Fox News is an American basic cable and satellite television channel owned by Fox Corporation. Since its creation by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in 1996, the channel has been the subject of several controversies and allegations.
Fox News has been described by academics, media figures, political figures, and watchdog groups as being biased in favor of the Republican Party in its news coverage, as perpetuating conservative bias, and as misleading their audiences in relation to science, notably climate change<ref name=Nuccitelli2013 /> and COVID-19.
Fox News was sued for defamation in 2021 by voting machine companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, alleging the network's hosts and guests knowingly promoted falsehoods that their voting machines were rigged to prevent Donald Trump's reelection in the 2020 presidential election. The companies sought a total of $4.3 billion in damages. Fox News agreed to pay $787.5 million to resolve the suit.
Allegations of bias
Political alignment
In documents filed as part of the Smartmatic v. Fox News defamation lawsuit (2025), internal survey responses from Fox News employees, conducted between August 24 and September 8, 2020, revealed concerns about the network’s political alignment and editorial practices. Several employees stated that they believed the network was “intentionally helping Donald Trump and the Republican Party,” described its programming as “sexist, racist, and right-wing,” and expressed moral discomfort with their work environment. For example, one employee wrote that they felt “ashamed to tell others I work here.” Some comments criticized high-profile hosts by name for promoting what the respondents characterized as conspiracy theories and partisan narratives.
Political figures Former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean has referred to Fox News as a "right-wing propaganda machine",Dean On President Clinton Standing Up To Right-Wing Propaganda On Fox News Sunday , The Democratic Party, September 25, 2006 and several Democratic politicians have boycotted events hosted or sponsored by the network.Fox News Boss Hits Edwards' Boycott, CBS News, March 9, 2007 In 2007, several major Democratic presidential candidates (Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson) boycotted or dropped out of Fox News-sponsored or hosted debates. The DNC reaffirmed their boycott in 2019.
Similar accusations were levied against Fox News in response to its decision to exclude Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter from the January 5, 2008, Republican primary debate. In response, many individuals and organizations petitioned Fox News to reconsider its decision. When Fox News refused to change its position and continued to exclude Paul and Hunter, the New Hampshire Republican Party officially announced it would withdraw as a Fox News partner in the forum.
While Fox News has been criticized for its tendency to support the Republican Party and its interests, David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, has also said, "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we're discovering we work for Fox."
Media figures CNN personality Larry King said in a January 17, 2007, interview with the Chicago Sun-Times: "They're a Republican brand. They're an extension of the Republican Party with some exceptions, [like] Greta Van Susteren. But I don't begrudge them that. [Fox News CEO] Roger Ailes is an old friend. They've been nice to me. They've said some very nice things about me. Not [Bill] O'Reilly, but I don't watch him."
Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Republican and conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg stated: "Look, I think liberals have reasonable gripes with Fox News. It does lean to the right, primarily in its opinion programming but also in its story selection (which is fine by me) and elsewhere. But it's worth remembering that Fox is less a bastion of ideological conservatism and more a populist, tabloid-like network."
Then-Fox News host Bill O'Reilly stated in 2004, in the context of the Iraq War, that "Fox does tilt right", but that the network does not "actively campaign or try to help Bush-Cheney."The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, July 19, 2004
Media watchdogs Progressive media watchdog groups such as Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)The Most Biased Name in News – Fox News Channel's extraordinary right-wing tilt , FAIR, July/August 2001 and Media Matters for America,33 internal FOX editorial memos reviewed by MMFA reveal FOX News Channel's inner workings , Media Matters, July 14, 2004 have argued that Fox News' reporting contains conservative editorializing within news stories. FAIR has asserted that the ratio of conservative to non-conservative guests on Fox News shows strongly favors conservatives. In a study of a nineteen-week period from January 2001 to May 2001 on Special Report with Brit Hume, the ratio was 25:3, and FAIR obtained similar data from other Fox News shows.
The conservative watchdog group Accuracy in Media has claimed that there was a conflict of interest in Fox News' co-sponsorship of the May 15, 2007, Republican presidential debate, pointing out that candidate Rudy Giuliani's law firm had tackled copyright protection and legislation on the purchase of cable television lineups for News Corporation, the then-parent company of Fox News, Fox Sports, Foxtel, Fox Footy, Fox Sports News, Fox Television Studios, Fox Television Stations, Foxstar Productions, 20th Television, 20th Century Fox Television, 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and DirecTV, and suggesting that Fox News might be biased in favor of Giuliani's candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.
