During a report on the controversy, the business correspondent Terry Keenan soothed her viewers by explaining, "Halliburton is getting a bunch of these contracts, probably about $2-billion worth so far in Iraq. But, you know, it is in the oil-services business and that's a big part of what we're doing in rebuilding Iraq, is trying to fix the oil fields and the oil pipelines." The program's anchor John Gibson nodded. "The thing that I don't understand about all the screaming about the Halliburton contract," he replied, picking up her thread, "is my understanding is there really aren't American competitors on Halliburton's level."
There were no discussions about whether Cheney might be profiting in some other way, or how much money Halliburton had contributed to the Bush-Cheney campaign. Like much aired on the Fox News Channel (FNC), the Halliburton segment played like a Platonic dialogue designed to prove the Bush administration may have its flaws, but is essentially beyond reproach.
The big story in the American news industry over the last few years has been the success of FNC, which discovered an audience for television news and opinion delivered from a conservative ideological perspective. The liberal or Democratic side has been all but silent. But now, as anti-Bush books climb the bestseller lists and the president's approval rating slides, new left-wing media ventures are ready to feast off the growing disenchantment with the Republican administration and control of the U.S. Congress.
Al Gore is reported to be exploring a purchase of Newsworld International, a U.S. cable channel formerly owned by CBC that currently airs news from Germany, the U.K., and Japan, along with CBC programs such as Hot Type and The National. During the Iraq war, many Americans turned to NWI, as it is known, for an alternative to the resolutely pro-American narrative followed by even the most skeptical U.S. broadcast networks.
Gore may be planning to offer an even stronger alternative. With Democratic fundraisers, he is exploring the possibility of purchasing NWI from Vivendi Universal SA, which just completed an agreement to merge with NBC and is looking to unload the channel. Although his partner in the venture, Joel Hyatt, refused comment on the matter, they are reported to be considering transforming the channel into either a left-wing alternative to FNC or a youth-oriented MTV-style news outlet that can tap into the inchoate liberal leanings of a large bloc of potential voters who don't usually go to the polls.
The television channel is only one element that could help shift the U.S. media landscape again. Sheldon Drobny, a Chicago venture capitalist who calls the Clintons and Gores personal friends, says he will launch a liberal talk-radio network in January, in time to gain enough traction to affect next year's presidential election.
Stand-alone progressive talk-radio shows were attempted in the past but failed to catch fire like those hosted by right-wing firebrands Rush Limbaugh, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North, partly because they were out of place on stations dedicated to the conservative point of view.
Some industry analysts believe talk radio's belligerent spirit, like cable television news, simply isn't suited for a left-wing slant. Liberals are perceived to be too diverse of mind and not as passionately dogged as the more unified conservative audience. (Rush Limbaugh's listeners are known as "dittoheads" for their propensity to reflexively agree with the host.) But Drobny is convinced those assumptions are wrong. He's bet $10-million on proving that progressive talk radio can flourish.
Drobny isn't the only one who believes there's money to be made on the left. The media conglomerate Clear Channel Communications, which supported the Iraq war and is close with the Bush administration, is considering a launch of its own liberal talk network on some of its 1,200 radio stations across the U.S. Even Fox is now syndicating Alan Colmes, the mildly liberal co-host of the shoutfest Hannity & Colmes, to talk-radio stations.
"To believe that only right-wingers are political junkies is ridiculous," Drobny said this week during an interview. "We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to give information, we're going to tell the truth. We're not going to make up stories, because I believe clearly that Fox News and Rush and the others not only give half-truths, they in many cases give lies."
Fox News is not currently seen on Canadian television lineups, though Canwest Global holds the rights to the channel and is considering a launch. Its introduction into Canada could help shift the political discourse here, much as it has profoundly altered the landscape of television news in the United States. This week Canwest offered no comment on the matter.
What does Fox look like? The channel bills itself as "fair and balanced" journalism, an unbiased response to the alleged liberal leanings of CNN and the major broadcast networks. Spend some time watching Fox and you'll hear that the U.S. economy is so strong that all of the 2.7 million jobs lost during George W. Bush's presidency will soon be replaced. You'll see host Bill O'Reilly bully the guests with whom he disagrees, predominantly those on the left side of the political spectrum. You'll hear many of its self-promoting hosts pushing their own books that foment distrust of public institutions. You'll see entire programs that play like infomercials for the Bush administration and right-wing policies.
You'll also hear ideological attacks on some of the more progressive policies of the Canadian government, including gay marriage and the decriminalization of marijuana.
