Overview - Neoconservative Media

Thus, Fox News became the first major broadcast news outlet in history to be tailored specifically for inflammatory appeal to a particular audience—where commentary and talk show formats play a dominant role in the programming and news coverage is chosen predominately for audience appeal rather than broad coverage of global events. Other cable news outlets have followed suit, but to a lesser extent and with more diversity of views represented. MSNBC for instance, carries both Chris Matthews (moderate and Left leaning appeal) and Joe Scarborough (Right leaning appeal). Controversy driven shows like these are part of the programming on these outlets, but they do not dominate its time slots. Journalism is still the primary charter.

By contrast, Fox News deals almost exclusively in such formats. Inflammatory talk shows like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the like comprise much larger portions of their air time than that of their competitors. Their news coverage concentrates almost exclusively on issues of conservative interest (e.g. war efforts, taxes, military spending, and the activities of those who are perceived to be "liberal".

Terrorism is a dominant theme, but only anti-American and domestic environmental terrorism. Violence perpetrated by domestic Far-Right groups (e.g. militia and anti-government groups, abortion clinic bombers, etc.) are given as little coverage as possible—despite the fact that according to the FBI and the U.S. Dept. of Justice Anti-Terrorist Divisions, these comprise the bulk of terrorist incidents committed on American soil making them the largest contributors to the average American's actual risk of being violently victimized by a terrorist act.

Terrorism that does not involve either America or its allies as victims is not covered unless it is of a scale that cannot be inconspicuously ignored. You will hear about events like the Rwandan genocide from Fox News (at least for a few days). You will also read about the uprising in East Timor (the U.S. has economic and military interests in this region that threatened by the resulting instability). But you will never see coverage of the violence perpetrated by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. Nor will you hear of any other world events that do not involve American economic or military interests.

Until very recently there was virtually no coverage whatsoever of any science or environmental issues, even where public health was involved. Fox News now has a token science section but limits its content to minimal coverage of issues of Far-Right concern, and then to present a strictly Far-Right presentation of them where relevant. In fact, for over 10 years Fox News was one of only two major cable news outlets in the world that had no dedicated Science and/or Environment sections at their web sites and no reporters tasked to covering these issues (the other is Al-Jazeera).

Regular checks of cable news web sites are revealing. The day I first posted this page (Mar. 8, 2005), CNN's web site had an entire page dedicated to stories from around the world. There were entire subsections devoted to Central and South America, Africa, Europe, the Asia Pacific Rim, and the Middle East. The stories presented covered at least 24 countries on six continents. A section devoted exclusively to U.S. News featured numerous stories about public health, crime, ethnic and minority issues, difficulties faced by workers in various industries, and more. Naturally, there was a dedicated Science section featured dozens of stories covering tropical rainforests and international policy, recent discoveries in astrophysics, plans by Japan to possibly erect a manned base on the moon, several features about endangered species and ecosystem biology, global warming, archaeology, natural history, and the enmity growing between scientists and the Bush Administration, which is increasingly denying them input to any and all policy decisions and cutting basic science and education funding cut to all-time historic lows.

One story highlighted the Nobel Prize in Medicine being awarded to two American scientists (Richard Axel and Linda Buck). Another section was devoted to science education links and learning resources for kids. The BBC News site was even more thorough. Sections devoted to every continent featured news from dozens of nations worldwide. An entire web site within their larger site portal was devoted to science and nature, and was itself divided into entire sections devoted to biology, physics, biodiversity, climate change, public health, astrophysics, medicine, and more. Another site under their portal was devoted to educational resources for children. All in all, CNN and BBC collectively featured hundreds of stories from all over the world covering science, policy, human rights, economics, and politics.

Then.... there was Fox News.

The same day their web site featured a grand total of some 4 to 5 dozen stories from all sections—less than what was available at the BBC and CNN U.S. News sections alone, and less than a third the size of either outlet's Science sections. U.S. and World News were combined into a single section (apparently, news from the rest of the world does not merit a section of its own unless American interests are involved). This had only 7 brief video clips and 6 or 7 stories, all but 3 of which dealt with the Iraq war, anti-American sentiment in the Middle East, and the personal morality of popular American entertainers and sports stars. When combined with the Latest Headlines and Top Stories sections, the count rose to a grand total of 23 features of which only 5 didn't cover the subjects just mentioned.

The Opinion section was as large as the U.S. & World section and concentrated entirely on subjects likely to arouse the anger of those with politically or religiously conservative views. Not one story covered any part of the world where U.S. economic or military interests were not involved, and of the few that did involve foreign nations, only 2 did not concentrate specifically on U.S. interests. There was a brief, but glowing story about Laura Bush's hopes for a renewed status for women in post-invasion Iraq, but that story simply recounted Ms. Bush's opinions and praised them. Virtually no information of any kind was presented regarding the actual status of women in Iraq or any factor impacting it. This was the only article present that even so much as mentioned any human rights issue from anywhere on earth.