Fox News makes no secret of its Republican leanings, writes Conor O'Clery, North America Editor.
When two Katusha rockets struck the Sheraton Hotel in Baghdad on Thursday, Fox News, like its American cable rivals, CNN (domestic) and MSNBC, treated it as breaking news and for a time ignored everything else. Their correspondents were in the building after all, and some Fox employees were cut by flying glass. But what was striking about the coverage was the way the Fox anchors agonised about whether their highlighting of the incident was what the attackers wanted. "Are we giving it too much coverage?" asked a New York-based presenter. "What does the Pentagon say?"
Such deference to the views of the administration will come as no surprise to viewers of the Murdoch-owned channel, which wears its political heart on its sleeve - or, rather, on the top left corner of the screen, where the US flag waves gently throughout news and talk shows.
For the record, the Fox News Pentagon correspondent came on to report: "This is exactly the kind of theatre the terrorists are trying to orchestrate." Such sentiments strike a chord with millions of Americans, especially in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the US.
Fox news was created by Roger Ailes, media adviser to George H.W. Bush, to counteract the "liberal media" and he famously criticised CNN International, Al-Jazeera and the BBC for reporting "mostly that America is wrong and bad". Ailes is not just sympathetic to the Bush administration, he has advised it on how to conduct the war on terrorism. In Bush at War, Bob Woodward records that the Fox founder privately urged the White House to act "harshly" after 9/11.
The clear favouritism for the Bush administration makes it practically the in-house channel for the Republican Party. When Republicans organised a viewing in a Cleveland hall of Tuesday evening's debate between Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator John Edwards, their feed to the TV monitors was provided by Fox News. Fox attracted almost eight million viewers across the country for the vice-presidential debate, more than that of rival 24-hour news channels CNN and MSNBC combined.
It is by far the most popular round-the-clock television news source in the US, not just because of its patriotic take on events and ideological bent, but because it is often so much more robust in its news presentation than the opposition.
Domestic CNN (the international edition is rarely broadcast in the US) has seen its share of the market slump as it tried to compete by promoting chatter from Botoxed news presenters.
Fox boasts that 90 million homes in America now receive its programmes. Its influence is becoming more pervasive. Not long ago, television monitors in American airports were automatically set to CNN. Fly into Houston now, or other airports in the mid-west, and Fox News is being broadcast to waiting passengers. In the White House, the Pentagon, and at military bases around the world Fox has become the channel of choice. And no wonder.
Its correspondents identify closely with the US troops on the ground. In its news reports from Iraq after the attack on the Baghdad hotel on Thursday, Iraqi insurgents were described, in typical military-speak, as the "bad guys", and an area where the US army had conducted a large anti-insurgent operation was referred to as the "badlands". There is a widespread perception that Fox news reporters are "on board", in the way General Westmoreland wanted correspondents in Vietnam to report progress rather than setbacks. This applies to domestic politics too, and the growing popularity of the channel gives it enormous influence in the presidential election. The channel's motto, however, is "fair and balanced" and both sides do get an airing in domestic coverage. Yesterday morning, for example, Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey and former Democratic candidate Dick Gephardt were given air time to present the case against President Bush, in previews of last night's presidential debate.
Occasionally, Fox will strike a better balance than its competitors. On Tuesday its commentators leaned towards the conclusion - shared by most media - that the vice-presidential debate was a draw, while on MSNBC a panel chaired by Chris Matthews cheered enthusiastically for Dick Cheney.
And while the channel's talk-show hosts have a strong conservative bias, they can sometimes surprise. Fox's top-rated star, Bill O'Reilly, said on air recently that he is unhappy with some aspects of the war and may not vote for George Bush. "I've known Kerry for 25 years. He's a patriot. I'm listening to what he has to say," he remarked. On Thursday O'Reilly was back in form, ticking off Democratic chairman Terry McAuliffe for claiming Bush lied, saying "No fair-minded person could come to that conclusion." The viewer can take or leave O'Reilly and right-wing hosts such as Sean Hannity.
But critics claim that Fox's news coverage provides more time and sympathy to figures making the administration's case, and uses the language favoured by the White House and the Pentagon, thereby promoting a pro-Bush agenda under the guise of objective journalism. Yesterday morning, for example, a segment previewing the presidential debate included an uncritical interview with top Bush aide, Karen Hughes, but the Democrat who followed, former Carter official Bob Beckel, was harangued throughout by Mike Gallagher, a conservative syndicated talk-show host described as "Fox News contributor".
Critics saw evidence of an anti-Democrat mindset in Fox in an incident last Friday when Carl Cameron, the reporter covering the Kerry campaign, wrote a spoof series of comments by the Democratic challenger that Fox News accidentally posted on its website as genuine. They included: "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great?" and "I'm metrosexual - he's [i.e. George Bush] a cowboy." Fox apologised, saying the reporter's script had been written in jest, and colleagues of Cameron on the networks hastened to defend him as a professional and respected correspondent.
The most compelling evidence that Fox slants the news to suit Ailes's world view was revealed in the liberal documentary Outfoxed, Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, directed by Robert Greenwald, that set out to prove that Fox's motto, "fair and balanced", was a cynical joke. It claimed that Brit Hume's prime-time Special Report has a record of 83 per cent Republican interviewees versus 17 per cent Democratic, and it shows a hilarious montage of Bill O'Reilly shouting "Shut up!" to guests after claiming he used the phrase only once.
But the documentary unearthed about 30 in-house memos mainly from Fox News executive John Moody revealing just how rigidly the news operation must conform to the ideology and language of the owner. On December 3rd, 2003, for example, Moody said Mr Bush's "political courage and tactical cunning" on the Middle East "are worth noting in our reporting through the day".
On March 23rd he instructed: "The so-called 9/11 commission has already been meeting . . . Do not turn this into Watergate." On March 4th, regarding the US assault on Fallujah, Moody noted: "It won't be long before some people start to decry the use of 'excessive force'. We won't be among that group." He added that after what coalition forces had suffered in Iraq, "whatever happens, it is richly deserved".
On April 28th, the executive instructed reporters to refer to US marines in the foreground "as 'sharpshooters' - not 'snipers', which carries a negative connotation". There is also a memo dated March 24th when the Baghdad hotel in which Fox's bureau was located took a hit from an explosive device. "Please offer a prayer of thanks for their safety to whatever God you revere, he said, adding "and let the ACLU [American Association of Civil Liberties] stick it where the sun don't shine."
In one instance, however, even Fox critics could not argue with the priority of the Fox News boss. Noting that Bush and the Canadian prime minister were meeting and would make remarks at noon, he instructed: "Take the remarks, even if Jacko [Michael Jackson] is singing on top of a truck with no pants on at the time."