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Highlands Today

President vs. Fox News

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Alexandra Myers

Published: November 4, 2009

The recent interest over President Obama vs. Fox News is really a proxy for the real "war," which pits the bias of conservative news outlets versus traditional journalism.

The first step to creating this battle was to create an enemy. Contrary to what Fox News will tell you, there is no such thing as the "liberal media." This is a fictitious term created by conservative news outlets to identify an enemy against whom they fight. By not spinning news issues in a conservative light, unbiased reporting has been improperly labeled "liberal." Don't believe me? Take a look at Fox News' headlines and then look at CNN or MSNBC for comparison.

Next, I want to address this issue of "criticizing the president." During the Bush years, Fox steadfastly supported the president. Unbiased news sources tended to do the same for the first years (issues like 9-11, Afghanistan, Iraq) but later tended to be more critical (immigration, Social Security, troop surge in Iraq). However, even when news coverage was unfavorable, it was well-reasoned, thoughtful and most importantly not personal.

Just because coverage is unfavorable does not make it biased, and this is a point Fox News often misses. Bias results from prior beliefs while favorability stems from thoughtful consideration of a particular issue.

In the past few months, critics of Obama have been increasingly polarizing, using illogical arguments to de-legitimize the president. In many cases, commentators have unabashedly spewed hatred. Unbiased news sources have been, well, unbiased. There has been plenty of both favorable and unfavorable Obama coverage depending how he is doing. This is how real journalists should operate, and it is a shame that Fox News has hijacked our treasured history of quality journalism.

Alexandra Myers
Sebring

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