Fox News and a Decade of Bad Journalism

In this week's media notes, Howard Kurtz led off his piece by mentioning that Fox News' President Roger Ailes still avoids mentioning his place of work much of the time. Considering that Fox News is one of the highest-rated cable networks and habitually beats its competition like CNN or MSNBC, at least according to certain press releases, why does he hide? Shouldn't someone who honestly believe he is giving the American public a "fair and balanced" newscast that supposedly garners such high ratings be proud of what he does? Shouldn't a man be expected to stand up for what he believes in, stick his neck out with pride in Howard Roark-style and say "Yes, I run that because I have integrity and I am proud of what I do?"

Well, it's a moot question, because Roger Ailes either has no integrity or he lost his mind a long time ago. Ailes, you see, marks his network's success by how "mainstream" it is in his own opinion. He furthermore claims in the Kurtz article that "the only reason I know we're doing the right thing is that we're widely criticized."

Come again? If the only way to tell if you're doing the right thing or not is if you're being widely criticized, doesn't that mean that any one who is criticized can claim to be doing right? Shouldn't you know if you're doing the right thing independent of criticism? Pardon my foray into elementary logic, but such a statement is patently absurd. It sounds like something out of a Marx Brothers movie: "do things that'll bring criticism, boys, it's the only way to be sure we're doing right!"

And what about this "mainstream" viewpoint? The point of journalism - at least this is what I've taught - is not to cater to popular whims or thought, not even to think of the mainstream, but to try to tell exactly what is going on. Good journalism should have nothing to do with pandering to self-perceived "mainstream" views. The whole concept of "mainstream" is one from popular entertainment, so why is a major network head using it to describe his network's operating principles? Is the movie Network becomming more socially relevant every day?

Ailes is ashamed to admit where he works because Fox News is not interested in real journalism. They are interested in pandering to the masses and generating the almighty dollar in large quantities by finding a niche with conservatives looking for reinforcement. He is a shrewd businessman who has thrown journalistic integrity out the window in favor of a broader market share. Ten years ago, he built a network philosophy on the three-decades-old campaign by Republicans to smear the news media as left-wing. His mantra caught on with far-right conservatives who though the normalizing, centrist news of the networks was not right-wing enough.

The truth? That pesky, left-wing media is actually pretty darned conservative. A recent study by FAIR found that Republicans have been favored recently as partisan guests on the major news shows. They should have a majority since they are the party in power, but to the tune of 76 percent on CBS or 75 percent on NBC, especially when the country is split almost in half? How can anyone claim that the "mainstream" media is anything left of center when three-fourths of their guests are Republicans? Heck, even NPR was over 60 percent Republicans, and they get smeared as socialists half the time.

Ailes further will claim that his network has journalistic integrity and doesn't pander to the masses, but their personality-based programming has to make one think. He claims that their staff corrects any misinformation they give faster than the other networks, but shouldn't the pride really be in not making the mistake in the first place? For example, when Pope John Paul II passed away, Shepherd Smith of Fox News reported his death while the man was still alive. This is despite the fact that the Vatican has a very established system set up for informing the media and the masses that the pope has passed away. Fox News, in their rush to be the first to report, eschewed this system and made up their own news. That's not journalistic integrity, that's someone making a guess so that marketing can claim they were the first to announce the pope's death. I wish I were joking in writing this, but I'm not.

In short, Roger Ailes is ashamed to mention where he works because his netowrk violates everything that journalism is supposed to be. They lied to create a small niche market for themselves and threw away journalism ethics for headlines like "Chavez and Oil: Where are the Protests?"

And here's a final point. Even though Fox News boldly advertises their ratings and that they must be "Fair and Balanced" since so many people watch, their top rated show is watched by less than one-fifth of the number of viewers who tune in to the CBS Evening News. Reports of Fox's ratings are almost always hyperbolized (imagine that) and on any given night, the other non-"Fair and Balanced" networks can be said to be beating Fox a combined 30-1 according to a recent study of Nielsen data. They also have the oldest median age of any news outlet at 61, and their prime show, the blathering O'Reilly Factor, has a viewership with a median age of 71.

In conclusion, Fox News has a flawed philosophy that seeks to pander to a sizable niche market of conservatives, many of whom are elderly. It has thrown journalistic integrity to the wind in favor of carving a place for themselves and winning advertising dollars. Is it real journalism? Is it mainstream? Only in the words of Roger Ailes and his duped followers.

I suspect that Ailes knows he's given the country a decade of bad journalism. He reads the ratings reports, he knows what he's doing, and it isn't real news. It's a marketing tool founded on a well-built set of lies that would make PepsiCo and Kraft and R.J. Reynolds blush. He knows it and the people in the business know it, and that's why he keeps quiet about his job.