Fox Wars

Remove all ads!

There hasn't been a thread about this yet, so I feel compelled to start it. Fox has long been the boogey man of the left and the Democratic party. They perceive it as a network with a far right wing bias, and yet they conveniently don't see the left leaning bias of the rest of the media.

Well recently the stakes have been raised. The White House has started a full fledged campaign to marginalize Fox. Most recently they tried to have a "press pool" meeting without inviting Fox. Luckily, the press pool reporters from the other networks had the ethics to refuse to participate. In addition Obama recently had a meeting with select members of the press (both reporters and opinion writers) and didn't invite anyone from Fox. Moveon.org has recently sent out letters to Democrats telling them (what hubris) that they shouldn't appear on Fox.

Personally, I find this very Nixonian. It was bad when Nixon had his "enemies list" and somehow The White House seems to not see a probem with doing it again. Obviously, the right half of the blogosphere has been following this very closely. I haven't seen too much on the left, although there was a great article in my morning paper. I will be spoilering below two articles about this issue one from the right and one from the left. Enjoy.

Spoiler

The 'post-partisan' president makes an enemies list
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, October 23, 2009

Rahm Emanuel once sent a dead fish to a live pollster. Now he's put a horse's head in Roger Ailes's bed.

Not very subtle. And not very smart. Ailes doesn't scare easily.

The White House has declared war on Fox News. White House communications director Anita Dunn said that Fox is "opinion journalism masquerading as news." Patting rival networks on the head for their authenticity (read: docility), senior adviser David Axelrod declared Fox "not really a news station." And Chief of Staff Emanuel told (warned?) the other networks not to "be led [by] and following Fox."

Meaning? If Fox runs a story critical of the administration -- from exposing "green jobs" czar Van Jones as a loony 9/11 "truther" to exhaustively examining the mathematical chicanery and hidden loopholes in proposed health-care legislation -- the other news organizations should think twice before following the lead.

The signal to corporations is equally clear: You might have dealings with a federal behemoth that not only disburses more than $3 trillion every year but is extending its reach ever deeper into private industry -- finance, autos, soon health care and energy. Think twice before you run an ad on Fox.

At first, there was little reaction from other media. Then on Thursday, the administration tried to make them complicit in an actual boycott of Fox. The Treasury Department made available Ken Feinberg, the executive pay czar, for interviews with the White House "pool" news organizations -- except Fox. The other networks admirably refused, saying they would not interview Feinberg unless Fox was permitted to as well. The administration backed down.

This was an important defeat because there's a principle at stake here. While government can and should debate and criticize opposition voices, the current White House goes beyond that. It wants to delegitimize any significant dissent. The objective is no secret. White House aides openly told Politico that they're engaged in a deliberate campaign to marginalize and ostracize recalcitrants, from Fox to health insurers to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

There's nothing illegal about such search-and-destroy tactics. Nor unconstitutional. But our politics are defined not just by limits of legality or constitutionality. We have norms, Madisonian norms.

Madison argued that the safety of a great republic, its defense against tyranny, requires the contest between factions or interests. His insight was to understand "the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties." They would help guarantee liberty by checking and balancing and restraining each other -- and an otherwise imperious government.

Factions should compete, but they should also recognize the legitimacy of other factions and, indeed, their necessity for a vigorous self-regulating democracy. Seeking to deliberately undermine, delegitimize and destroy is not Madisonian. It is Nixonian.

But didn't Teddy Roosevelt try to destroy the trusts? Of course, but what he took down was monopoly power that was extinguishing smaller independent competing interests. Fox News is no monopoly. It is a singular minority in a sea of liberal media. ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR, CNN, MSNBC vs. Fox. The lineup is so unbalanced as to be comical -- and that doesn't even include the other commanding heights of the culture that are firmly, flagrantly liberal: Hollywood, the foundations, the universities, the elite newspapers.

Fox and its viewers (numbering more than those of CNN and MSNBC combined) need no defense. Defend Fox compared to whom? To CNN -- which recently unleashed its fact-checkers on a "Saturday Night Live" skit mildly critical of President Obama, but did no checking of a grotesquely racist remark that CNN falsely attributed to Rush Limbaugh?

Defend Fox from whom? Fox's flagship 6 o'clock evening news out of Washington (hosted by Bret Baier, formerly by Brit Hume) is, to my mind, the best hour of news on television. (Definitive evidence: My mother watches it even on the odd night when I'm not on.) Defend Fox from the likes of Anita Dunn? She's been attacked for extolling Mao's political philosophy in a speech at a high school graduation. But the critics miss the surpassing stupidity of her larger point: She was invoking Mao as support and authority for her impassioned plea for individuality and trusting one's own choices. Mao as champion of individuality? Mao, the greatest imposer of mass uniformity in modern history, creator of a slave society of a near-billion worker bees wearing Mao suits and waving the Little Red Book?

