Fox News Under Attack, Again...
Sunday, May 21, 2006
By Susan Estrich

It certainly caught my eye, I must say. Now to be honest, I hadn’t a clue who Bob Cesca was. And I was only checking the Huff Post because my daughter has started a new charity and is blogging about it there, and I wanted to see how she was doing. Even so, it made me mad.

Encourage White Power? Be serious. I haven’t met anyone in my going-on-seven-years at Fox News who I would describe as racist, and with the immigration debate raging, that isn’t a term to be thrown around lightly.

And while I’ve gotten used to laughing off a great deal of criticism, even I get to the point where I’m mad as you know what, and don’t want to take it anymore.

It turns out that Mr. Cesca is not an expert in journalism, or in race relations, but a well-known animator, who now does very liberal political animation. That he disagrees with Fox is his business; that he characterizes the entire enterprise as promoting a KKK-like agenda, a comparison, he suggests, is my business and yours.

If he were the only example of an attack on Fox News today or this week or this month, I would do what I tell my children to do with name callers, which is to ignore them. But just today, in addition to Cesca’s assault (on Gibson, O’Reilly, and Hannity), I read another attack on "Fox pundits"— singling out Neil Cavuto for "sucking up" — and another round occasioned by Tony Snow’s first briefing at the White House.

Mr. Cesca’s mistake, and it is a common one, is that he confuses reporters and anchors, who are paid to be objective and cover the news, and do so, with commentators and hosts, who are expected to put forward a point of view. Is there anyone in the world who would expect impartiality from Bill O’Reilly? From Sean Hannity?

I remember the days when John Gibson was a reporter, but he isn’t one anymore, and he doesn’t pretend to be. He doesn’t cover the news, he comments on it. That’s his job. What does Mr. Cesca expect?

I’d certainly be the last to complain if Mr. Cesca were arguing that he’d like to see more progressives like me with their own shows or regular slots on Fox News, but that’s never their point. You’d think that Sean Hannity's liberal co-host, Alan Colmes, didn’t exist, reading the criticism. You’d think there was no news organization at Fox, that we ran nothing but O’Reilly, Hannity and Gibson, 24/7.

What about Fox News Live? What about Greta Van Susteren, whose only agenda, as far as I can tell, is to help find missing girls and punish wayward teachers? What about Brit Hume and Brian Wilson and Carl Cameron and Ramblin’ Rick and Steve Harrigan and Shep Smith and Laurie Dhue and the hundreds of other people who do their jobs every day without giving anyone a hint of who they support in their private lives?

Enough is enough. What gives people who have never worked a day in the news business the right to throw stones and call names with impunity, because Fox News is the target?

I’ve taken a lot of heat from the left for working for Fox News, and frankly, I’m a little bit sick of it. The truth is that I’ve been very well treated at Fox: I say what I want; I’m treated with respect; and I’m paid well.

But there’s an even more fundamental point. You don’t win elections just by preaching to the choir. You win by convincing people in the middle, many of whom actually watch the top-rated cable news network. Some of these people are even over 54 years of age (another of the latest attacks), and not only do they spend a lot of money on purchases, but they vote in higher numbers than any other demographic group (there’s a reason no one ever dares to touch Social Security).

The way I see my job is to try to present the strongest arguments possible to the most important voters in the country, which I think is pretty critical for my party. Democrats who refuse to appear on Fox News because of their claims of conservative "bias" are in fact foregoing an important opportunity to reach swing voters who might actually decide elections.

The irony is that I find that often, simply by occupying the middle, I can win the fight. And what do I get from my friends on the left? Criticism that I’m not a real Democrat because I’m too centrist… How dare I be pragmatic?

My answer is very simple. Unlike Mr. Cesca, I not only have worked for every network, I also worked, formally or informally, for every Democratic candidate to run for president in the 1980’s and 1990’s. I understand the difference between running on the left and losing, and running in the center and winning. I wrote three Democratic Party platforms. I see no honor in defeat. I’d rather win in the middle than lose on the left, and you don’t need to call anyone names to do it.

Susan Estrich is currently the Robert Kingsley Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Southern California and a member of the Board of Contributors of USA Today. She writes the "Portia" column for American Lawyer Media and is a contributing editor of The Los Angeles Times. She was appointed by the president to serve on the National Holocaust Council and by the mayor of the City of Los Angeles to serve on that city's Ethics Commission.

Estrich's books include "Real Rape," "Getting Away with Murder: How Politics is Destroying the Criminal Justice System," "Dealing with Dangerous Offenders," "Making the Case for Yourself: A Diet Book for Smart Women" and "Sex & Power," currently a Los Angeles Times bestseller.

She served as campaign manager for Michael Dukakis' presidential bid, becoming the first woman to head a U.S. presidential campaign. Estrich appears regularly on the Fox News Channel

http://tinyurl.com/p3yub

The reason people hate Fox is their clearly biased coverage during the last two presidential elections (and in general).

Ratings should not be allowed to apply to news coverage in my opinion. It usually leads to fear based programming.

Do you have some examples of their clearly biased coverage during the last 2 presidential elections or is that just your opinion?

An in-depth analysis of a series of polls conducted June through September found 48% incorrectly believed that evidence of links between Iraq and al Qaeda have been found, 22% that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and 25% that world public opinion favored the US going to war with Iraq. Overall 60% had at least one of these three misperceptions.

The frequency of Americans’ misperceptions varies significantly depending on their source of news. The percentage of respondents who had one or more of the three misperceptions listed above is shown below.



http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pi...t=102&lb=brusc

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1067

Bah Hevusa.
I was just about to post info about that first link of yours...
http://www.thetalentshow.org/archives/000489.html

I think there could be a lot of disagreement with the Al Queda connection. I believe they are linked only because they both are terrorist organizations. Iraq was a terrorist nation, that is a fact. They supported it and funded it. That is fact. I can't say Ben Laden and Saddam had lunch together, but that doesn't matter. Japan and Germany were allies because they had a common enemy. We were also allied with the commies. Allies don't have to like each other, all they have to have is a common foe.

I just find Fox a lot more entertaining than CNN or MSNBC. The guy that makes me want to vomit is Keith Olberman. He's not funny, he's an airhead, and he thinks his shit don't stink. I know people say that about O'Reilly, but the guy is entertaining and interesting and always has a better show than Olberman. I can't take him for 5 minutes and I change the channel because he is nauseating. I think Hannity and Colmes is interesting because you always get both sides. Other than than, I get my news of the internet.

That's like saying Judaism and Islam are linked because they are both religions.


Terrorism against who?


You're providing excuses for why they may still be allies with a lack of specific evidence.
But you're failing to address how there is a lack of ANY evidence linking the two of them...


There's a thread around here about how O'Reilly was having a melt-down over people mentioning Olberman...
Now THAT is entertainment!


You think you get "both sides" from Hannity and Colmes?

That's a hoot!

If you're skeptical, aware of biases, and have a big bowl full of salt it is possible to watch the news and survive.

Yeah, that as opposed to the UN-BIASED reporting of Dan Rather & CBS.

Second only to fox.