News Hounds: Sniffing out the FOX

The News Hounds are a group of eight media activists who decided to band together after wrapping up work in 2004 as unpaid volunteer researchers for Outfoxed, a documentary about the FOX News Channel by director Robert Greenwald. The expose took an in-depth look at FOX News and the dangers of media conglomerates taking control of the public's right to know.

Working on the documentary behind the scenes, the Hounds, according to their Manifesto, were "appalled" with their findings regarding the inconsistencies in FOX's self-proclaimed mission of fair and balanced reporting. In light of this, they decided to "go outside of their own lives and do something," according to Christina Bradley, one of the original eight News Hounds writers.

"What I saw on FOX News was so totally the opposite of what I’ve been taught to believe was journalism," said Bradley, who also writes under the pseudonym Marie Therese.

"A year and a half later, I believe none of them. I don’t think any of [the mainstream media] are practicing real journalism anymore," she said.

The website hosts blogs posted by the Hounds, forums on various issues and events and articles about other news networks -- all of which users can comment on. Also featured are links to numerous media resources, blogs frequented by the News Hounds and other news sources.

When asked how they separate themselves from astroturf, Bradley replied by noting two factors: the thriving readership -- 300,000 unique visitors -- and the connection to the Outfoxed documentary, which Bradley said brings credibility to the site. Bradley also expressed her suspicion of any site that refuses to allow debate.

"We really, really feel the difference between us and [other sites] is we allow conservatives [to participate in discourse]," Bradley answered in response to the question of debate forums.

"If you look through our banning list, it’s tiny," she said. "It’s a free country."