All of this is wrapped in slick, noisy packaging lifted from high-intensity sports broadcasts. Many Americans love the channel for its approach, which translates the pugnacious, bombastic entertainment aesthetic of populist conservative talk radio to television. After launching only seven years ago, FNC now regularly beats its primary competitor CNN in the ratings. It is also the news channel of choice in the Bush White House, possibly because it is softer on the administration than other outlets.
During an exclusive, gentle interview last month with anchor Brit Hume, President Bush revealed that he doesn't read newspapers. The statement was picked up by news outlets around the world as an indication that the president is woefully out of touch, but Fox left the revelation alone, seemingly almost embarrassed that it had unintentionally besmirched Bush.
To be sure, the success of FNC is relative. The channel's highest-rated program, The O'Reilly Factor, regularly garners only about one-third of the viewers who watched the wacky reality-TV series The Osbournes on MTV last year, and less than one-quarter of the average audience currently tuning in to NBC Nightly News. But the ability of Fox to find a passionate audience that had been overlooked by other news outlets has made the industry, and the Democratic Party, take note.
Despite academic studies indicating the major networks do not exhibit a liberal bias, a recent Gallup poll found that 45 per cent of Americans believe television news outlets to be too liberal; only 14 per cent saw them as too conservative. Prior to the launch of FNC, many Americans simply boycotted the news broadcasts of the major networks, or watched with disdain.
"These people wanted to watch news, but didn't feel they had an option before," notes Sean Aday, an assistant professor at George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs. Fox, which is headed by Roger Ailes, a former adviser to the first president Bush, gave them that option. The channel's success has helped coalesce support for the Republicans, possibly aiding the party in taking the U.S. Congress last year.
Sheldon Drobny believes the mainstream media bias is more corporate than it is liberal. "I think the United States has a very narrow band of discourse, as compared to Canada and other countries, the reason being that the United States is the richest country and the media conglomerates are much more protective of their territory than in Canada and other places."
He says his network will program 14 to 16 hours of talk a day, including three hours hosted by comedian-cum-political gadfly Al Franken, who incurred the wrath of FNC executives last summer when he attacked some of the channel's high-profile talent in his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.
Drobny also has his FNC scars. This week, after mentioning Drobny's interest in starting a liberal radio network, Brit Hume let loose Byron York, a correspondent for the hard right-wing magazine National Review, who characterized some of Drobny's opinions as existing on the "farthest fringes of the political debate."
In some ways, the creeping takeover of the journalistic landscape by openly partisan outlets represents a step back to the 19th century, when many newspapers in the U.S. served as attack dogs for the political parties that paid their bills. (Full disclosure: The Globe was launched in 1844 by one of Canada's fathers of Confederation, George Brown, as a vehicle to promote the policies of the Reform Party, which later became the Liberal Party. It's not believed, however, that any members of Brown's Globe are still working at the paper.)
The papers had very low circulations, reflecting the fact that they were aimed at the tiny land-owning elite that held the right to vote.
The concept of "objectivity" as a journalistic goal came into vogue in the middle of the 19th century, when growing urbanization and wider voting rights led to the rise of the "penny press," a flood of new newspapers that charged much less than the elite press. The papers' focus on making money from advertising rather than subscription fees necessitated a wide audience that could trust the content -- editorial and ads -- as unbiased. In other words, the desire for "objectivity" was driven by a search for an audience; now, the search for an audience drives its inverse, biased reporting.
It now appears that skewed reporting might be making Americans less informed than they should be. Last week, the Washington-based Program on International Policy Attitudes published a study examining Americans' knowledge of issues surrounding the Iraq war. Sixty per cent of those surveyed believed either that weapons of mass destruction had been discovered in Iraq after the war; that world public opinion supported the U.S. going to war; or that evidence of links between al-Qaeda and Iraq had been found.
The study went one crucial step further, asking the respondents to identify their primary news sources. Twenty-three per cent of those who watch and listen to taxpayer-supported PBS television network or National Public Radio held at least one of the misperceptions. But a whopping 80 per cent of those watching FNC were misinformed.
Even if the news is comprehensive, the growing cleavage between left and right is leaving little room in the middle for discussions about the problems that ail a society. "There's the old idea of the public sphere, where people came together and in reasonable ways discussed issues of the public good, allowing reason to triumph over emotions," notes Andrea Tucher, an assistant professor at the Columbia School of Journalism. "I think it is getting harder and harder to have a common body of knowledge, or assumptions from which to start a debate. The conversation ceases to be discourse. That concept of the public sphere is more idealistic and less possible than ever."