The White House communications director cannot be trusted to address high schoolers without uttering inanities. She and her cohorts are now to instruct the country on truth and objectivity?

Spoiler

NATIONAL VIEW - Obama can never win the war against Fox.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Bill Press/Syndicated Columnist
GateHouse News Service
Posted Oct 23, 2009 @ 10:14 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.No matter how many more troops he sends into battle, President Obama must understand that this is one war he can't win.

No, I'm not talking about the war between American troops and the Taliban. I'm talking about the war between the White House and Fox News.

War with Fox was declared by Gen. Barack Obama himself on Sept. 20, when he appeared on five Sunday morning political shows but deliberately shunned "Fox News Sunday" and showed up on Univision, instead. Which caused Fox anchor Chris Wallace to sound like a crybaby in calling White House aides "the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington."

The war escalated a couple of weeks later when Obama's Communications Director Anita Dunn took the gloves off. Appearing on "Reliable Sources," she told CNN's Howard Kurtz that Fox was little more than "the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party." That's their business, Dunn added, "but let's not pretend they're a news organization like CNN is."

Joining forces, Moveon.org then issued a call for all Democrats in Congress to decline interviews on Fox for the rest of the year in support of Obama's decision to do the same. And Slate's Jacob Weisberg similarly challenged all "respectable journalists" to stop appearing on its programs.

Taking on the biggest of the cable news networks is a risky strategy for the White House. Previous presidents have taken on other news outlets and failed. And I believe the Obama administration will, too.

Why? It's not because Anita Dunn's wrong. She and Obama are absolutely correct about Fox. It's not a news operation, it's a pure, 24/7, right-wing propaganda network. Its political shows - Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly - all plan their broadcasts based on that day's Republican Party talking points. And even its so-called "news" shows are stacked with stories with a clear anti-Obama slant.

But Obama also has to accept reality. That's what Fox is. It's been the conservative news network from day one. Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes designed it that way. Its slogan should be: "We distort, you decide." It amounts to little more than right-wing talk radio, with pictures added. And, here's the important part: they're not going to change.

And why should they? For years, Fox has been the highest-rated of the three cable news networks. Now, as a result of increased White House attention, their ratings, which had already increased with Obama in the Oval Office, have shot up even higher. For the week of Oct. 12 to 18, Fox News was the no. 4 cable network in primetime, behind only ESPN, TBS and USA. MSNBC ranked 27th in primetime, while CNN came in 28th. This year, the Fox News Channel will post the highest ratings in its 13-year history.

Look at the numbers. Rather than hurt Fox, all this attention from the White House has actually helped the network, giving it a public relations bonanza and marketing blitz it could never have afforded to buy itself.

There's one other piece of reality in this equation that the White House can't ignore: At the end of the day, Fox still has the megaphone. And now, an even bigger megaphone. Rather than pretend you can silence or change it, it's a far wiser strategy, in my opinion, to simply ignore it. Which is the worst thing you can do to any bully.

My advice to the White House? Deal with all the news outlets. Don't expect preferential treatment from any. Know you will get a fair shake from most. But also know you will never get treated fairly by one of them. And learn to live with it, because there's nothing you can do about it. Every administration has its media cross to bear. For the Obama administration, it's Fox News.

As for all "respectable" journalists boycotting Fox? Chalk me up as a disrespectable journalist, I guess. I've appeared many times on Fox, and I'd do the same again tomorrow.

After all, it's no fun always preaching to the choir. At any time of day, there are more eyeballs watching Fox than any other cable channel. As long as I'm invited, I won't give up the sadistic pleasure of taking my liberal, pro-Obama message right into the enemy camp - and spitting right in their eye

 

There isn't any "left leaning" bias in the MS media. That's an invention of Richard Nixon, because he couldn't get his way with the media outlets during his presidency, and the "notion" of a left wing media caught a lot of traction with his cohorts and supporters. That is sorta what Obama has fallen into, unfortunately. Quite frankly, Fix News is not the big boogey man for the Left that you and your other right wingers would like to believe. Most of us on the Left largely ignore it, because our own outlets, like MSNBC, cover them pretty well for us. I don't watch FOX or even really care all that much what they have to say about anything, except that FOX is great fodder for the Daily Show, and Keith Olbermann's Countdown.

