From Media Matters:
At the height of the health care reform debate last fall, Bill Sammon, Fox News' controversial Washington managing editor, sent a memo directing his network's journalists not to use the phrase "public option."
Instead, Sammon wrote, Fox's reporters should use "government option" and similar phrases -- wording that a top Republican pollster had recommended in order to turn public opinion against the Democrats' reform efforts.
Journalists on the network's flagship news program, Special Report with Bret Baier, appear to have followed Sammon's directive in reporting on health care reform that evening.
Sources familiar with the situation in Fox's Washington bureau have told Media Matters that Sammon uses his position as managing editor to "slant" Fox's supposedly neutral news coverage to the right. Sammon's "government option" email is the clearest evidence yet that Sammon is aggressively pushing Fox's reporting to the right -- in this case by issuing written orders to his staff.
OK, none of this is even slightly surprising. In fact, I've seen plenty of evidence of similar actions. But in this case, Media Matters has a copy of the email itself, and lots of other information. Clearly, not all of Fox "News" employees are happy with what they're doing to journalism.
Fox "News" is not a news network. It's a propaganda mill working for the Republican Party. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the Republican Party works for them. And Fox is only one part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, all working together to advance his far right-wing political and economic objectives. (It's no wonder that tax cuts for the rich is the top GOP priority.)
PS. My thanks to Jonathan Chait for the link.
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