Producer reveals the politics of Fox
November 3 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/handheld/articles/2003/11/02/1067708066005.htm
A memo from management allegedly keeps the news on the right track, reports Tim Rutten.
A veteran television producer has alleged that Fox News executives issue a daily memorandum to staff to bend the US cable network’s reporting into conformity with management’s political views.
Charlie Reina, 55, whose six years at Fox ended on April 9, posted his charges on a website (www.poynter.org/column) for the Poynter Institute, which promotes journalistic ethics.
Fox is America’s most watched cable news. Its owner, Rupert Murdoch, hired the Republican political operative Roger Ailes as founding president. He had a reputation for bare-knuckle campaigning for Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
According to Reina’s letter, “Daily life at [Fox] is all about management politics . . . 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 [Fox] 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.”
A Fox News spokesman said “these accusations are the rantings of a bitter, disgruntled former employee”.
Reina, whose 30-year career includes stints at the Associated Press, ABC News and CBS, said:
“The roots of [Fox’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.”
"For instance, from the March 20 memo: ‘There is something utterly incomprehensible about [UN Secretary-General] 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 brutalising those same Iraqis. Food for thought.’ "
Comment:
Muslims have been saying for a long time that Fox news does not provide impartial news but rather acts as a mouthpeice for the American government, therefore anything they say has to be checked with other sources before being accepted. Whatever happened to free press in the west which we hear so much about? Seems another case of the pot calling the kettle black.
