Targeting Fox News Channel
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I wonder how many of those clamoring to shut up Fox have actually watched the channel. To be sure, Fox houses an array of such bristling conservative commentators such as Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. But their hosts continually welcome direct, on-air combat with guests of vigorously opposing views. I’ve been on with O’Reilly’s show, and I didn’t have to be carried out.
Moreover, having covered Congress and the presidency for more than a half century, I rate Fox’s Carl Cameron and Jim Angle as among the fairest and most illuminating broadcast correspondents on the beat. Also, Fox reporters in the field, around the world, are professional, resourceful journalists, not apparatchiks for the Republican Party.
But the Fox News Channel is not only targeted by the sansculottes roaring outside its studios during the Republican convention.
MovOn.Org, which strikes me as a mouthpiece for John Kerry’s campaign, and the more credible Common Cause, a grassroots government watchdog, actually filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission accusing the Fox News Channel of deceptive advertising because if its persistent claim of being “fair and balanced.”
In the July 20 Wall Street Journal, FTC chairman Timothy Muris provided MoveOn.Org and Common Cause with a basic lesson on the “freedom of the press” clause in the First Amendment, saying:
“I am not aware of any instance in which the Federal Trade Commission has investigated the slogan of a news organization. There is no way to evaluate this petition without evaluating the content of the news at issue. That is a task the First Amendment leaves to the American people, not a government agency.”
None of the attacks alleging that the Fox News Channel is a tool of the Republicans have mentioned the regular appearances of Judge Andrew Napolitano, the only commentator on broadcast or cable television who continually explains our civil liberties as protected by the Constitution, particularly its Bill of Rights, in his analysis of news events.
Here is a characteristic commentary by Fox’s senior judicial analyst both on the air and on the March 5, 2004 editorial page of the Wall Street Journal — whose editors do not share Napolitano’s views on John Ashcroft. Speaking of the administration’s expansion of National Security Letters, Napolitano emphasizes:
“Now, without you knowing it, the Justice Department can learn where you traveled, what you spent, what you ate, what you paid to finance your car and your house, what you confided to your lawyer and insurance and real estate agents, and what periodicals you read without having to demonstrate any evidence or even suspicion of criminal activity on your part.”
Is this the work of a “mouthpiece for the Republican Party?”
Fox News is watched by more Americans, on many nights, than CNN. On the first night of the Republican convention, an average of 3.6 million viewers watched Fox, compared with 1.2 million CNN viewers. Fox continually trumps MSNBC. On three nights, Fox beat NBC, CBS and ABC.
When I teach, I advise students to actually watch Fox from time to time, and judge for themselves. They might be quite surprised.
Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights.