Republicans, conservatives dominated Iraq election coverage on FOX
Written by Gabe Wildau, Nicole Casta & Jeremy Cluchey
Published
After the polls closed in Iraq on January 30, coverage of the Iraqi elections on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News all featured military, intelligence, and foreign affairs analysts as well as correspondents in Iraq and Washington and at polling sites in the United States. But FOX News allotted disproportionate time for Republican politicians and conservative pundits to declare that the elections were a “vindication” for President Bush's Iraq policy. While CNN featured six current Republican officials and conservative pundits and five Democrats and progressives and MSNBC featured seven Republicans and conservatives and six Democrats and progressives, FOX News featured 17 Republicans and conservatives and seven Democrats and progressives.
Media Matters for America monitored coverage of the Iraqi elections on FOX News, CNN, and MSNBC from when the polls closed in Iraq at 9 a.m. ET to 4 p.m. ET on January 30. The survey found that in addition to each channel's fleet of regular correspondents and analysts, FOX News' coverage included appearances by five current Republican officials and 12 conservative political pundits, but just one current Democrat official and six progressive pundits. By contrast, CNN featured three current Republican officials and two current Democratic officials; and three conservative pundits and three progressive pundits. MSNBC featured one current Republican official and one Democratic elected official; and six conservative pundits and five progressives.
| Republican elected officials | Conservative and Republican pundits | Democratic elected officials | Progressive and Democratic pundits | |
| FOX News | Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) | Alexander M. Haig Jr., secretary of state under Reagan | Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) (opposite Coleman) | Marc Ginsberg, former ambassador to Morocco under Clinton |
| Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) | Richard N. Perle, former assistant defense secretary under Reagan; Defense Policy Board member and former chairman under President Bush | Richard N. Gardner, former ambassador to Spain under Clinton | ||
| Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) | William Kristol, Weekly Standard editor and FOX News political contributor | Bob Beckel, Democratic strategist (opposite Manafort) | ||
| Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) (opposite Nelson) | Robert C. McFarlane, national security adviser under Reagan | Jon Lee Anderson, New Yorker staff writer and author of The Fall Of Baghdad (Penguin Press, 2004) | ||
| Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) | Walter Russell Mead, Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow | James P. Rubin, assistant secretary of state under Clinton, former adviser to Senator John Kerry | ||
| Dan Senor, former Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman | P.J. Crowley, Center for American Progress senior fellow | |||
| Brett H. McGurk, former Coalition Provisional Authority general counsel | ||||
| Newt Gingrich, author and former House speaker | ||||
| James Carafano, Heritage Foundation research fellow | ||||
| Bill Sammon, Washington Times columnist and White House correspondent (opposite Crowley) | ||||
| Karl Zinsmeister, American Enterprise Institute fellow | ||||
| Paul Manafort, Republican strategist (opposite Beckel) | ||||
| CNN | Sen. John E. Sununu (R-NH) | Stephen Hayes, Weekly Standard staff writer | Sen. Mark Dayton (D-MN) | Peter Hart, Democratic pollster |
| Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice | Michael Rubin, former staff assistant to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; former political adviser to Coalition Provisional Authority | Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) (opposite Warner) | Ryan Lizza, New Republic White House correspondent | |
| Sen. John Warner (R-VA) (opposite Levin) | Brett H. McGurk, former Coalition Provisional Authority general counsel | Jon Lee Anderson, New Yorker staff writer and author of The Fall Of Baghdad | ||
| MSNBC | Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) (opposite Nelson) | Dana Robert Dillon, Heritage Foundation senior policy analyst | Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) (opposite Shelby) | P.J. Crowley, Center for American Progress senior fellow |
| Michael Rubin, former staff assistant to Rumsfeld; former political adviser to Coalition Provisional Authority | Joe Trippi, former presidential campaign manager for Howard Dean | |||
| Nimrod Raphaeli, Middle East Media Research Institute senior analyst, FrontPageMag.com contributor | Juliette Kayyem, acting executive for research at Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government | |||
| Walid Phares, Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior fellow (opposite Kayyem, but later with fellow conservative Raphaeli) | Thomas A. Melia, director of research at Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University | |||
| Jeff Jarvis, conservative blogger | Osama Siblani, publisher of Arab-American News | |||
| Guity Nashat, Hoover Institute research fellow |