As a person who constantly calls out the left-wing slant of the so-called "mainstream" media, I also get sick & tired of Fox News claiming (example link at bottom) that while its evening show hosts may slant to the right, the network's regular news coverage does not. Phooey! An example from Sunday:
It was seemingly a rather innocent story that I just happened to view as background noise as I was working on a brief. It was titled onscreen as "Coal Industry Gets Boost Over Nuclear Power Concerns." Only problem? There was absolutely nothing in the story supporting the proposition that the coal industry is actually going to "get a boost" through increased coal demand because of "concerns" over nuclear power following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
Instead, first they trotted out some coal company executive who said his company was expanding. The dude made no reference to this generic expansion being in any way attributable to concerns over nuclear power or even being because of increased demand. Hell, for all we know, his company has been doing well in recent years and now they're looking to expand. Who the hell knows?
Next Fox wheels out some purported "expert" talking head who speculates that American coal exports will be increasing in years to come, but the guy doesn't tie that to nuclear concerns. He didn't say anything about such a link. As a matter of fact, no one in the story did say anything about such a link except for the reporter. Of course, there was the obligatory reference to Obama's minions revoking coal mining licenses in Kentucky and West Virginia.
This is not journalism. This is raising innuendo and purposefully supporting a political view that you espouse (here, that overbearing Obama coal regulation is bad and may threaten this alleged new wave of coal demand) through a story that has no real substance to it. That's called advocacy. There's nothing journalistic about it.
So please realize that when I rail on the so-called "mainstream" media, I recognize that Fox News is no better. All peas in the same partisan pods. Only a blinded and/or disingenuous partisan ideologue would argue otherwise.
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