The White House’s Curious War Against Fox News (Guest Voice)
The White House’s Curious War Against Fox News
by Jon Wells
Over the last week, members of the White House staff have gone out of their way to single out Fox News as an unworthy news organization. It began with White House communications chief Anita Dunn’s rant on CNN last Sunday saying Fox wasn’t a real news network and was more a wing of the Republican Party. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs continued the theme by claiming there are many stories on Fox that are not true. And the White House doubled down on the strategy yesterday when White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Obama political advisor David Axelrod both aggressively asserting in almost identical terms that Fox isn’t a real news network.
Some intellectually dishonest enablers in the media have acted as cheerleaders for the administration’s new war on Fox News. Jacob Weisberg at Newsweek makes the ridiculous assertion that Fox News is un-American, and even laughably claims that the bias of other networks is due to Fox News. Meryl Yourish has her way with his hackneyed attempt at partisan spin, but what’s interesting is that other members of the media are coming to Fox’s defense.
The New York Times says the President is employing a dangerous and historically losing strategy here, especially after campaigning as someone who would listen to his opponents. The Nation accuses the President and his advisors of being a bunch of thin-skinned whiners who would do better to gather their wits about them and at least attempt to elevate themselves above the fray instead of rolling gloriously in the mud. Even Helen Thomas, certainly no friend to Republicans, has told the White House to knock it off.
The aggression of the White House is undoubtedly thrilling to those who enjoy using pejoratives like “Fake News” and “Faux News” when describing the news network that just happens to have the best ratings out of the three big cable news outlets. But beyond satisfying the Fox-haters, what is to be gained by launching a rhetorical assault against a news organization that has, for the most part, been alone in its rightward tilt and subsequent mild criticism of the President’s agenda?
From a purely strategic standpoint, it would seem to me that it gives more credence to Obama’s foes than his supporters would be willing to allow. The NY Times has it right – generally, you “punch up” in politics, and an attack of this orchestrated nature displays a petty unwillingness to engage hostile news organizations or even to stomach criticism displayed on an isolated band of the news spectrum.
Indeed, the administration appears so thin-skinned that it apparently cannot bear to have any negative spin on its agenda or afford to have any news organization go off-message. Anita Dunn had a surprising disclosure in January at a Dominican conference regarding the Obama campaign’s vision of control and the press:
Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn’t absolutely control,” said Dunn.”One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters,” said Dunn, referring to Plouffe, who was Obama’s chief campaign manager.
“We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it,” Dunn said.
Couple this with the recent push by the White House toward calling out the very few members of the press who have had questions about the current agenda or who have apparently not lived up to the White House standards of “fair referees.” What emerges is a picture of an administration that after only nine months cannot deal with negative publicity of any kind and reacts in the only way it knows how – smear the messenger and silence the critics.
Whatever your feelings on Fox News, it’s not leadership for a Presidential administration to go after a major news channel simply because their slant doesn’t sit well with them. It’s not the actions of a candidate elected supposedly on bringing the country together to hunt down its critics with such gleeful vigor not even in a year into its term. And it’s not the actions of a healthy democracy with a free press when the party in power seeks to muffle its loudest critics with a bully pulpit that can apparently suffer no rivals.
Jonathan Wells is a 28-year-old husband and father who lives in Ohio and has a day job in the microbiology field. He notes that he tends “be conservative in most of my views, but by no means do I bear blind allegiance to a political party.” He stresses that he is open-minded and encourages “any civil disagreement (or uncivil agreement) any of you would care to express.” He likes to make people think – and does so on his blog Wellsy’s World.
EDITOR’s NOTE: Fox versus the White House remains a huge discussion topic in the blogosphere. GO HERE TO SEE FOR YOURSELF.
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11 Responses to “The White House’s Curious War Against Fox News (Guest Voice)”
[...] everyone hate you?’ the boy asked the president. (Oct. 16) VISIT MY FREE niche market FINDER The White House’s Curious War Against Fox News (Guest Voice) – themoderatevoice.com 10/21/2009 The White House’s Curious War Against Fox News by Jon [...]
