Fox News: “Fair and balanced” or operating in a "Spin Zone"?

Photo credit: crooksandliars.com

Ted Turner, following the launch of Cable News Network (CNN) became a media pioneer with the first 24-hour programming dedicated to news.

But recently uncovered documents reveal plans for a Fox-type outlet hatched in the early 1970’s by conservatives concerned about what had (and has been) routinely perceived as liberal media bias.



A potentially historic find, the memo suggests that the birth of Fox News Channel - the de-facto cable news challenger with a decidedly conservative bent - may have predated its rival CNN.

In fact, the discovery of the memo hints that it may not have been Turner, but conservatives, who laid the groundwork for what at times appears to be a flagrant media-spin factory.

A Plan is Born
Titled “A Plan for Putting the GOP on TV News”, CNN obtained the document from the Nixon Presidential Library based on tips from the watchdog group, Gawker.com.

Apparently, the memo, whose author is speculated to be Nixon’s embattled (and later convicted) Chief of Staff, H.R. “Bob" Haldeman - provides a blue-print of sorts to accomplish this plan. Handwriting analysis and notes signed by “Roger” suggest that the memo consisted of communications between Haldeman and media consultant Roger Ailes.

While Haldeman would fall from grace in the heat of the Nixon tape scandal, at the behest of the now embattled British tycoon Rupert Murdoch, Ailes would go on to develop Fox News in 1996.

According to CNN reporters, the memo contained specifics regarding production efforts, including plans to conduct daily interviews with republican leaders to broadcast the conservative political perspective to Americans.

News was intended to be packaged and then distributed to select markets in time for the evening news. In their defense, the objective was merely to overcome liberal censorship and provide the other side of the story.

Or so they say.

Photo credit: upgradetravelbetter.com

Ailes’ smoking gun
During a recent interview with CNN, Kerwin Swint, professor of political science at Kennesaw State University and a leading expert on political campaigns provided interesting insight into the matter.

According to Swint, the plan formulated in the “Roger” memo was intended to help shape the viewers perceptions about political candidates and the GOP platform.

Swint reported to a CNN editor that the 1968 Nixon campaign benefitted greatly from a series of Ailes' stylized television campaign promotions, eventually cinching the presidency.  Swint speculated that the success of Nixon’s campaign became the seed upon which the contemporary spin-factory germinated.

Calling Ailes' brief tenure at the failed Television News Inc. (TVN) and its association with the conservative think-tank, the Heritage Group, a “smoking gun”, Swint suggested that TVN was a “beta” to Fox News.

Swint points to the famous Rorschach (ink blot) tests as defining the two camps and their followers:

“Republicans look at Fox News and see a principled, straight down the middle newscast,” Swint told CNN reporters, "Democrats look at Fox News and see a phony news organization taking its marching orders from the Republican National Committee.”

“I look at Fox News and see a very successful effort to have a conservative version of the national news, but positioned and marketed as neutral, fair, and balanced,” Swint added, “I just get the sense that he (Ailes) is taking us all for a ride and laughing all the way to the bank.”