Fox News

The Fox News network is a cable news channel. Located in the United States (New York), Fox News is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation media conglomerate. Fox News began airing news programming in 1996. The network is headed by Roger Ailes, a former political media consultant.

With up to 15 hours of live programming per day, Fox News has climbed steadily in the ratings and is now the top-rated cable news channel, ahead of its older competitor, CNN. Among the most popular programs on Fox news are The O'Reilly Factor (featuring Bill O'Reilly) and Hannity & Colmes, which are the two highest rated cable shows. The channel's overall viewship has had some ups and downs over the past few years, but Fox continues to draw more viewers than any other network news program, including CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and MSNBC.

Fox prides itself on its motto “fair and balanced” and other proclamations of its objectvity and intent such as “we report, you decide” and “we put the world in context.” One innovation attributed to Fox was the creation of the “Fox News Alert,” which is designed to interrupt other programming to highlight specific current news events.

Almost from its beginning Fox has faced accusations of conservative bias. Although the network and its owner Rupert Murdoch continually deny any suggestion of bias, other journalists and reporters perceive Fox as favoring a Republican viewpoint. One attempt to document the charges comes in a documentary by Robert Greenwald called Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. The documentary is critical of [Page 254]Murdoch's media empire and suggests it has been used to convey his personal views at the expense of neutrality and objectivity. The documentary maintains that employees are required to espouse the conservative viewpoint or lose their jobs.

Fox, like other news outlets, also maintains a Web site. On the site at http://www.foxnews.com, the network provides videos, Web logs, and special programs by Fox personalities like O'Reilly, Hannity and Colmes, Brit Hume, Greta Van Susteren, and John Gibson.