If people like you more than me, it's probably because you're a nazi

Ted Turner can’t get Hitler out of his head.

In 1996, he apologized to the Anti-Defamation League for a comment comparing Fox News head Rupert Murdoch to Adolph Hitler, according to the Drudge Report.

He then let the comment hibernate for a while, only to bring it out again at the National Association for Television Programming Executive’s opening season in Las Vegas.

Turner said that while Fox News may be the largest network, it’s not the best. After all, he pointed out, Hitler was elected by popular vote to run Germany prior to World War II.

Of course! Why didn’t I see the truth before? By that logic, everyone and everything elected by popular vote is like Hitler. That includes Bush, Al Gore (if you listen to the democrats’ incessant whining about the 2000 election), Bill Clinton, and The Aviator.

Turner said Fox is the propaganda arm of the Bush administration. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s certainly legal. But it does pose problems for our democracy. Particularly when the news is ‘dumbed down,’ leaving voters without critical information on politics and world events and overloaded with fluff.”

Note his use of the word “voters,” not “viewers.”

Oddly, Turner’s network, CNN, being the propaganda arm of the Democratic National Committee does not cause any problems for our democracy.

A Fox spokesperson responded, quite appropriately if you ask me, “Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind – we wish him well.”

Normally I hate to do research, which is why I am still a mediocre journalist, but for this case I made an exception. I went to both the CNN and Fox Web sites to compare their coverage of different issues. Here is what I found.

On Condoleezza Rice’s confirmation as secretary of state:
CNN – “Condoleezza Rice won Senate confirmation as secretary of state on Wednesday, after hours of sometimes-bitter debate Tuesday that focused largely on the war in Iraq.”

The story then named some of the 13 Democratic senators who voted against Rice, and one of the 85 who voted for her. It devoted seven paragraphs out of 16 to concerns and quotes opposing Rice’s confirmation and two paragraphs containing quotes or viewpoints supporting Rice.

Fox - Despite Democratic criticism of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq and elsewhere, Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday won the confirmation of the Senate as the next secretary of state.

The story went on to point out in the bridge that the 85-13 vote was the largest vote against a secretary of state nominee since Al Haig was confirmed in 1981 with six votes against him. It went into a little more detail, quoting first the president, followed by alternating quotes and viewpoints from seven Republicans and seven Democrats (including two who supported Rice). It also named the 13 senators who voted against her, and 10 who voted for her.

Of 27 paragraphs, 11 contained quotes or viewpoints that supported Rice and seven mentioned concerns or quotes opposing her confirmation

Other stories covered by both, showed little or no evidence of bias on either side. That doesn’t mean there isn’t any.

So far I’ve heard Ted Turner, Bill Moyers and a few others blast Fox for being Bush’s propaganda machine, and a partisan arm of the Republican National Committee, but I have yet to see one example of proved unfair reporting on their part.

On the other hand, there are several examples demonstrating liberal bias on the part of dozens of other news agencies.

Take Rathergate or Memogate or whatever you want to call it.

Take Maureen Dowd, of the New York Times, criticizing Bush in her column for spending so much on his inauguration when it could go to Tsunami victims. This is the same Maureen Dowd who complimented Clinton in her column in 1993, after he spent $25 million on his inauguration week – not day – in the midst of some of the worst crises in Mexico, Somalia and Angola (see Ann Coulter’s “It’s our party, you can cry if you want to.”)

If you can find an example of outright bias on the part of Fox news as specific as either of these, please bring it to my attention.

For more examples go to www.mediaresearch.org, or www.fairpress.org. If you think these sites ironically biased, go to Google, and type in “media bias.” Then see how many times the word “liberal” appears before the phrase in the results. Note how many times the word “conservative” appears in the same context.

Maybe Americans aren’t stupid after all, Michael Moore. Maybe we’re catching on.