Fox News' Defense That WH Is Targetting Opinion Shows Ignores Over 60% Of Its Programming Is Opinion

[TomCADem]

Fox News likes to defend its slanted coverage against the White House on the ground that the White House is unfairly referring to Fox's opinion shows, and ignoring Fox's news programming. This defense suffers from two major fallacies.

First, as noted by Mediamatters, Fox's so-called news programs are extremely biased.

http://mediamatters.org/research/200910130047

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Fox's news programs echo its "opinion" shows: Smears, doctored videos, GOP talking points

Fox News has responded to White House criticisms of its network by claiming that while its "editorial" programs are filled with "vibrant opinion," its news hours are straight and objective. However, Fox News' purportedly straight news programs echo its "editorial" programs: Media Matters for America has compiled a non-exhaustive list -- from this year alone -- documenting how Fox's news programming features smears, falsehoods, doctored and deceptive editing, and GOP talking points.

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Second, even under Fox's own formulation, over 60 percent of their programming IS NOT NEWS. Thus, even if you were to give Fox News the benefit of the doubt, most of their programming are opinion programs, not news.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/20/white-house-cites-opinion-shows-basis-fox-news-complaints/

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White House Cites Opinion Shows as Basis for Fox News Complaints

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Tuesday pointed to two top-rated opinion shows on Fox News as the reason why the Obama administration has castigated the network as an illegitimate news organization.

Gibbs weighed in on the controversy after several top White House advisers have gone on other channels to criticize Fox News' coverage of the administration, dismiss the network as the mouthpiece of the Republican Party and urge other news organizations not to treat Fox News as a legitimate news station.

Gibbs said White House officials "render (that) opinion based on some their coverage and the fairness of that coverage."

But asked how Fox News was different from other news organizations, Gibbs mentioned the channel's 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. shows, in an explicit reference to "Beck" and "Hannity" -- even though those two shows represent opinion programming.

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Next Monday's channel listing for Fox News:

12:00am War Stories With Oliver North(CC)

01:00am Bulls & Bears(CC)

01:30am Cavuto on Business(CC)

02:00am Forbes on Fox (CC)

02:30am Cashin In(CC)

03:00am Fox and Friends News (CC)

06:00am America s Newsroom With Bill Hemmer and Megyn Kelly(CC)

08:00am Happening Now(CC)

10:00am The Live Desk With Martha MacCallum and Trace Gallagher(CC)

12:00pm Studio B With Shepard Smith(CC)

01:00pm Your World With Neil Cavuto(CC)

02:00pmGlenn Beck(CC)

03:00pm Special Report With Bret Baier News (CC)

04:00pm Fox Report With Shepard Smith(CC)

05:00pm O Reilly Factor(CC)

06:00pm Hannity(CC)

07:00pm On the Record With Greta Van Susteren(CC)

08:00pm Reilly Factor Repeat (CC)

09:00pm Hannity Repeat (CC)

10:00pm On the Record With Greta Van Susteren Repeat (CC)

11:00pm Glenn BeckRepeat (CC)

[snagglepuss]

1. k and r

[Marr]

2. That's a good point. The ratio certainly matters, otherwise

Limbaugh's occasional news breaks would make his show a "news" show.

What's more with Fox, their opinion programming steers their "news" programming. They use their news shows to pursue stories that have been ginned-up by their opinion shows. They ignore stories that don't support GOP arguments. It's biased to the point of absurdity.

It's also not unusual to see Fox News' report filled with thin stories that no other outlet is covering, while completely ignoring the big stories being covered elsewhere. This happened a lot during the last couple of years of the Bush Administration, when all the big stories were scandals concerning the GOP or the Bush Administration. If you turned on Fox, they'd be reporting on fluff or aggressively pursuing stories about comparatively minor corruption cases involving Democrats. It was like they were living in an alternate reality.

[Turborama]

3. So, from 3am until 12pm is when they supposedly broadcast news?

03:00am Fox and Friends News (CC) (this is an opinion show masquerading as news)

06:00am America s Newsroom With Bill Hemmer and Megyn Kelly(CC)

08:00am Happening Now(CC)

10:00am until 12:00pm The Live Desk With Martha MacCallum and Trace Gallagher(CC)

04:00pm until 5:00pm Fox Report With Shepard Smith(CC)
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From what I've seen, those shows are riddled with opinion too and if we looked at that lot as a percentage of programs it consists of roughly 25% of Faux's programming. 5 programs are supposedly news and 16 are opinion shows and 1 of those 5 isn't really what you could call a 'news' show, they just recycle all the crap spouted by all the other opinion shows.

[smoogatz]

4. It also ignores the fact that what passes for news on Fox

uncritically repeats the same RNS talking points on the same days that the opinion shows trot out. There's no firewall of any kind--it's all the same propaganda, 24/7, no matter which talking head's on the screen.