Response Fox News has publicly denied such charges, stating that the reporters in the newsroom provide separate, neutral reporting, while acknowledging their opinion programming is not intended to be neutral.Interview transcript: Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes , the Financial Times, October 6, 2006
Ownership and management Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch is the chairman of Fox Corporation, the News Corp subsidiary which owns Fox News. He has been a subject of controversy and criticism as a result of his extensive interests in print and broadcast media. In the United States, he is the publisher of the New York Post newspaper and the magazine The Weekly Standard. Accusations against him include the "dumbing down" of news and introducing "mindless vulgarity" in place of genuine journalism, and having his own outlets produce news that serves his own political and financial agendas. According to the BBC News website: "To some, he is little less than the devil incarnate, to others, the most progressive mover-and-shaker in the media business."Rupert Murdoch: Bigger than Kane by Andrew Walker, BBC News, July 31, 2002
Then-presidential candidate George W. Bush's cousin, John Prescott Ellis, was Fox News' projection team manager during the 2000 presidential election. After speaking numerous times on election night with his cousins George and Jeb,Fox executive spoke five times with cousin Bush on Election Night , CNN.com, December 12, 2000 Ellis, at 2:16 AM, reversed Fox News' call for Florida as a state won by Al Gore. Critics allege this was a premature decision, given the impossibly razor-thin margin (officially 537 of 5.9 million votes), which created the "lasting impression that Bush 'won' the White House – and all the legal wrangling down in Florida is just a case of Democratic 'snippiness'."Cousin John's calls tipped election tally by Melinda Wittstock, The Guardian, November 19, 2000 Others, such as researcher John Lott, have responded that, by this reasoning, Fox News and the other networks were even more premature in initially calling the state for Al Gore, a call made while polls were still open, and which may have depressed voter turnout for BushMoore's Myths by John R. Lott Jr. and Brian Blase, New York Post, July 12, 2004 and actually affected the election, whereas the call for Bush later could not have, as the polls were closed by then.
On January 9, 2010, the son-in-law of Rupert Murdoch and the husband of Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth, Matthew Freud, stated he and other members of the media mogul's family are "ashamed and sickened" by the right-leaning tendencies of Fox News in the opening salvo in a bid to displace Roger Ailes, the founder, and CEO of Fox News. In a New York Times profile on Ailes, Freud was quoted saying "I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes' horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalist standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to. What you heard was a declaration of war. There are, practically speaking, now two factions inside of News Corp: Ailes and Fox News, and the Murdoch children – with Rupert caught between them." Although Murdoch did not respond to the remark directly, a spokesperson for News Corporation put a statement after a Financial Times inquiry claiming "Matthew Freud's opinions are his own and in no way reflect the views of Rupert Murdoch, who is proud of Roger Ailes and Fox News." Tim Arango also claims in Murdoch's 2008 biography that he voiced concerns privately to Ailes about his conduct, claiming he was purportedly "embarrassed" by Fox News. Murdoch denied that claim.
In June 2010, News Corporation donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. News Corporation's political action committee had previously split their contributions to Democrats and Republicans by a margin of 54% to 46%, respectively.
On March 20, 2018, Fox News contributor Lt. Col. Ralph Peters left the network. Referencing the Trump administration, Peters stated that Fox News had become a "propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration" and objected to the network helping "Putin's agenda by making light of Russian penetration of our elections and the Trump campaign". On March 22, 2019, Vox interviewed media critic Tom Rosenstiel, who argued Fox News had shifted from a partisan network to a propaganda network in support of President Donald Trump.
Reports, polls, surveys and studies
Polls and surveys A poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports during September 2004 found that Fox News was seen as second to CBS as the most politically biased network in the public view. 37% of respondents thought CBS, in the wake of the Killian documents controversy, was trying to help elect Senator John Kerry, while 34% of respondents said they believed that Fox News' goal was to "help elect Bush". However, a poll by Public Policy Polling in January 2010 found Fox News to be the only U.S. television news network to receive a positive rating by the public for trustworthiness, with results strongly split depending on the political affiliation of the respondents.Fox Most Trusted Name in News? Public Policy Polling, 2010. A survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press showed "a striking rise in the politicization of cable TV news audiences ... This pattern is most apparent with the fast-growing Fox News Channel."Trends 2005, Media Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 2005. (PDF file) Another Pew survey of news consumption found that Fox News has not suffered a decline in credibility with its audience, with one in four (25%) saying they believe all or most of what they see on the network, virtually unchanged since Fox News was first tested in 2000.Online Papers Modestly Boost Newspaper Readership The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 2006.