Fox News controversies

[15][16] In 2007, several major Democratic presidential candidates (Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson) boycotted or dropped out of Fox News-sponsored or -hosted debates.

After speaking numerous times on election night with his cousins George and Jeb,[34] Ellis, at 2:16 AM, reversed Fox News' call for Florida as a state won by Al Gore.

Critics allege this was a premature decision, given the impossibly razor-thin margin (officially 537 of 5.9 million votes),[35] which created the "lasting impression that Bush 'won' the White House – and all the legal wrangling down in Florida is just a case of Democratic 'snippiness'.

[50] According to the results of a 2006 study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Fox News was rarely cited by 547 surveyed journalists as an outlet taking an ideological stance in its coverage, and most identified as advocating conservative political positions.

[61][62] Geoff Nunberg, a professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley and a National Public Radio (NPR) commentator, criticized the methodology of Groseclose's study and labeled its conclusions invalid.

Viewers of The O'Reilly Factor (51%) scored in the high category along with Rush Limbaugh (50%), NPR (51%), major newspapers (54%), Newshour with Jim Lehrer (53%) The Daily Show (54%) and The Colbert Report (54%).

The Washington Post quoted Larry C. Johnson, a former Fox News contributor, describing the Moody memos as "talking points instructing us what the themes are supposed to be, and God help you if you stray.

"[90] Photocopied memos from Moody instructed Fox News' on-air anchors and reporters to use positive language when discussing anti-abortion viewpoints, the Iraq War, and tax cuts, as well as requesting that the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal be put in context with the other violence in the area.

"[92] Two days after the 2006 midterm election, The Huffington Post reported that its news department had acquired a copy of a leaked internal memo from Moody that recommended the following: "... [L]et's be on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem-controlled congress."

Within hours of the memo's publication, Fox News anchor Martha McCallum went on-air on the program The Live Desk with reports of Iraqi insurgents cheering the firing of Donald Rumsfeld and the results of the election.

Critics claimed that Sammon took advice from Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who appeared on Hannity shortly before the email was written and made the same suggestions in identifying the public option.

[100] Times culture editor Sam Sifton called Fox News photos "disgusting", and the criticism of the paper's reporting a "specious and meritless claim" while denying that it was a "hit piece".

In a separate incident, the Fox News website ran articles about protests in Seattle, with accompanying photos of a burning city actually being from Saint Paul, Minnesota, the previous month.

[108][110][111][112] Fox News' vice president of marketing, Michael Tammaro, attempted to explain the ad by stating: "Generally speaking, it's fair to say that from the tea party movement ... to ACORN ... to the march on 9/12, the networks either ignored the story, marginalized it or misrepresented the significance of it altogether.

[115] In late September 2009, Obama senior advisor David Axelrod and Fox News founder Roger Ailes met in secret to try to smooth out tensions between the two camps without much success.

But on February 26, Glenn Haab, Colton's father, admitted that he was responsible for the fabrication of the story by doctoring the emails to make it look like it was set up by CNN, thus confirming the network's claim that it never used any form of scripted material for the event.

Hogg, however, did not accept Ingraham's apology and called for a boycott of her program, a move that has resulted in around 15 companies (including TripAdvisor, Nestlé, Expedia, and Wayfair) pulling advertising from the show due to its conservative rhetoric.

"[12][173] Media Matters for America criticized Carlson in particular, as well as other Fox News personalities, for using Sinophobic language such as "Chinese coronavirus", "Wuhan virus", "kung flu", or variations thereof to refer to COVID-19 on-air.

[175][176] On March 5, Trump made an appearance on the program by phone, where he claimed that a projected mortality rate of 3.4% announced earlier that day by the World Health Organization was a "false number" and predicted that it would actually be under 1%.

[11][173] Two days later, Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt suggested that it was the "safest time to fly" since "[the] terminals are pretty much dead",[180] and the program aired an interview with Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr., where he claimed that the "overreaction" to COVID-19 was "their next attempt to get Trump" and that COVID-19 was a biological weapon developed by China or North Korea to attack the United States.

[181][11][12] Concurrent with Trump's own changes in tone and attitude surrounding the pandemic, some Fox News pundits began to openly acknowledge its severity on-air, including Hannity, Ingraham, and Earhardt.

[183] On March 24, after Trump began to endorse off-label use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 symptoms based on anecdotal evidence, Hannity and Ingraham similarly promoted the drug during their respective programs.

[185] During a Coronavirus Task Force briefing on April 13, 2020, Trump screened a montage of footage taken directly from an episode of Hannity, of news anchors and guests downplaying the early threat of COVID-19, as part of a video presentation that glorified his initial response to the pandemic.

[186][187][188][189] Fox News faced criticism for featuring celebrity doctors such as Phil McGraw and Mehmet Oz as guests, with both of them downplaying the impact that a premature lifting of mitigation measures and "reopening" of the country (as was being proposed by Trump) would have.

[190][191] Fox News also faced backlash for providing undue praise of protests against stay-at-home orders in multiple states (such as Lansing, Michigan's "Operation Gridlock"), including interviews with participants and organizers, and pundits praising the event and making comments critical of Governor Gretchen Whitmer (such as Carlson calling her actions "mindless and authoritarian", and Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade predicting a larger movement against "ridiculous" stay-at-home orders).

[210][211] On December 23, 2020, Fox Business program Mornings with Maria was duped by the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere, airing an interview with an activist posing as Smithfield Foods' CEO Dennis Organ to discuss its response to the pandemic.

[215] In April 2020, the Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics (WASHLITE) sued Fox News under the state's Consumer Protection Act for allegedly "falsely and deceptively disseminating 'news'" that coronavirus was "not a danger to public health and safety."

In response, Fox News maintained that its "political commentary" amounts to "constitutionally protected opinions" and that hosts Sean Hannity and Trish Regan participated in an "intense public debate" over the predicted severity of the threat.

[221][non-primary source needed] However, Pirro, Dobbs, and Bartiromo refused to issue retractions as they played a three-minute video segment consisting of an interview with an election technology expert who refuted the allegations promoted by the hosts, responding to questions from an unseen and unidentified man.

[231] Internal texts and other products of discovery against Fox revealed that Tucker Carlson privately doubted the false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and mocked Trump advisors, including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.