Media MattersA Web-based non-profit research and information center dedicated to monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative the widespread misinformation in the U.S. media. Launched in May 2004,
Media Matters for America put in place, for the first time, the means to systematically monitor a cross section of print, broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet media outlets for the ever-increasing amount of news or commentary from Far-Right forums that has been carelessly and unprofessionally researched.
An Index of FAIR's Reports on FOX NewsFAIR (Extra, July/Aug. 2001)
Fox News, whose
trademarked motto is "Fair and Balanced", has stridently insisted that there is no bias of any kind in either its reporting or programming. These July/August 2001 reports from Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) examine the history Fox and its programming, and document a consistent pattern of Far-Right bias in both. The most credible metric for measuring bias in any media outlet its use of sources. From January to May of 2001, FAIR tracked the guest list of the Special Report with Brit Hume which is Fox News' flagship political news show. To avoid any accusation of liberal slant, they chose a rating system that counted guests as "conservative" only if they were actively involved in well known Far-Right think tanks or advocacy groups (Christine Todd Whitman, Bush's original EPA head, was considered "Liberal" for the purposes of this study). Even so, FAIR documented a slant toward conservative (i.e. Far-Right) guests by a factor of more than 2 to 1. The second link is to their report. The last link is to a bibliography of FAIR's other reports on Fox News and its questionable journalism.
The Junkman, Fox News and the Union of Concerned ScientistsPDF VersionOn Feb. 18, 2004 the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report documenting the Bush Administration's reckless disregard for science and their deliberate attempts to scuttle the careers of reputable scientists that attempt to shed light on facts inconvenient to their agendas. On Feb. 27, 2004 Fox News carried a predictably abusive editorial in which industry lobbyist and Far-Right commentator Steven Milloy attacked the report and the “12 Nobel Prize winners” who signed it. The UCS report was actually signed by 20 Nobel Laureates, not 12. The error was not particularly relevant to the issues addressed in the UCS report, and in verifiable content (or lack thereof) the article was no different than most of Fox News’ journalism on environmental matters. What made this one noteworthy was that it offered an unusually clear glimpse of the sloppy scholarship and lack of professionalism that characterizes the Far-Right’s treatment of science and environmental issues. In this article I discuss the UCS report and show that Milloy likely arrived at his figure of 12 Nobel Laureate signatories by not even bothering to read the
caption under the figure he took the names from, and the way Fox News simply accepted his comments at face value without any fact checking of their own.