But FOX does appear to be a "boogey man" for the White House and as I commented, that is unfortunate that he gives the morons there that much credit. The WH is never going to get a fair shake from the bigots and bullies that make up the entertainment side of its news progamming, and he should just do his best with the real news, but much smaller portion of FOX, so he can just get on with business at the WH. He would be much smarter if he just let FOX's lame attempts at "news" reporting marginalize itself with the rest of the world, which it is fairly capable of doing on its own.

Nevertheless, what he really has to worry over is the left wing media, since they are watching just how much of his policy crafting is a "dance and show" for his opponents, and how much of it he is willing to give away to make them happy. I think Obama is spending too much time worrying over what the right wingers think of him. The Right is never going to like him, never going to vote for him, never going to support any of his policy decisions, regardless of what he does. He should wise up and start dancing more with those who brought him to the dance in the first place, IMO.

 

As long as the reporters follow the rules of decorum in press conferences, they should be allowed in. However, I can't blame Obama for getting frustrated with their constant bias and attacks.

 

... I was hoping this would be more of a "Playboy Playmate vs. Penthouse Pet" or "Mud Wrestling with Vicotria's Secret" kind of thread.

 

And I thought this was about devious woodland creatures. We can't all get what we want, eh?

Not that I watch any American news channels but Fox is a worldwide byword for journalistic integrity in the same way McDonalds is for healthy eating. I mean seriously, the fact that they're different from everyone else proves that everyone else is a weirdo?

Having said that, it does seem unusual for the president to refuse to cooperate with a major media outlet. I wouldn't do them any favours but they should still be included in group sessions.

 

As TGS's second article pointed out, this is going to be nothing more than a black eye for Obama.

There is left-wing media, and there is right-wing media, and both need a good swift kick to the noggin, but doing something like this us just going to bring them more attention and villify you at the same time.

Refusing to appear on their shows/give them interviews I understand and support. Refusing to invite them to press conferences starts to sound a little "here's what you should report and how". Telling everyone else to avoid Fox as well is just plain Nixonian.

 

Yeah not a smart way to deal with the problem.

I dont see why hes concerned though - the American right gets more extreme and more fundamentalist every day, and I think normal conservative Americans dont follow them anymore. At least, I hope they dont.

But yeah, Faux News is terrible. He still should have expected this though. Any attempt to stifle or censor the press, even if the press organisation in question is barely deserving of the title, is never going to end well.

 

Quite frankly I blame the commercialisation of the media for this. Ratings became so important for various networks that they started to tell what the audience wanted to hear rather than keeping their journalistic integrity or even trying to do unbiased reporting. This is exactly why I think it's great to have one socialized network since ironically enough its pretty much guaranteed to be more or less neutral (neutrality stipulated by law).

 

Sadly, Morgoroth, here in Canada that hasn't been the case. Our Nationally funded netwrok, CBC, is quite obviously biased toward the Liberal Party. One would wish they would act with integrity, but they don't -- just as a Conservative (right winger) or even an NDP (extreme left winger)

 

I know nothing of the CBS and its bias but there certainly are always those crying wolf over reporting, usually when being caught in a scandal. I view the British BBC, Swedish SVT and Finnish Yle all as more or less unbiased. Complete neutrality is obviously impossible and the companies will always be affected by those in charge but in Finland Yle is controlled by a governance committee which consists of members from the six largest parties of the parliament.

 

I have no knowledge of BBC, SVT, or Yle (short of some great BBC shows we get over here). MSNBC, however, has frequently shown a liberal bias. CNN is more greed and sensational bias, and they'll hop on anything that'll get them ratings. NPR usually has strong liberal bias, as well. I haven't watched PBS for years, so I have no idea what they're like.

 

I presume you are referring to the Feinberg 'incident', in which case I am prepared to believe that you are unaware it's arrant nonsense. The idea that Fox was unaware it was peddling ******** is, however, harder to credit.

Especially given their illustrious history of, among other things, mislabeling misbehaving republican politicians as democrats and altering the photos of media figures who criticize the channel.

Kindly explain how this could be anything other than right wing bias and/or insanity.

That's a sincere request, by the way. At minimum, the mental gymnastics will be fascinating.

 

Snook,
are you kidding? The Bush White House was notorious for only inviting people who toed the Whitehouse line. And to now see, of all people, Karl Rove whining about such a dastardly thing being done by the Obama Whitehouse ... beyond chutzpah, and hilariously, he apparently he gets away with impertinence like that as you apparently swallow that bait hook, line and sinker because you're unhappy enough with Obama to not look back and put that into context.

