Ms. Dunn does media's work

Ms. Dunn, echoing the movie Network's Howard Beale who was "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore," said: "The reality of it is that FOX news often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party."

On Sunday, the President's Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel added, "It is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective."

He's right. FOX News has a perspective that is dictated by its owner Rupert Murdoch and its President, the former conservative political consultant Roger Ailes.

Mr. Ailes is no slouch. He's serious when he says, "You never pull the trigger until you know you can win." He helped Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and, along with the late Lee Atwater, George H. W. Bush win the presidency. Mr. Ailes plays hard politics and he knows what he's doing.

He knows from his political campaigns, for example, that there is a sizable conservative audience that doesn't like the responsible press. He appeals to that audience with slogans of "We report, you decide."

He also knows that he can flummox critics by fudging the lines between hard news and opinion journalism. The traditional press is institutionally reluctant to criticize its peers, and it is difficult to explain to the average viewer the difference between hard news and informed opinions such as this commentary.

Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly and Karl Rove are entitled to their own opinions—but not to their own facts. In contrast, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, FOX's bęte noir, corrects his mistakes when he's wrong. It's what passes for news where FOX has crossed the line between opinion and accurate reporting.

Most responsible journalists, regardless of personal politics, are dedicated to the relatively new concept that news should be factual and objective. That ideal is what Mr. Ailes has corrupted. There are many documented reports that FOX News executives command the conservative, Republican slant they want in their news stories. The result of such journalism is a misinformed public. Repeated surveys show that big majorities of self-identified FOX viewers do not know the facts on such stories as who attacked us on 9/11—it wasn't Saddam Hussein—or non-existent "death panels" in health care bills.

The mainstream press has been ineffective in its reporting about politicized media such as FOX News. The three major news networks, CNN, and even the New York Times and the Washington Post continue to treat FOX News as a legitimate news competitor.

They are wrong, and they need only re-read George Orwell to recognize that there's no difference between "Fair and balanced" FOX News and Orwell's slogans of "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."