Fox Business Network

Here's a teachable moment: Bad things can happen when the government intervenes in the economy, which Fox Business Network host Cody Willard pointed out on his "Shot Clock" segment on "Happy Hour."

Willard, on FBN's May 4 "Happy Hour" used part of his segment to call for the jailing of the New York Fed's chairman, Stephen Friedman.

"New York Fed [Chairman] Stephen Friedman - this guy belongs in jail," Willard said. "This is the head of the New York Fed - Stephen Friedman guys."

Willard was referring to a report in the May 4 Wall Street Journal that questioned Friedman's current ties to Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) while playing an instrumental role in shaping Washington's response to the financial crisis late last year. Willard explained that Friedman was able to profit after Goldman was approved to be a bank holding company in late 2008, making it eligible for a $10-billion capital injection.

Socialist International President George Papandreou has a lot in common with President Barack Obama.

Both the world leaders have called for nations to come together to solve the global recession and both claim it is necessary to focus on a green economy. Papandreou, who is likely to become Greece's next Prime Minister, was encouraged by Obama's "very new signal" about global goals for economic recovery.

"The United States under Barack Obama is giving out a very new signal which is, ‘We need to collaborate.' And I think that is very important for our planet today. We need to collaborate," Papandreou told Nicole Petallides of the Fox Business Network April 1. "The issues are global and if we do collaborate we can actually say that we can change the economy. We can change some of the structures that created this crisis and we can make sure that we uh, that we create the jobs for people - and jobs for workers in the United States."

While there has been a lot of outrage over taxpayer money being used to fund $165 million in bonuses paid out to American International Group (AIG) executives propagated by the media, Fox Business "Happy Hour" co-host Cody Willard suggested the bailout money is going to something far worse - terrorism, specifically al-Qaida.

On March 18, The Wall Street Journal reported that some of the money the U.S. government paid out to AIG might be benefiting hedge funds that bet on a failing housing market. According to the report, investment banks like Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) sold financial instruments to hedge funds betting defaults would increase.

"AIG bailout funds terrorism," Willard said. "This is what it's all about guys, it's the most politically well-connected. AIG aid is not going just to AIG shareholders, but more of the point is that it's going to Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and these other banks, whose customers are yes - these giant hedge funds."

Business and Media Institute's Dan Gainor appeared on Fox Business News "Money for Breakfast" March 17 to discuss the Obama economic team's performance in the administration's first 50 days.

Gainor dubbed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner "the worst" because "when he came out and talked about the housing plan that he didn't have, the markets tanked."

Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chairman, earned a "B-minus," partly because "he showed his strength on Sunday" during a "60 Minutes" interview. Director of the White House's National Economic Council Larry Summers received a "C grade" for being "not great, not horrible."

GMAC may be in financial trouble, but that isn't stopping the auto lender-turned-bank holding company from maintaining its corporate sponsorships. The question is - will anyone notice? 

In October, GMAC (NYSE:GKM) changed its legal status so that it would be eligible for TARP funds passed by Congress. Late last month, GMAC was approved to receive a $5 billion lifeline from the U.S. government. However, the company is still maintaining its sponsorship of a collegiate bowl game set for Jan. 6 in Mobile, Ala.

"There's about 34 bowl games, 30 of which are sponsored in one way or the other," Fox Business Network's Jenna Lee said Jan. 2 on the Fox News Channel's "Happening Now." "The lower-level, the mid-level games pull in about six figures to have your name attached to one of the games - that's the estimate. And the big games, let's say the Rose Bowl for example, or the Sugar Bowl, or the Orange Bowl - those figures go upwards of $5 to $6 million for some sort of sponsorship."

Fox Business Network anchor Alexis Glick is frustrated by the way the government's $700 billion financial bailout is being used, and suggested on "Money for Breakfast" Nov. 21 that it was contributing to market declines.

"I mean, look, we are now at levels at least on the S&P that we haven't been since 1997. You know, people are pretty unhappy with how the TARP fund is going," Glick said in an interview with NYSE Euronex CEO Duncan Niederauer. "I mean, it's got to be - I'm frustrated, I mean I don't know about you."

It's not the first time that Glick has taken issue with the misuse of TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

So what exactly is the government doing with your money? Fox Business Network's Alexis Glick would like to know.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced Nov. 12 he would be redirecting the $700 billion bailout to focus on propping up financial institutions instead of buying troubled mortgage assets, which was the original intent of the rescue plan.

Glick, the host of FBN's "Money for Breakfast," told the CBS's "The Early Show" Nov 13 that the Treasury Department's move away from the original plan to buy up troubled mortgages "does not make sense" and was "actually pretty outrageous":

[T]he markets responded to that yesterday ... Look, the original intent of this Troubled Asset Relief Program was to purchase troubled assets. And I think the marketplace started to adjust several weeks ago when we started to see the size and magnitude of the capital injections.

