Fox News offering more news talk than news

AN AMERICAN flag logo adorns the upper left corner of the screen. Dramatic stand-up-and-salute drumbeats pound away under regularly scheduled updates. Gung-ho, self-aggrandizing commentators behave like cheerleaders sans the pompons. Dissenting viewpoints get summarily crushed with the verbal equivalent of bunker-busting bombs.

The look, the tone, the feel is unmistakable. You're tuned to the Fox News Channel, where the slogan of "real journalism -- fair and balanced" is blurted out over and over as if constant repetition will convince the world that it's actually true.

Of course, those promos are nothing more than a slick televisual shading of the truth, but how much does it really matter when you're winning the hearts and minds of fervent viewers? Indeed, while coalition forces have been battering Saddam Hussein's dying regime in Iraq, Fox News -- with or without Geraldo Rivera -- has been dominating the feisty war between TV's 24-hour news stations.