*Puts on wizard's cap*
Ahem…
It will be found that not only should the title of this article be reversed to Fox's curious war against the Whitehouse, but that Fox is a de facto arm of PSYOPS, which is not limited to military operations. Fox's more sophisticated sister station CNN you will recall played host to PSYOPS operatives and allowed them free run of the place to learn, among other things, how to manipulate satellite links:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1748
Further *waves hand over crystal ball* it will be found that, like with the CIA, there is a special branch of PSYOPS that answers to this day not to our elected leaders but instead to Dick Cheney et al.
Fox is nothing but the dumber version of CNN. They both function as propaganda outlets for the agenda of very rich people in the far right of our political spectrum. MSNBC, instead of having a cohesive agenda, simply rebuts the extremism of the other two. It is the “nature seeks balance” natural reaction to the audacious spin spewed forth day after day from these two snakes of the same medusa's head.
Of course I could be wrong…lol..
@@Of course I could be wrong…lol..@@ Oh, stop putting yourself down, Sil. That Cheney directs the CIA under Obama's nose is certainly not a far-fetched notion to rationale people.
Similarly, rationale people know that they can tune in or tune out of the Fox channel at their own whim, while they cannot exert control over the administration. Human nature dictates this was dumbness from his oneness.
The backstory proves this even more.
[...] President’s advisers? To explore this, let’s answer another question; what is Fox doing? The White House’s Curious War Against Fox News (Guest Voice) – themoderatevoice.com 10/21/2009 The White House’s Curious War Against Fox News by Jon Wells [...]
Eugene Robinson could be right about the White House being crazy like a fox here. Or maybe it's a losing strategy, whatever… in any case, they have every right to call FOX out on what they do, which is heavily biased, partisan news-spin. It's no secret that objectivity isn't part of their game plan.
Whatever your feelings on Fox News, it’s not leadership for a Presidential administration to go after a major news channel simply because their slant doesn’t sit well with them.
To me that is the key point. Going after or refusing to deal with press that doesn't agree with you runs counter to our expectation that the media should not only report but be a watchdog for the people. Too many people are accepting of this because it's Obama and Fox, a president they like and a network they don't. This narrow kind of thinking will eventually backfire. Whenever you see an issue like this you need to think how it will play out when the players are switched. Presidents rewarding the media that agree with them and punishing ones that don't can only turn out badly.
WH neophytes are now panicking is that Obama's poll numbers, even in the manipulated Post/ABC skewed attempt to alter reality, are sinking like a Titanic—Gibbs and Dunn are simply band members on the deck playing to keep the gullibles thinking the water ain't that cold where they're headed shortly to a one-term presidency. Dunn's idiocy in particular convinces only the choir—and of these, only the slowest members.
Obama is an iteration of Jimmy Carter, with history repeating this time as farce.
Enjoy your fantasy dave.
They can't keep blaming Bush for their increasing failures and repulsion of better people; few are still so stupid as to accept the Bush-bashing this late. And they're impudent little kiddies, unsatisfied with an otherwise-adoring or obedient liberal media, which itself has concerns about stage-managing of press conference and the more lurid personality-cult and [lower-IQ-Dem] public opinion manipulation that is so obvious. They hate dissent and anything reminding them of their failures, and as Bush is vanishing as a demon and distraction they can “rely” on, now it's the evil Fox's turn to fulfill that role. Symbolism over substance, and deception and dishonesty over clarity and honesty, continues.
“are sinking like a Titanic”
I wonder how many many among them are throwing temper tantrums, and how many are still stupidly ignorant, that they have steered themselves right at the iceberg.
My dream come true will begin to happen in the 2010 elections when the decks will begin to hit the icy water for the Dreams of My Alcoholic Bigamist Daddy POTUS.