Congressman Tries to Ban Federal Ad Spending on Fox News

Headshot of Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. (AP)

A congressman smarting over legislation to defund National Public Radio tried to take out his frustration with a ban on federal dollars paying for advertising on Fox News, but the effort was rejected in a party-line committee vote.

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., offered an amendment Wednesday night that would have prohibited funds from any federal agency from being used to advertise on the Fox News Channel.

"If my friends on the other side of the aisle want to strip funding from NPR because they believe -- wrongly, in my view -- that NPR is biased, then we should be given the same opportunity," McGovern told the House Rules Committee.

The House Rules Committee rejected the amendment 7-4 on a party-line vote.

McGovern cited a Rand Study that found the federal government subsidizes media companies all the time and that the Pentagon alone spent more than $600 million in advertising in 2007.

McGovern did not cite any studies or statistics on how much federal advertising money is spent on Fox News. He did not return requests for comment submitted by FoxNews.com.

The House votes Thursday on the bill that would ban federal funding for NPR and prohibit local public stations from using federal money to pay NPR dues.

NPR has been in Republican crosshairs since it drew widespread criticism last year for firing Fox News analyst Juan Williams for saying the sight of people in Muslim garb on airplanes made him nervous.

The NPR defunding effort picked up steam last week when conservative activist James O'Keefe posted a video of a former NPR executive calling the Tea Party movement racist that led to former president and CEO Vivian Schiller's resignation.

McGovern voiced his displeasure with the NPR bill as he introduced his amendment.

"We all know what's going on here. The reason this bill is before us is that a discredited, right-wing activist recently made a selectively-edited, 11-minute video of a two-hour conversation," he said.

"But if you insist on going down this road, Mr. Chairman, then we should be 'fair and balanced' in the way we do it," he said.

Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report.