What’s the Gripe About Fox News?
Written on 15 March 2010
Howell Raines, once editor of the New York Times, just blasted Fox News in the Washington Post.
I thought Raines might be just the man to make the case. But no:
Raines:
Why haven’t America’s old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News…
Readers:
You’re asking me?
Raines:
… for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration — a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?
Readers:
Unprecedented? That’s bad? We’re always watching for the unprecedented, the new, meaning an advance….
Raines:
Through clever use of the Fox News Channel…
Readers:
Clever? That’s bad?
Raines:
Ailes has overturned standards of fairness and objectivity…
Readers:
Wow, that sounds unfair.
Raines:
…that have guided American print and broadcast journalists since World War II.
Readers:
Ah, a sentimental journey to yesteryear. Let’s save that for someday, when we’ve won or lost the battles of our prime…
Raines:
Yet, many members of my profession seem to stand by in silence…
Readers:
If your profession doesn’t agree with you, why should we?
Raines:
…as Ailes tears up the rulebook…
Readers:
Who’s gonna cry for a rulebook and its misfortunes?
Raines:
…that served this country well as we covered the major stories of the past three generations, from the civil rights revolution to Watergate to the Wall Street scandals.
Readers:
We have mixed feelings about those three generations. We’re not clear what to make of three generations of news.
Now if I were editor to Raines, I would send him back to rewrite. You fought and won big battles in your day, I would tell him. Pick one. Pick the one you know best, or care most about. A battle you won for us all. Show us what would have happened with Fox News on the scene. Give the story a face. Show us a hero of ours, a hero who would have been lost.
Isn’t there a simpler case against Fox News. Simpler and stronger? They’re selling, but they deny it. We don’t mind ads that pretend to be news. That was one of Ogilvy’s great innovations in advertising, the editorial ad, with lots of words and facts, like a report. But level with people. Admit you’re selling. Admit it up front. Don’t deny it when caught.
We don’t like a guy who asks us to believe something he doesn’t believe. If it’s not good enough for him, why’s it good enough for us? Who does he think we are?
We would have no complaint, would we, if Fox News said Sure, we’re an around-the-clock infomercial network, a political Home Shopping Network, a QVC for people who are looking for grievances and causes of a certain kind?
We might not even complain about push-polling, if honestly done. As in the South Carolina primary between John McCain and George Bush, where Bush supporters called voters pretending to be pollsters, and asked, would it affect your vote if you knew that McCain was hiding an illegitimate black baby he fathered?
Nice try, we might laugh, if the false pollster would come clean, and laugh in turn, and not attack us for saying No, No Thanks.
Now Fox News is all push-polling, all the time. Nice try, we might laugh, if Fox News would come clean….
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