MoveOn.org Launches Online Fox Watch Group to Track Fox News’s Partisan Bias

The wall between objective journalism and partisan politicking at Fox News fell last week when it became clear that Fox News staff contributed to the orchestration of the Republican-led 39-hour Senate talk-a-thon intended to counter the Democrat filibuster against four of President Bush’s most radically conservative judicial nominees.

The idea for the food-and-cot political spectacle, also known as “Justice for Judges Marathon,” had its origins on the editorial pages of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard. Also owned by Murdoch, Fox News took the idea a step further. Fox News anchors Brit Hume and Tony Snow pitched the idea outright to Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist on the October 26th broadcast of Fox News Sunday. Two weeks after Frist appeared on the show, the two-day marathon was announced.

To chart this alarming disintegration of journalistic standards, MoveOn.org recently created an online “FoxWatch” group made up of thousands of Americans who have signed up to monitor Fox News daily and hold it accountable for specific instances of manipulations or distortions of truth and partisan bias.