Rupert Murdoch's 'Too Liberal' Fox News Sparks Tea Party Boycott

Members of the right-wing Tea Party in the US have boycotted Republican-leaning US Fox News channel - because it is not conservative enough.

A protest group who call themselves Tea Party Fire Ants, based on a blog called Benghazi-Truth, have held two boycotts of Rupert Murdoch's American cable television, accusing the editorial team of having taken a liberal drift. Boycott organiser Kathy Amidon urged Fire Ants's supporters not to tune their TVs to Fox during two weekends in March.

"Fox needs the Tea Party/conservatives more than the conservatives need Fox after Fox turned left, selling out the people who made Fox successful in an attempt to earn an extra buck," the blog, written under the bylines Proe Graphique, reads.

"Stop screwing around and start serving your core audience, or your core audience will take their business elsewhere."

Benghazi-Truth claimed that Fox suffered from a 22 percent drop in audience numbers because of the boycotts although that figure has been disputed by The Daily Beast.

Fire Ants are urging desertion of the channel until it "turns right" again or the new right-leaning news network One America is launched in the summer.

Benghazi-Truth has accused Fox of being too soft on President Barack Obama over his handling of the attack on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in which four senior embassy staff including ther US ambassador were killed, and for not investigating adequately claims that Obama was born in Kenya and therefore did not qualify to run as US president.

"Obama's birth certificate is a fake. We want you to report it every night," the blog reads.

Obama's administration has been fiercely criticised by Republicans for the "inadequacy" of the US response to the Benghazi attack in September and the alleged negligence in utilising intelligence.

Benghazi-Truth said Obama "wanted the people in Benghazi dead".

"We want Fox to have at least one segment on Benghazi every night on at least two of the three shows in prime time," Benghazi-Truth reads.