The Securities and Exchange Commission ended the 16-day ban on short selling Oct. 9, which has left many journalists asking if the ban actually worked to keep more banks from failing.

The staff at the Business & Media Institute's video blog, "The Biz Flog," could have told you the ban wasn't a good idea when they put together "Who's Afraid of a Big Bad Short Seller?" But, it's nice to see some members of the media questioning if the ban worked:

"While the ban was in place, other market forces pushed key indices into a rapid decline. We are going to see if that ban actually slowed the freefall or perhaps made it worse," Fox Business Network host Alexis Glick said on "Money for Breakfast," Oct. 9.

Glick went on to point out that the ban also affected companies that weren't banks:

The media were quick to jump on the story of an emergency airplane landing in Manila, Philippines due to a hole in the fuselage of a Qantas flight. And they were quick to sensationalize the story without mentioning Qantas' impressive safety record.

"Well, nobody's saying that we should be covering up a huge hole in the side of an airplane. But it's important for the media to not sensationalize cases like this, which they are already doing," Business & Media Institute Assistant Editor Nathan Burchfiel told Fox Business Network host Stuart Varney on the July 25 "Fox Business."

Burchfiel noted that British tabloids have already speculated that a bomb in the cargo hold may have blown a hole in the fuselage, even though there was no indication that's the case.

"This morning in the American media on ABC, David Muir said that the plane ‘instantly plummeted' 20,000 feet, which is not true," Burchfiel said. "The pilot descended 20,000 feet, rather sharply, but that was his decision, he did it under full control to normalize cabin pressure."

Media coverage of the economy in recent months should make journalists wonder what kind of job they're doing, according to Business & Media Institute Vice President Dan Gainor.

"‘If it bleeds it leads' has always been one theory. That only works up to a point," Gainor told Fox Business Network host Neil Cavuto June 2. "When you are actually spinning the results so much so that they're more negative than the worst economic time period in American history, well then you really have to sit back and think, ‘Maybe we're just doing this wrong.'"

Business & Media Institute Vice President Dan Gainor told the Fox Business Network on April 4 that the government might be intervening too much in the financial markets to address credit problems, and he criticized the media for failing to cover both sides fairly.

"The networks are not portraying at all the other point which is: maybe we're using too much government intervention. Maybe we're using too much regulation," Gainor said. "Instead they're using the worst-case scenario reporting" to support government intervention.

Update below (18:45 EDT | March 10).

It happens from time to time, believe me. You're going over your Web site and what do you see but a product or service advertised that, to be charitable, conflicts with your mission, or otherwise is just plain embarrassing. It's the nature of having third-party advertising arrangements, and usually you can get these things resolved with an e-mail or two to your Web ad provider.

So it struck us as humorous when anti-Fox News blog News Hounds -- slogan: We watch FOX so you don't have to. -- was caught with an ad for FoxBusiness.com. (h/t Tim Graham)

Oh, it gets better. On the right-hand sidebar, there's another Fox Biz ad and, wait for it, it comes above an "Advertise Liberally" logo:

BMI Vice President Dan Gainor took to the Fox Business Network Thursday to explain the difference between "depression," "recession" and "slow growth," terms the mainstream media has blurred.

Economists "don't even agree that we're in a recession yet," Gainor said. "But then if you watch the network news shows, we're already up to eight times this year - that's once a week where they've made a comparison to the Great Depression."

Gainor was referring to new research from the Business & Media Institute showing the media's tendency to compare current economic conditions to the Great Depression. Network news shows have made the comparison eight times in 2008, and made the comparison 18 times in 2007.

Vice President of the Business & Media Institute Dan Gainor outlined the media's failure in covering consumer confidence numbers in a February 15 appearance on the Fox Business Network.

"What we're talking about, instead of consumer confidence, we're talking about media competence," Gainor said. "Last year, July was the six-year high for consumer confidence and yet if you watch any one of the three network news shows, evening news shows, you didn't see it."

In an appearance on the Fox Business Network February 8, Business & Media Institute Vice President Dan Gainor criticized the media's refusal to fully report the costs associated with campaign promises being made by presidential candidates.

"You would actually think the media had talked about how much it's going to cost," Gainor said of the hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending promised by the candidates. "And in fact it's quite the opposite."

Aside from some coverage of Sen. Hillary Clinton's massive universal health care coverage proposal, much of her $217 billion in promises has gone unreported. The same goes for Sen. Barack Obama, who leads all candidates with $287 billion in new proposals, according to estimates from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation.

