Fox news bias shift timeline and events

[darkcyd]

I have been curious about this for some time.

I remember when I was a kid there were 3 networks. Fox was just becoming a national network and was many years newer. It was the new and shiney network. Progressive in its programming. They did not carry the 6 o'clock news like the other networks. They carried some of the most socially risqué TV available. Married with Children, In Living Color, The Simpsons. None of these fit the mold of standardized TV and were very much in tuned with a younger generation and more liberal than their competition.

At what point did Fox decide it was going to be the voice of conservatism unheard and what was the timeline and events for that to happen is my question. I've looked a little but anyone who can perhaps point me to some information on this would be appriceated.

[Davin]

The Fox News channel is different than the Fox channel and is run pretty independent of eachother, there is also a Fox Sports which also runs as close to being a different company without actually being a completely different company.

Fox News early on started with being dishonest: Fox News tries to Bribe Their Own Reporters

That was like right after they started Fox News, so I think the bias started from the start.

[fester30]

Fox News began in 1996, started by Newscorp, which chose Roger Ailes to start the channel.  Ailes had been a political consultant in the campaigns of several Republican candidates at various levels, including George H.W. Bush against Dukakis in 1992.  He was responsible for many of the TV ads.  If I remember correctly, he sort of pioneered the technique of the "political action group" releasing a very damaging commercial (Willie Horton rapist, pardoned by Dukakis?).  This same technique was utilized with the swift boat ads against John Kerry.  

Just because Fox News is conservative doesn't mean they're clean.  They never miss a chance to do a story about their outrage at the declining morals in America.  However, while vocalizing their outrage, they simultaneously show graphic pictures barely blurred out of college girls on Spring Break, or women in bikinis on the beach, or Miss USA pageant contestants (of course from the bathing suit portion of the competition).  They pander to risque taste just like the regular Fox did back in the day.

EDIT:  The Bush vs. Dukakis campaign was in 1988, and I found where I must have read some of the stuff about Ailes and Fox News.  Good old Wikipedia.  I know wikipedia isn't a trusted source for college papers, but that's where I got the above information, so keep that in mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ailes