With its ornate chandelier, Italian tile floor and antique gilded mirror, the little salon tucked just off the Senate floor looks like a spot designed for polite conversation. But the dialogue was anything but polite when media magnate Rupert Murdoch lunched there in early June with Democratic Senators. The session was supposed to be a private discussion of the effects that looser media-ownership rules would have on consolidation and competition. Instead, the Democrats spent an hour venting about Murdoch's enormously successful Fox News Channel. They complained that the cable network, whose slogan is "fair and balanced," shuts out and even mocks anything but right-wing views. California's Barbara Boxer told Murdoch his network's only balance is between the right and the far right, and suggested a new tag line: "Fox News: the right slant."
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