Fox’s Full Day Of “Fair & Balanced” Questions About Chavez & The U.N.

When he called President Bush the devil earlier this week, Hugo Chavez was practically begging for press coverage — and it worked.

An e-mailer mentioned Fox News Channel’s “wall-to-wall bashing of Hugo Chavez” Thursday afternoon, so I typed his name into a TVEyes search of FNC’s programming. Sure enough, the Venezuelan president’s name was mentioned hundreds of times. (FNC mentioned Chavez about twice as many times as CNN.)

And some of the lower-thirds were worthy of parody. Here’s a sampling of the questions (or, as Jon Stewart calls them, “Cavutos”) posed by Fox throughout the day:

> 7:16pm: “Pres Chavez: Narcissistic personality disorder?”

> 10:54am: “How dare Hugo Chavez blast the United States?”

> 11:02am: “Should we stop buying Chavez’s gas from Citgo stations?”

> 11:59am: “Chavez insults U.S.: Where is the outrage?”

> 12:29pm: “Should U.S. continue to fund U.N. after applause for Chavez?”

> 12:54pm: “Will leaders pay the price for supporting Chavez?”

> 1:26pm: “Is President Chavez becoming a threat to U.S. national security?”

> 4:06pm: “Taking cheap oil from Hugo Chavez: Act of treason?”

> 5:34pm: “NY audience gives Chavez standing ovation… Why?”

One of my favorite lower-thirds actually wasn’t a question, but a comment: At 12:07pm, it said “U.S. giving U.N. $5 mil a day to get insulted.”

But my absolute favorite question of the day came from DaySide, on the show’s second-to-last day: