Today, President Obama addressed families in a Des Moines, Iowa family's back yard. The president took questions and addressed topics such as America's middle class, the economy, manufacturing production, education, small businesses, tax policy, and health care. As so often happens, there was a significant discrepancy in the coverage of the president's address between the three major cable news networks. During Obama's appearance, CNN devoted at least 13 minutes of live coverage to the address, while MSNBC devoted at least 26 minutes.

Fox News, on the other hand, devoted zero. That's right, Fox decided not to air any of Obama's appearance. They did note that he was speaking, and allowed Fox News White House correspondent Wendell Goler to briefly report on Obama's appearance. However, Goler did not relay any of the content of Obama's Q&A; instead, he reported that the electoral forecast for Democrats was foreboding, while showing a live shot of the president speaking. Now before you condemn Fox News, bear in mind that they had other stories that simply had to be covered. These stories included: a brawl between fathers of a Peewee Football league, a Utah reality show star being investigated for polygamy, vending machines which sell bars of gold, and, of course, a Republican who is running for U.S. Senate.

As Media Matters recently noted, Fox News has become more of a political outlet than a news network, allowing GOP candidates to fundraise and plug their campaigns, while their contributors do the same. Fox proved this again today, in the most egregious moment in their effort to ignore the president speaking directly to the American people. Around 11:27 AM, this is what MSNBC was airing:

This is what CNN was airing:

And this is what Fox News was airing:

Fair and Balanced.