Business & Media Institute Director Dan Gainor appeared on the Fox Business Network January 31 to discuss reasons why The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) revenue numbers decreased recently - saying that its product is the problem.

"People have lost confidence in the media according to most studies...Most Americans understand that the...mainstream media are overwhelmingly liberal, overwhelming out of touch with a lot of their issues," Gainor said.

Gainor cited an instance where the Times was ran a story about veterans being more violent when they come back to the United States - turning "anecdotes into a loosely connected story and when you do that you alienate readers. They're the people that the Times work for. Journalists forget that."

It's really frightening to imagine that people who get the bulk of their news from Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" will be making what they probably think are educated decisions at the ballot box come Election Day.

Stewart, who is now a self-proclaimed economist, said on his January 23 show, "Our economy is tanking." And now you can add financial media critic to Stewart's list of titles.

"For insight, I turned to the two major financial networks to find out what is going on, or as they're known around here, ‘hot ladies talk economy with bald dudes,'" Stewart said.

In a verbal tussle with Fox Business Network host Liz Claman January 24, Business & Media Institute Managing Editor Amy Menefee explained that conservatives are just looking for some balance from the media.

"You get upset when the media is skeptical about certain things and you say that that's un-American," Claman said. "Yet when we're not skeptical you're saying now, ‘Why aren't you skeptical?' Which is it?"

"Well from our perspective ... we just want to hear all the economic sides that are out there which means economists who are talking about, you know, other opportunities, other options," Menefee said about the media coverage of the economic stimulus package. "And there are plenty of economists out there right now who are saying this is not going to do much good."

Business & Media Institute Director Dan Gainor appeared on the Fox Business Network December 21, 2007, to discuss the media's coverage of the economy. Full of Christmas spirit, Gainor had kind words for two mainstream reporters.

"Even in the mainstream media there are people who get it. Looking back this year one of the big stars whose improvement was surprising is CNN's Ali Velshi who delivers a much calmer look," Gainor said.

"It's nice to see somebody out there saying, ‘Oh, actually the markets aren't really doing that bad," he said, praising ABC's Bianna Golodryga. The "Good Morning America" reporter received high marks for balanced coverage of the stock market.

Business & Media Institute Director Dan Gainor appeared on the Fox Business Network December 6 to discuss how the media is choosing sides in the subprime housing problem.

"All throughout this whole year and actually if you go back in the last year and before [the media] have been pointing out that the lenders are the bad guys...CBS News who actually did an okay report last night, then the example they use is someone who has a 6.6% adjustable rate adjusting up to 9.6%, they've got a house the size of a mansion and they've got horses."

Gainor said the important thing that journalists fail to do is to get both the lenders and the home buyer's viewpoints.

Business & Media Institute Director Dan Gainor appeared on the Fox Business Network October 25 to talk about business contributions to victims of the Southern California wildfires:

Every time there's a disaster, when we had Katrina and now with this disaster - [Businesses] immediately take out all the stops. Already I've seen at least $4 million contributed from charity from Wal-Mart, from Bank of America, from Disney, from Target, the business community steps up right away. When we had Katrina, there was like $70 million contributed within days ... and almost no coverage at all.

A few might be starting to catch on - CNN did mention contributions of Home Depot, MasterCard, Verizon, Sprint and Wells Fargo on the October 26 "American Morning."

Video (1:41): Real (2.12 MB) or Windows (6.11 MB) or MP3 (607 KB)

It was only a matter of time before someone on CNBC took a shot at Fox Business Network and it came from CNBC’s resident loose cannon, “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer. (Video of the incident is available here.)

“I had the choice of watching a rival business channel or getting a root canal,” Cramer said on CNBC’s October 15 “Street Signs” “And I chose the root canal.”

Cramer appeared on his daily segment on the afternoon CNBC show with host Erin Burnett talking out of one side of his mouth analyzing several stocks. However, Cramer struggled with his speech during his analysis of the potential XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Radio merger and spit all over Burnett when he abruptly said something that sounded like “Fox” for an unknown reason.

“I’m having problems,” Cramer said. "I admit it ...”

Like business news on television but don't like CNBC's association with the left-dominated NBC News? Then the newly launched Fox Business Network is probably for you:

Rupert Murdoch has entered a dark horse in high-stakes races before, and won. On Monday, the News Corp. media titan trots out the Fox Business Network.

Two years in the making, the channel will challenge General Electric Co.'s highly profitable CNBC network as it seeks to redefine business news for average Americans faced with increasingly complex decisions about their financial futures.

Murdoch already has knocked CNN off the cable news throne with Fox News Channel. Can he do the same to NBC Universal's profit machine, whose audience of affluent professionals is one of the most sought-after advertising targets? [...]