media and power

[Doug Millison]

Right-wing politicians and big business persecuted by the mainstream 
U.S. media? Hardly.  The New York Times doesn't tilt quite so far to 
the right, quite so obviously -- but you'd be hard-pressed to find 
many significant distinctions vis-a-vis Fox in their cheerleading for 
Bush and his corporate sponsors.

"It takes only a few hours on any given day to see Fox's political 
predilections in action. The Cheney interview, for example, began an 
ordinary Sunday of conservative cheerleading. Fox Washington 
correspondent James Rosen, covering the controversy over the Ashcroft 
nomination, portrayed the Senate opponents as political opportunists 
"venting" to appease their constituents. The features were no 
different. A segment about an effort to teach religion in public 
school was promoted repeatedly with the teaser: "Are we as a nation 
more or less spiritual today than we were twenty-five years ago? Are 
we a country that is losing faith?" Viewers were asked to call in 
answers. Later that same day, a tabloid-style piece on teen abuse of 
crystal methamphetamine was a virtual banner ad for right-wing 
policies of strict law enforcement and lengthy incarceration; in the 
approximately quarter-hour segment, drug treatment or addiction's 
causes were never once mentioned.

"Such slants should come as no surprise, given the cast Rupert 
Murdoch has chosen to run Fox News Channel, the latest venture of his 
News Corporation. At the top is Roger Ailes, a onetime strategist to 
Presidents Nixon, Reagan and the elder George Bush. Ailes's lineup of 
talent, in addition to Hume and Snow (the latter a former chief 
speechwriter for the elder Bush), includes David Asman, former Op-Ed 
editor at the Wall Street Journal, and Sean Hannity, whose personal 
website features links to Rush Limbaugh's show and the National Rifle 
Association. Frequent Fox contributors include Fred Barnes, executive 
editor of The Weekly Standard; Monica Crowley, former assistant to 
Nixon; Jim Pinkerton, former Reagan and Bush staffer; John 
Podhoretz,editorial page editor of the New York Post and former 
Reagan speechwriter; and John Fund, a  member of the Wall Street 
Journal's editorial board and collaborator on Limbaugh's political 
diatribe, The Way Things Ought to Be. "

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010312&s=eviatar
March 12, 2001
Murdoch's Fox News
by DAPHNE EVIATAR