Since its launch in October 1996, the Fox News channel (FNC) has been under constant attack from the leftist-dominated mainstream media.  Contrary to the pervasive propaganda spewed by much of the left-of-center MSM, FNC has always been more fair and balanced, and not — like its two major cable news rivals CNN and MSNBC — knee-jerk prejudiced against conservative and Republican guests and their viewpoints.  This toxic, divisive left-wing media bias has never been more apparent than during the last three years since the start of the Trump presidency.

In the opening days of the Senate trial of President Trump last week, FNC has emerged as the most popular source of news on television on impeachment, even beating the once dominant alphabet broadcast channels in the ratings.  Very curious, then, is the timing of a particularly vile hit piece published last Friday in the struggling national newspaper USA Today, which, according to some accounts, will soon cease publishing its print editions after almost four decades.

Since relatively few people except guests at hotels bother to look at USA Today anymore, the anti-Fox piece by Bob Garfield last Friday escaped my attention until I saw it linked at Real Clear Politics yesterday.  Its title is "If disbelieving Fox News' lies makes me a hack, that's fine with me."  In the opening, Garfield writes:

I am Manu.

Manu Raju, that is — the CNN reporter who the other day had a run-in with Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.). He'd approached her in a Senate corridor to inquire about new impeachment evidence, and she shot back "You're a liberal hack. I'm not talking to you." Because, duh: enemy of the people.

That's a Trumpism, but the underlying slander is familiar.

What the exchange that Sen. McSally had with CNN's congressional correspondent Raju has to do with Fox News is not immediately clear.  Garfield, by the way, is a regular USA Today "opinion contributor."  A lifelong leftist, his major gig is apparently producing pieces for National Public Radio and co-hosting a weekly local radio program on WNYC in New York City, a left-leaning, government-supported public radio station.  Garfield has also written several books, he contributes articles to various publications, and he teaches occasionally at the university level.

Bob Garfield September 2009.  Photo by David Berkowitz from New York, N.Y., USA (CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0).

Segueing from Manu Raju, one of his heroes at CNN, to Fox News, Garfield's article proceeds under the subhead "Fox News doesn't really produce news at all."  Before citing any alleged facts to support that claim, Garfield takes the ad hominem attack route.  Fox News, he writes:

... is not a news organization (at least not in the morning and prime time); it is a disinformation factory. Such demagogues as Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Jeanine Pirro, Laura Ingraham and the clown car that is Fox & Friends pump the co-ax full of lies and misrepresentations, vilification, dog whistles and sometimes explicit hate speech.

Eleven years now after he joined Twitter, Garfield has 23,800 followers — or about 0.6% of Hannity's 4.5 million Twitter followers.  Could a bit of jealousy or audience envy be at play here, do you think?

Eventually, Garfield cites two sources for his accusations of Fox News's hateful bias.  The first one is a compilation by PunditFact, a part of PolitiFact, that alleges that 59% of 160 "recent" statements made on Fox News — some going back 10½ years — are "Mostly False, False, or Pants on Fire" lies.  Politifact is part of the 501(c)(3) Poynter Institute.  In 2017, Poynter received a $1.3 million grant from George Soros, reportedly for "fact-checking" projects other than to fund PolitiFact.

The other reference made by Garfield is to Media Matters for America (MMFA), a notorious über-left advocacy group that has a long history of supporting advertiser boycotts of Fox News hosts' programs if not shutting down the channel entirely.  MMFA has received funding from Soros.

Fox News Media Relations not surprisingly did not have a comment on Garfield's USA Today article.  And why should they?  If Fox News P.R. responded to every attack article or negative broadcast segment aimed at the channel, there would be time for little else.

I contacted Sean Hannity in an email care of one of his producers, publicly known as "Sweet Baby James."  Hannity was unavailable for comment yesterday, but James emailed me an article published last February 22, adapted from his boss's monologue from Hannity on February 21, 2019: "Sean Hannity: Smollett case proves that journalism in this country is dead and buried."  In the article, Hannity reviews some recent major stories that the MSM got completely wrong, including the false allegations against Covington High School student Nicholas Sandmann, George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin, and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh — and the MSM's initial belief in the tall story put out by actor Jussie Smollet.  The subject line of James's email summarized the article: "fyi — Smollet and a dozen other times we were right and they were wrong!!!!"

President Trump and Sean Hannity, CPAC, February 2015.  Photo by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0.

In fact, Garfield's and Hannity's articles make for good companion pieces to clearly see the contrast in viewpoints between the Big Lie-propagating, Trump-hating left vs. one of the leading voices of real journalism.

A final note: This case history of the latest vituperative leftist attack against Fox News should give pause to conservatives who insist that Fox News now "veers left" or is part of a "controlled opposition." Last year, I wrote several articles, including here and here, that criticized such viewpoints — based on the facts. It's useful to keep in mind that the "Fox News is Fake" meme has largely been promulgated by some commentators among a new generation of YouTube podcasters and self-appointed citizen journalists. If one thinks about it, they are in direct competition with Fox News for viewer and reader eyeballs — and in many cases, for dollars, too, since a lot of them are monetizing their online efforts.

Nothing wrong with that. But an old saying is still true and is relevant here: Caveat Emptor, or "Let the buyer beware."

Programming note: According to a news release emailed to this reporter on January 24:

FOX News Channel's Sean Hannity will conduct a sit-down interview with President Donald J. Trump which will air during the FOX SUPER BOWL PREGAME SHOW on Sunday, February 2nd beginning at approximately 3:30 PM/ET. The interview will take place at the White House and cover an array of topics.

Additional portions of the interview with President Trump will be presented on FNC's Hannity on Monday evening, February 3rd (9:00-10:00 PM/ET). After the program, the entire discussion will be available online at www.foxnews.com.

Peter Barry Chowka is a veteran journalist who writes about politics, media, popular culture, and health care for American Thinker and other publications.  Peter's website is http://peter.media.  His new YouTube channel is here. Follow Peter on Twitter at @pchowka.