News Networks Moving Towards Using “FOX News’ Model” Says Expert

After Sunday’s comments from the White House communications director that FOX is the “arm of the Republican party,” the debate of how biased or unbiased journalist should be is again on the spotlight.

In a Washington Post article on Tuesday, David Westphal, a resident with the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism spoke about the White House and FOX News confrontation and about how rhetoric and opinion is blurring the line between biased and unbiased reporting.

According to Westphal, for the most part viewers would agree with the White House’s comments because they already know that FOX News is not the “fair and balanced” network that it claims to be. Westphal also said that more and more Americans are being drawn to news sources that cater to their own belief system regardless of how bias or unbiased they may be.

“Americans tell opinion surveys that they want news that’s unbiased,” Westphal told the Washington Post. “The rub is Americans look at politics and government through very different lenses, so the reality is that they are drawn to information that speaks to them.”

Westphal also has assessed that FOX News’ style of reporting news may become the model that other cable networks and other news sources will be using in the future. It is FOX News’ almost confrontational and opinionated programs that keep the network’s ratings high.

“Now that the Internet allows news to flow from any vantage point under the sun, it seems very likely to me that we’ll see more of the Fox model, and not just on cable. Speaking from a point of view is powerful, authentic, visceral and quite clearly can draw a crowd. That, by the way, is the way it used to be in the newspaper world many years ago,” Westphal said.

The rhetoric and what Westphal calls, “punditry” that FOX News uses is what has contributed to their success, and other competing networks such as MSNBC and CNN are beginning to see the power in such an approach. These competing networks are counting on shows from the conservative Lou Dobbs, and those lefty hosts like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann to attract a strong and loyal audience.

Westphal:

Fox News’ chief, Roger Ailes, has been brilliant in positioning Fox. As you say, it does a good job with its punditry of maintaining its loyal base. At the same time, it spends a lot of time on news coverage that often seems bias-free to me. So Fox is trying to frame its audience as broadly as possible, and the ratings suggest it’s having great success. I wonder, however, whether we aren’t entering a period where this will be tougher to pull off, as the rhetoric ramps up higher and higher.

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