​

Rachel Maddow, though a partisan journalist of the other side of the isle, has it perfectly right, factually right in particular. And the Obama Whitehouse didn't tell FOX what they talked about? Boo-hoo-hoo - the Bush administration wouldn't even tell congress what Cheney's energy task force was talking about (and that was about actual policy matters, not mere PR). Amusingly, it was Cheney and his lawyer Addington who led a jihad to restore the powers of the president to the level they had under Nixon, and if possible to exceed that. He still blathers about how that was a brilliant idea of his, especially the Gitmo and torture parts. But even though Nixonianism for R's is suddenly such a bad thing, you don't get to hear them complaining about real Nixonian politics - something that the previous administration wallowed in. The epitome of Nixonianism wasn't the 'enemies list' but "If the president does it, it can't be illegal." Now how was that about warrant less wire tapping, torture, extra judicial killings and abductions and stuff like that?

As for the exclusion of FOX by Obama, why feed the mouth that bites you? FOX coverage of Obama is not critical but hostile. The pressure Obama exerts on them is IMO in order to draw them out into to the center a bit. I have no idea whether that'll work, but there you are.

Brilliant article on the subject here.

Spoiler

 

@Ragusa,

I see a major distinction between having a secret meeting with the press, who are supposed to be the watchdogs of our government, and just about any other group.

The 1st part of this is priceless. So much for Obama being like Kennedy.

 

Again, the way I see it, refusing to appear on their shows/give them interviews I understand and support, refusing to invite them to press conferences starts to sound a little "here's what you should report and how" (even when Bush did it), telling everyone else to avoid Fox as well is just plain Nixonian. And yes, the "enemies list" and silencing opposition was a major part of Nixon's presidency.

 

I got this in an e-mail so I can't properly credit it.

 

Why is Chavez in that group? The other four are fascist authoritarian pigs while Chavez is quite the popular charmer.

 

Geez, joacqin, don't beat around the bush -- tell us how you really feel!

I don't know how his own people feel about him, but I do know that he is constantly painted as a demon by the US.

 

Snook,
you crack me up. You could do far worse than reading the article that I linked to above.

The "fourth estate" colluding with the government is something conservatives have managed to live with quite comfortably for a considerable time, at least for the largest part of the almost forgotten Bush era. Conservative media had a veritable love fest with Bush, and many conservative journos bent over to please the administration, in the case of Jeff Gannon probably literally. Iirc FOX once let the hubby of a lady who served on the Bush campaign make an exceedingly friendly interview with Bush, lobbing softball question after softball question. But friendly journalists meeting with Obama - in private, not in secrecy - is suddenly a dire threat?

As far as dire threats go, the Whitehouse keeping 'secret' what exactly they talk about with friendly media ranks far far lower than many, many other things. In view with your caricature, doing foreign policy is probably more sensible a use of presidential time than giving Brit Hume's hurt ego a pat on the back.

What about secrecy over meaningful things? In fact, after the secrecy obsession during the Bush years this feigned or forgetful outrage on Obama meeting with friendly media comes across quite comical. Iirc when Cheney defied congress by telling them that what they talked about on the energy task force was none of congresses business, what you got to hear on FOX was remarkably neutral. And that was a refusal to answer to congress. After Cheney refused to say who was on the energy task force - which led to him claiming the was neither part of the executive nor legislative branch - he was eventually sued to turn over the information, and the case ended up at the Supreme Court. At that time Cheney and Justice Scalia went on a private hunting trip - when Scalia was sitting over that case. Inappropriate? Conflict of interest? Of course not. After all, Scalia at the time said "I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned." - to then decide in Cheney's favour. Interesting. Perhaps worth some critical examination?

What we have here is, amusingly, the impertinent refusal of the Whitehouse to answer to ... FOX News! Oh the ourtage! FOX are behaving like perfumed princesses.

FOX' love affair with presidential secrecy ended the day Obama took office. I feel tempted to say that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Except that it isn't. This isn't about principle, but about being adversial. It's all of a sudden a threat to democracy because the others do it, and we all know they can't be trusted. Then Obama meeting privately with according to Bill O'Reilly 'far left' journalists can only mean one thing - that they all conspire on how to best propagandise America to ruin the country, defile everything that's good and pure, corrupt the youth and to advance the radical socialist agenda! Everybody go buy guns!

 

He is democratically elected, several times. His opposition (generally the military and the capital) tried to depose him by force once which lead to a massive public uprising and usurper had to release him his captivity. Basically Chavez has strong support by a solid majority of the people but the ones who oppose him *really* oppose him. As for the US the US doesn't like him because he is a socialist, because he does not let US companies do as they please in Venezuela and because he has oil he isn't sharing freely. Oh and of course because Chavez is at least as unfriendly to the US as they are to him.