Fox News Responses
In June 2004, CEO Roger Ailes responded to some of the criticism with a rebuttal in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal, saying that Fox's critics intentionally confuse opinion shows such as The O'Reilly Factor with regular news coverage. Ailes stated that Fox News has broken stories harmful to Republicans, offering "Fox News is the network that broke George W. Bush's DUI four days before the election" as an example, referring to Bush's DUI charge in 1976 that had not yet been made public. The DUI story was broken by then-Fox affiliate WPXT in Portland, Maine, although Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron also contributed to the report and, in the words of National Public Radio ombudsman Alicia C. Shepard, Fox News Channel "sent the story ping-ponging around the nation" by broadcasting WPXT's coverage. WPXT News Director Kevin Kelly said that he "called Fox News in New York City to see if we were flogging a dead horse" before running the story, and that Fox News Channel confirmed the arrest with the campaign and ran the story shortly after 6 p.m.
Upon the release of Outfoxed, Fox News issued a statement denouncing MoveOn.org, Greenwald and The New York Times for copyright infringement. Fox dismissed their judgments of former employees featured in the documentary as the partisan views of disgruntled workers who never vocalized concern over any alleged bias while they were employed at the network. Ailes also shrugged off criticisms of the former Fox employees by noting that they worked in Fox affiliates and not at the actual channel itself. Fox News also challenged any news organization that sought to portray Fox as a "problem" with the following proposition: "If they will put out 100 percent of their editorial directions and internal memos, Fox News Channel will publish 100 percent of our editorial directions and internal memos, and let the public decide who is fair. This includes any legitimate cable news network, broadcast network, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post."
Former Fox News personality Eric Burns has suggested in an interview that Fox "probably gives voice to more conservatives than the other networks. But not at the expense of liberals." Burns justifies a higher exposure of conservatives by saying that other media often ignore conservatives.
Read more about this topic: Fox News Channel Controversies
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