Outfoxed
by Clay Risen

It should come as no surprise that Fox News has adopted a hard line on the war in Afghanistan, taking pride in its decidedly pro-American, pro-administration stance on errant bombs and wiretapping. Home of Bill O'Reilly, the Rupert Murdoch-owned cable news outlet is hardly a bastion of news objectivity. But what is surprising, and more than a little disturbing, is the network's newfound willingness to go after those news organizations that still cling to objectivity as a journalistic standard during wartime.

Fox News representatives contend they're simply doing their patriotic duty by downplaying reports of civilian deaths and playing up reports on American military successes. And they claim their competition — the networks and CNN — are practicing cultural relativism by portraying both sides of every story. Roger Ailes, the Fox News chairman, told The New York Times that "suddenly, our competition has discovered 'fair and balanced,' but only when it's radical terrorism versus the United States."

To accuse news organizations seeking objectivity of cultural relativism makes little sense, and would be easily dismissed if it were made over any medium other than television. But television is a realm that favors the soundbite and the hot story over reason and analysis, and, predictably, Fox News has been much more blatant in its pro-America stance than its online doppelganger, foxnews.com. And for obvious reasons — television news washes over you quickly, leaving little time to reflect; online news is static and can be picked apart more easily.

A cynic would say that Fox's stand has more to do with opportunism than patriotism, and that cynic would be right — Ailes adds that if sacrificing objectivity "makes me a bad guy, tough luck. I'm still getting the ratings." Which is true — Fox's viewership is gaining on CNN's, according to the New York Times, and it's already 43 percent higher than this time last year.

Nevertheless, Fox's defense of subjective news could come back to hurt it. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that 73 percent of the public wanted news coverage to show all points of view, as opposed to only 20 percent who wanted a pro-American slant in their journalism. That doesn't mean, of course, that 73 percent will eschew Fox over CNN; clearly a lot of people like Fox's incendiary reporters calling bin Laden a "dirtbag" and the Taliban "evil." But the results hint at a change over time; five years from now, viewers will likely look back at Fox's coverage in much the same way that today we look back on the Internet pizza delivery services and dot-com millionaires of the late '90s — an excess of the time, and one we're not eager to revisit.

In the meantime Fox News is happy to give free rein to the likes of "journalist" Geraldo Rivera, who has made his own news by promising to kill bin Laden if he stumbles across him and as a result has been shunned by the press corps on the ground — to the point of being excluded from an impromptu turkey dinner.

Which is funny, because it's not as if CNN, NBC and the rest have been Harry Potters to Fox's Snape. They too wallowed in the mire that was the last few years of television news, running Chandra and Monica as their top stories while ignoring the very type of international events they now cover prominently. Fox was only the worst of the lot. What's significant here is merely that the network has stood its yellow-CRT ground while the rest of them have adopted a newfound sense of seriousness.

Even if Fox itself loses public favor, Fox News as a model may have a chilling effect on television journalism. Just weeks before Sept. 11, CNN's new president Walter Isaacson was considering drastic steps a la Fox, including hiring Rush Limbaugh as a news commentator. It's only so long before the public loses its taste for international news and the television media find themselves going to further and further extremes to win them back. Moreover, with expenses rising into the high eight digits, Disney, General Electric and AOL Time Warner will be looking for ways to recoup. While you may never hear Aaron Brown say "sleazeball," it’s unlikely that we've seen the last of sensational news. Fox's recent performance may end up being a sign of things to come rather than a relic of the past.

E-mail Clay Risen at risenc@yahoo.com.