Oct. 7, 2010
As objectivity continues to be a concern and controversial issue among media outlets across the nation, Fox News has entered the center of the discussion.
Fox News has formed a contract with four candidates that are potentially running for the presidential election. The problem for many is that the contract states that these candidates, for the time being, can only talk to Fox News and no other network.
In a statement release by Fox News, the news outlet states, “All contributors are exclusive to Fox News. On occasion, they will make appearances on other networks — when they have books to promote — and in those cases their contributor agreements are suspended during that period. Fox News has made rare exceptions for various contributors in terms of appearances on other networks, but instances are few and far between.”
Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee have all stated that there is potential that each of them will be running for the presidential election. However, the question that is asked is, “How can this be fair or objective for any network?”
Palin signed the contract with Fox News and will be hosting a show “that will examine inspiration tales involving ordinary Americans.”
Howard Kurtz from the Washington Post believes that Fox is dominating the GOP. He said, “Palin is extremely popular with her conservative base, which has fueled the sales of her best-selling memoir. But she is a divisive political figure who not only draws the ire of liberals but some Republicans, including staffers who deal with her during her run as John McCain’s running mate,” he writes. “Hiring Palin could further boost the popularity of Rupert Murdoch’s network among conservative viewers.”
Fox News has said that once a politician that it has entered a contract with declares himself or herself as a candidate for president, it will break the contract. However, in this interview it is asked, when does the actual declaration take place?
“FOX says they will sever ties with the candidates if and when those candidates declare for office. But, as folks in politics well know, there is a significant gray area in between the time when a candidate begins to think about running for office and actually declares for office.”
Analysis
On the Fox News website, the words “Fair & Balanced” are directly underneath the logo at the top. However, for many, these two words seem to mean nothing to Fox News as this contract with the politicians is put into question.
One person seems to be particularly frustrated with the Fox News’ logo.
“It would be one thing if Fox just came out and renamed their call letters to ‘GOP’ and dropped the whole ‘fair and balanced’ lie. Claiming to be ‘fair and balanced’ leads to voters thinking they are a legit, factually based news outlet. I’m not suggesting they should be shut down (although I would love to see them fail), it’s time to call a spade, well, a spade.”
The ethical dilemma is whether or not Fox News should have entered the contract to begin with. Media outlets everywhere feel that Fox News is breaching the objectivity clause that many journalists follow across the nation.
Journalists wants to know how a new station can be fair and objective but not allow potential presidential candidates talk to other news stations. It has been shown the Fox News leans more to the conservative side and CNN leans more to the liberal side. All of the candidates that have entered a contract with Fox News are Republican candidates. Does this mean that Fox News only represents Republicans and doesn’t allow them to talk to anyone else? People are curious of how that is objective.
As stated in the interview, Martin said, “I think the central question here… is what happens in January, February of 2011, when some of these folks are visiting their early states, they’re testing the waters and they’re still on FOX’s payroll?”
When will the contract be terminated officially?
I think that this ethical dilemma can relate directly to the questions proposed in our book. The first one that I would like to address is the “Why not follow the rules?”
The first question one has to ask, is who makes the rules? How did the rule of objectivity enter into journalism in the first place? We discussed in class how it would create more readership overall, because the news outlets would be discussing both sides of the issue. Our books says “a good code contains a set of ideals that justify and rationalize a profession’s activities to a larger society, including governments – especially during times of diminished credibility and intensified public scrutiny.” (Black and Roberts, p. 23).
In the early days of journalism, it was actually known that a paper would follow the same views as the publisher. Meaning that if the publisher leaned more to the left so would the paper or if leaned more to the right, the paper would follow suit. It would write or produce stories for broadcast that would follow the certain beliefs and platforms that the publisher would follow. It seems that broadcast networks like Fox News and CNN seem to be going back to those days of allowing biased reporting to enter into the networks. However, is this what people want? It seems that many consumers and fellow journalists do not agree.
This leads into the second question I’d like to address – “Who wins? Who loses?” The loyalties are addressed in this situation, because is Fox News trying to be loyal to the Republican part or to fellow journalists who believe in objectivity? Does Fox News believe that they are really being objective? There are polls and charts that indicate that objectivity is far from Fox News’ mindset.
Consumers want to know whom Fox News is being loyal to. Most would believe that it is being loyal to the conservative side. However, how is a major broadcast network supposed to stay objective when most people across the nation think that all of the stories and contracts are geared to a conservative edge? Our book says, “the more loyalty you show, the more likely it is that others will be loyal to you.” (Black and Roberts, p. 82). Does this mean that the more loyalty Fox News shows to the conservative side, the conservative side will be more loyal to Fox News? The book continues to discuss how the problem occurs when more than one party has claim to a journalist’s loyalty. Fox News has asked and contracted four potential candidates to remain loyal only to its network and its network only.
The last question that needs to be addressed is “What’s it worth?” The values of personal thoughts come in to play at this point. Politicians have values, whether or not the general public wants to believe that, I think they do. I want to know where the values went when they signed the contract saying that they would only talk to Fox News. How was the morally okay as a politician? Can it be objective and fair to present your platform and beliefs to only one media outlet that just happens to believe the same things that you do? I also want to know where the values are of Fox News. It claims to be a fair and balanced source for consumers to get quality news. However, how can a consumer get quality news if he or she feels that it is biased? Hearing that these politicians have entered into a contract like this makes consumers think Fox News’ credibility is gone.
As for my opinion, I believe that the politicians should have never entered a contract like that. Plus, I don’t think Fox News should have asked each politician to solely devote his or her time to its news station. There is no objectivity here. It’s a one-sided argument that other news stations and organizations can’t win. Fox News needs to break its contract with the four members, because there is a hazy area of when that contract will be broken. Thinking about being president and actually declaring it are very different things. However, people start forming opinions early on. How can people achieve a proper opinion of a person if he or she is only presented on one news network? Fox News is wrong in this situation and should have never asked for the politicians to put pen to paper in a contract.
– By Patty Vaughan