an eager young producer killed a
correspondent's report on the day's fighting - simply because it
included a brief shot of children in an Iraqi hospital.
These are not isolated incidents at Fox News Channel, where virtually
no one of authority in the newsroom makes a move unmeasured against
management's politics, actual or perceived. At the Fair and Balanced
network, everyone knows management's point of view, and, in case
they're not sure how to get it on air, The Memo is there to remind
them."
http://poynter.org/forum/?id=letters#foxnews
--
'The most hostile words you can utter on right-wing
talk-radio are 'I don’t know.' They all-- and I mean
all -- think it’s a trick.'
--Eric Alterman on things he learned on his recent book tour
Tim
'Fair and Balanced'
.
|
