Fair and Balanced, 6 to 1

Amplifying Officials, Squelching Dissent

Nearly two thirds of all sources, 64 percent, were pro-war, while 71 percent of U.S. guests favored the war. Anti-war voices were 10 percent of all sources, but just 6 percent of non-Iraqi sources and 3 percent of U.S. sources. Thus viewers were more than six times as likely to see a pro-war source as one who was anti-war; with U.S. guests alone, the ratio increases to 25 to 1.

....

The FAIR study found just 3 percent of U.S. sources represented or expressed opposition to the war. With more than one in four U.S. citizens opposing the war and much higher rates of opposition in most countries where opinion was polled, none of the networks offered anything resembling proportionate coverage of anti-war voices. The anti-war percentages ranged from 4 percent at NBC, 3 percent at CNN, ABC, PBS and FOX, and less than 1 percent--one out of 205 U.S. sources--at CBS.

Confirming the obvious, maybe, but still pretty interesting. Whipping boy Dan Rather's network, CBS, gets the lowest marks. Kinda funny. 25 to 1 of U.S. guests is pretty pathetic. And how many were competent voices?

More from FAIR

In the following quotes, well-known cable news hosts express anti-war feelings to hawkish guests. Can you guess which quote is “anti-American”?

* "Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?”

* "We're sending 250,000 of our young men and women to die so that somebody in Washington can prove they're tough. It's not us. We're not the ones that are going to die, they are.”

For many right-leaning pundits, these seemingly similar expressions of dissent are worlds apart. To them, the first quote--Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity (Hannity & Colmes, 4/6/99) expressing opposition to the Clinton administration’s 1999 Kosovo actions--is responsible criticism of the government. The second remark, said by then-MSNBC host Phil Donahue (Donahue, 2/13/03) in opposition to the war in Iraq, is disloyal, anti- American--possibly even treasonous.