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There are few more obvious Transatlantic culture gaps than that between news and current affairs broadcasting in the US and Britain. While our TV and radio is constrained by statute from being partisan, American channels are allowed to let rip.
The first to take advantage of the freedom to say as they like were presenters on radio stations. Hence the phenomenon of shock jocks. By contrast, television channels, especially the main networks, have tended to be altogether less uninhibited and, in US terms, arguably liberal in tone.
But the arrival in 1996 of Fox News changed all that. Here was a satellite and cable channel with news anchors and interviewers all too happy to pursue their own personal political, social and cultural agendas. Or, at least, the agendas of the Fox supremo, Roger Ailes, a former executive with the NBC network and a Republican Party strategist who acted as a media consultant to Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior.
The rolling news channel, launched under the umbrella of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, soon won a reputation for its conservative, often reactionary, broadcasts. It also gradually won a huge audience, outstripping the other major 24-hour news channel, CNN, which was portrayed by its upstart rival as unacceptably liberal.
A couple of years ago, at a family wedding, I found myself sitting next to a Republican campaigner who told me that CNN broadcast “Commie propaganda” while Fox “tells the truth”.
I often tune into CNN when abroad and I've yet to see or hear anything remotely liberal, let alone socialist, in its bland reportage.
On the other hand, whenever I switch on Fox, it could never be described as bland. Under the surely ironic slogan “Fair and Balanced”, it is relentlessly raucous as its leading presenters mix fact and opinion without a shred of embarrassment. They take no prisoners in their interviews either, firing loaded questions and then interrupting persistently. The BBC's John Humphrys and Jeremy Paxman are but shrinking violets when compared to the likes of Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Mike Huckabee and the latest right-wing kid on the block, Glenn Beck.
These hosts, scorning what they regard as the liberal media elite, revel in stoking up controversy. O'Reilly has regularly been accused by media critics of racism, a charge he strenuously denies. There are websites dedicated to analysing his broadcasts and lampooning him, most notably oreilly-sucks.com. He seems to relish the attention.
But it is Beck that has caused the greatest outrage of late, having chosen to attack President Barack Obama at every turn, often with scant evidence to support his claims. For example, he has suggested that Obama's health care reform is a back-door attempt to secure reparations for slavery on behalf of black Americans.
Beck, who hosts a talk radio show and is something of a stand-up comedian, is often not very funny. In 2006, he began an interview with a US Muslim politician: “I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' And I know you're not. I'm not accusing you of being an enemy, but that's the way I feel.” Beck later admitted it was “quite possibly the poorest-worded question of all time.”
After leaving CNN to join Fox early last year — at a reputed salary of $2 million a year — one of Beck's first guests was none other than Sarah Palin, who was this week reported to be joining the channel herself as a contributor and commentator.
The self-styled hockey mom has emerged as a national personality since her failed vice-presidential run. Having resigned as governor of Alaska, she has attracted thousands of people while touring the States to promote her book Going Rogue. Her brand of populist right-wing politics will fit well with the channel's overall conservative bias.
Unsurprisingly, it was long assumed that Fox's output was a fairly accurate reflection of Murdoch's own political outlook. After all, he is regarded as a man of the right. But I never shared that simplistic assessment and I was bolstered in that view by a section in Michael Wolff's biography of Murdoch, The Man Who Owns The News, that suggested that Rupert was embarrassed by Fox News and was far from enamoured with Ailes.
Indeed, according to Wolff, Ailes confronted Murdoch in 2008 after reading a report that suggested Murdoch was going to endorse Obama for president.
News Corp denied Wolff's stories, but I always suspected there was more than a grain of truth in them and this weekend came yet more proof through none other than Murdoch's son-in-law, Matthew Freud, the boss and founder of the London public relations firm Freud Communications.
He was quoted in a New York Times profile of Ailes as saying: “I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed by Roger Ailes's horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to.”
I have never known Freud to put a foot wrong in public. He is the PRs' PR, who works his magic in the background. He is rarely quoted anywhere unless he wants to be.
So it is reasonable to surmise that even if he is not speaking for Rupert, he is speaking for his wife, Elisabeth, boss of the Shine TV production company here, and quite plausibly for his brother-in-law, James, who runs News Corp's UK and European operations and who is regarded as the heir apparent when his father steps aside.
In true corporate style, Murdoch's company later issued an anodyne statement about Freud's opinions being his own and that they do not reflect Rupert's views. He remains “proud of Roger Ailes and Fox News”.
Proud, doubtless, of its vast profits and proud, just possibly, of the reach Fox News has achieved, becoming the number one cable channel in the States. But it is highly likely that Rupert, in company with his offspring and their spouses, is acutely upset that he owns a channel that has brought freedom of expression into disrepute.
*Roy Greenslade is Professor of Journalism, City University London
Reader views (4)
somebody PLEASE give ONE example of the BBC being 'left-wing' in its reportage. Mr George's comment is a sad example of how the likes of O'Reilly can manipulate people when the accepted standards of fair reportage are dropped in favour of buzzwords and shouting.
- Richard, Ipswich, UK, 25/09/2010 14:41
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Greenslade the day you and all the other cosmopolitan media luvvies who have infiltrated the BBC and much of the mainstream media over the last 3 decades wake up and recognise your own soft centre-left bias is the day you realise why FOX News is so successful.
Roll on the repeal of our antiquted bias rules!
Murdoch: Lobbying for FREEDOM! 
- Julius Streicher, Northumberland, UK, 18/02/2010 05:00
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Watching the BBC is like watching an East european party political broadcast. It is blatantly left wing which is fine but not when is uses public money extorted from viewers under penalty of fines etc, for non-payment of licence fees. Furthermore if this journalist bothered to watch the otther US networks it is apparent that they are equally biased furthering their own liberal/democrat agendas shamelessly. Like many I resort to the WSJ, FT and the Internet to try and find out what is really going on. Fox can be one track and tiresomely predictable but their huge following tells you that the rest of the networks are failing, NBC in particular is a real mess. NBC is also blatantly further GE's political agenda to suck up to Obama to get US government contracts... how corrupt is that?
- James Macleod Ritchie, Oyster Bay Cove, 14/01/2010 13:45
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I watch Fox News pretty regularly, especially the O'Reilly factor, and for me he's one man who talks a lot of common sense,granted he's a bit loud at times. I think that's something we need more of, before the civil liberties morons take over the world and eventually drop us all in it. This once Great Britain of ours, has become weak and subservient to the European bureaucrats, and the liberal left, and the lunatics have definitely taken over the asylum. My answer is let us get more mouthy like "Bill O'Reilly" and stand up and be counted before it's too late, I'm in my seventies by the way, so I think I've earned my right to sound off.
- Mr George, Norwich, Norfolk, UK, 13/01/2010 13:02
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