Fox's Fair Fight on the Right?
Could we be two-thirds of the way there with Fox News Channel and the Giuliani campaign?
Back in August, the cozy relationship between Fox News Channel head Roger Ailes and Rudy Giuliani was discussed in this space. Ailes ran Giuliani's mayoral campaign in 1989, you see, so it was curious that Fox was giving Rudy a lot more airtime (25 percent) than any of his competitors in the GOP.
And this past week had the story of how the network barred John McCain from using footage of him participating in a Fox News Channel debate, but not being so strict with a certain former mayor of New York City.
Yesterday, Fox News lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to John McCain's campaign, demanding that he halt use of a new ad that uses footage from the Fox-sponsored GOP debate on Oct. 21. Fox is alleging copyright infringement. McCain's campaign is refusing Fox's demand.This story doesn't rise to the level of the New York Times cutting MoveOn a price break for their Petraeus ad, but in the media age, your credibility is only as good as your image – and it's critical to be seen as giving people an even hand. Given Ailes' past with Giuliani, he should be extra cautious in his network's approach.What's amusing, though, is that if you head over to Rudy Giuliani's campaign web site, you find that it is absolutely festooned with Fox News footage. It even prominently features footage from the very same debate that Fox is demanding McCain yank down from his site.
Their "Fair and Balanced" mantra is the source of enough debate on the left. Is it becoming a point of contention on the right now?
Clarification: Since the McCain ad story broke last week, Fox News Channel has sent a cease-and-desist letter to all GOP campaigns. (This was a fact mentioned in both articles linked to in the fourth paragraph, but for clarity's sake should be mentioned here as well.)