LEAKED EMAIL: Fox boss caught slanting news reporting

Media Matters by Ben Dimiero | Dec. 9, 2010 (Investigative Report)

At the height of the health care reform debate last fall, Bill Sammon, Fox News' controversial Washington managing editor, sent a memo directing his network's journalists not to use the phrase "public option." Full Story »

Posted by Jon Mitchell - via Umair Haque, Memeorandum, Jeppe Kabell (t), Umbreen Bhatti (t), Jason Samfield (t), George Moga (t)

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4.3

by Vincent Caminiti - Dec. 10, 2010

The story is short to the point and delivers on the lede. Almost every scintilla of this report is verifiable by a simple viewing of fox news and / or the flotilla of itinerant talking right-wing heads that frequent the newsy shows. It would be hard to find a person (not employed by Fox) that would argue about the obvious bias engineered into the Fox News programming - however, this article goes about to give the reader a peek at the tactics used to deliver the Fox strategy.

Simply stated, the Fox organization crafts news in a manner that is consistent with how Rupert Murdoch views journalism; cash cow. It is a carnival act that is very appealing to a great deal of America. Frankly, I'm not sure what is more sad - that a news organization and broadcast empire is so greedy that it re-manufactures news to fit its scheme; that the paid info-tainers on the network actually are a perfect fit because they are zealots; or the vastness of the market to which this daily docudrama is appealing.

Vincent Caminiti – Dec. 10, 2010 - 10:21 AM

I’ll tell you why I believe it is good journalism and newsworthy. There are scores of commentators who regularly support Fox News or bash Fox News. It’s hard to discern whether their position is one of shilling for their potential pay-master or the competition. In any case, the arguments are generally built on varying degrees of conjecture that eventually leads no where. In this brief report, a leaked internal Fox email, we see empirical evidence that somewhere in the vast halls of the Fox Media-plex, there is a document trail directly coaching not only Fox hosts, news staffers – but their ‘face-in-the-box’ paid analysts as well. So while many of us can’t conceive of this as being ‘breaking news’ – it is distinctive in the fact that it isn’t more commentary on the matter but more of a forensic revelation that the obvious IS true and with proof.

I liked your challenge and it made me re-check to be sure that I wasn’t just rating this based on my rejection of the Fox business model. I did so and I’m going to leave my review unchanged. However, I want thank you for the investing the time with a thoughtful comment and the opportunity to discuss our differing opinions and where we agree.

As to your parenthetical comment about the American diet for Fox branded rhetoric, there are plenty of books and articles excoriating the personalities of Fox, but not too much about why the American landscape consumes it. I too would welcome that kind of detailed and verifiable analysis. – Vincent