Fox News attacks Obama, so what's new?

Barack's Biggest Blunders: Charting the course of Obama's flip flops.

Since my first blog post for the Unbiased Tabloid was about Fox News, I was going to steer clear of the network for subsequent posts. I didn't want to give readers the idea that my criticism of Fox News resulted from my democratic affiliation. I will proclaim my support for Senator Barack Obama, so as to not give the impression that my blogs about media bias are in themselves biased. Full disclosure is paramount to overcoming media bias, a notion that Fox News rejects (publicly denying any right-wing reporting).

The decision to blog about Fox again came after I stumbled across one of the most blatant displays of political bias I've ever seen: a video segment on Hannity's America called Barack's Biggest Blunders: Charting the course of Obama's flip flops. The video features a number of examples in which Obama seems to contradict himself. These include his denouncement of Reverend Wright after refusing to "disown" him and his voting in favor of the FISA bill after stating his opposition to any bill that would provide such immunity for telecommunication companies. Some of the examples were valid. Others were just inaccurate attacks, such as Obama's vowing to expand Bush's faith based initiative, which gives tax dollars to religious groups that provide community service; Hannity said, "it's the same program that Liberals have complained about for years." The key word here is Liberals, not Obama. And still others were just ridiculous - I can't believe we're still talking about flag pins.

By this point, you may be saying to yourself, "Hannity's America is a talk show; opinions are permitted," and you're right. But where do you think the decisions about the contents of Fox programs come from? They come from the bigwigs, the top network executives who call for conservative coverage. Do you think they would ever allow such a segment about McCain?

The fact is Fox hires republicans so its right-wing viewpoint stays consistent. If you don't believe this just take a look at it's staff, which now includes former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Oh, and Huckabee has just been given his own news show.

And just to make one thing clear: I may be motivated to write about certain topics within media bias because I am a Democrat. But I do not criticize Fox because I am a Democrat. I do it because Fox is biased; thus, it misguides people's perceptions and attitudes about important issues.