11/02/2003

A former Fox News Producer tells Salon just what "fair and balanced" means there: All I can say is, everybody there knows what the politics of the bosses are. You feel it every day, and in good part because of this daily editorial note that comes out. I suppose there are similar things...But [in the Fox memo], oftentimes when there are issues that involve political controversy and debate or what have you, there are also these admonitions, these subtle things like, "There is something utterly incomprehensible about Kofi Annan's remarks in which he allows that his thoughts are 'with the Iraqi people.' One could ask where those thoughts were during the 23 years Saddam Hussein was brutalizing those same Iraqis. Food for thought." That's something you just don't see in a traditional newsroom... I was assigned to do a special on the environment, some issue involving pollution. When my boss and I talked as to what this thing was all about, what they were looking for, he said to me: "You understand, you know, it's not going to come out the pro-environmental side." And I said, "It will come out however it comes out." And he said, "You can obviously give both sides, but just make sure that the pro-environmentalists don't get the last word... They know what they can do, what they should do, what they shouldn't do and so on. There's just an atmosphere of -- I don't want to say "fear," but for some of the young people there that's what it is. You know, I'd rail against this. I never made any bones about it. Right in the middle of the newsroom, I'd say, "Did you see what we did?" The typical thing would be for people to say to me, "So we're not fair and balanced? Like you didn't know that? What are you getting all upset about?"

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