Fox Unleashes Attack Dogs on Other Media

Station's PR team jumps at criticism 'like a political campaign'
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 7, 2008 8:31 AM CDT
Fox Unleashes Attack Dogs on Other Media
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney takes a question from Chris Wallace on the set of FOX News Sunday in Manchester, N.H., Sunday, Jan. 6, 2008.    (AP Photo/LM Otero)

The Fox News public relations machine makes no bones about skewering those it perceives as foes, writes David Carr in the New York Times. “At Fox News, media relations is a kind of rolling opposition research operation intended to keep reporters in line by feeding and sometimes maiming them,” Carr notes. It deals with the press “more like a political campaign” than a news organization, says one reporter.

When a Times reporter recently wrote an objective piece on CNN’s progress in cable-news ratings, Fox News presenters labeled him an “attack dog” alongside his image, altered to give him a bigger nose and ears. Other reporters deemed opponents are crushed in the blogosphere. “We are an aggressive department in a passive industry,” explained the station’s PR head. "We embrace controversy." (More Fox News stories.)

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