Fear of Fox comparison pushed mainstream media toward false balance

Evidence

With the rise of cable TV “news” shows in 1996, many in the traditional media began to blanch. They did not want to be confused with that! Thus, in both network TV coverage, on CNN, and in the “prestige press” newspapers, they sought to distinguish themselves by placing even more emphasis on “objectivity.” The Fox News slogan of “fair and balanced” coverage was surely intended to mock the traditional news media. It’s not that Fox probably saw their own coverage as any more balanced; rather, they thought that they were the balance. The other media were too far left, so they balanced things out on the right. But since the traditional media could never accept the idea that they were actually biased toward the left, they resolved to show that they really could be “fair and balanced” in their own coverage, so they started to report “both sides” of any controversial issues. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 157

Categorization

• XREF: This is the standard ‘bothsidesism’ accusation later made against prestige media — connects to critiques of false equivalence in journalism and to how the objectivity norm itself enabled misinformation. — connects to: Journalistic both-sides coverage can be weaponized to manufacture public ignorance — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 628; Broadcasting’s formal balance of two sides distorts unequal real-world conflicts
• QUESTION: Is the both-sides move really a product of Fox’s 1996 challenge, or does false equivalence have deeper, older roots in professional objectivity norms? Worth chasing the history.

Broader Connections

• Journalistic both-sides coverage can be weaponized to manufacture public ignorance #expands (0.90) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 628
• Broadcasting’s formal balance of two sides distorts unequal real-world conflicts #expands (0.75)