(February 9, 2009 - Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images North America)
October 19th, 2009
Senior Obama administration officials took to the airwaves Sunday to accuse Fox News of pushing a particular point of view, one week after the administration fired its initial salvo to try to isolate the news network by accusing it of being a GOP mouthpiece.
“A lot of their news programming, it’s really not news. It’s pushing a point of view,” senior adviser David Axelrod said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“The way we — the president looks at it and we look at it, is, it is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective,” White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel added on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The open assault on Fox News began last weekend when White House Communications Director Anita Dunn accused the network of being a “wing of the Republican Party.”
“What I think is fair to say about Fox — and certainly it’s the way we view it — is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party,” Dunn said on CNN. “They take their talking points, put them on the air; take their opposition research, put them on the air. And that’s fine. But let’s not pretend they’re a news network the way CNN is.”
Despite calls to the White House this week, the administration did not offer a guest for this weekend’s “Fox News Sunday” to talk about Dunn’s comments, although administration officials appeared on all four Sunday morning shows to speak on various issues.
President Obama has had interviews with all of the other Sunday talk shows except “Fox News Sunday,” including a whirlwind weekend in late September where he appeared on all other Sunday talk shows.
Michael Clemente, Fox News’ senior vice president of news, said the administration’s strategy appears to be misdirected.
“Surprisingly, the White House continues to declare war on a news organization instead of focusing on the critical issues that Americans are concerned about like jobs, health care and two wars. The door remains open and we welcome a discussion about the facts behind the issues,” Clemente said in a written statement.
Former Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove said Fox News’ commentators have been tough on Obama but the White House appears to be confusing the news and opinion that appears on the network.
“They’re conflating the news side and the opinion side in order to — in order to attack a media outlet. Again, it’s undignified for the president of the United States to be doing” Rove said on “Fox News Sunday.” He added that it is the administration’s practice to attack its critics full-throttle.
“I think this White House is dominated by Chicago- style politics, so if you don’t like the questions that are being asked by Major Garrett or Wendell Goler or Chris Wallace, then you try and demonize Fox News,” he said.
Though Fox News has won the cable news ratings race consistently for years and is closing in on network news numbers, Axelrod and Emanuel both encouraged other news outlets to not treat Fox News as a news organization.
“The bigger thing is that other news organizations, like yours, ought not to treat them that way, and we’re not going to treat them that way.” Axelrod told ABC.
Axelrod was quick to point out that though the White House views Fox News as biased, the administration would continue to interact with Fox News. “We’re going to appear on their shows. We’re going to participate, but understanding that they represent a point of view.”
“President Obama’s going to talk to all the networks,” said former Clinton adviser and administration confidant Terry McAuliffe, who appeared with Rove on Fox News. “He’s going to go out there. He loves competition. He loves being engaged in the battle.”
TEL AVIV – President Obama’s presidential campaign focused on “making” the news media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the press unless it was “controlled,” White House Communications Director Anita Dunn disclosed to the Dominican government at a videotaped conference.
“Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn’t absolutely control,” said Dunn.
Here is Dunn talking about the campaign and the relationship with the media. She is almost bragging about how she manipulated the media and controlled the messages that reached the American people. She gets a nice little gasp at one point and she just keeps plugging away as if she didn’t realize what she said just sounded rather ridiculous.
October 14th, 2009
Fox News has begun to address the concerted effort by the White House and the Obama administration to boycott their news channel, even though it is by far the largest cable network and its programs top the ratings charts. What began as nothing more than a scheduling snub has turned into a budding war between the administration and Fox News. Snubbing Chris Wallace, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, or Glenn Beck is one thing, but taking on the entire network is probably not the clearest path to bipartisanship or support from the constituency base that turns to Fox News for its “news.”
This President is so enamored with himself that I genuinely believe he has never felt criticism for any extended period of time throughout the course of his life. I think he has always been so uniquely popular / favored amongst the people he has surrounded himself with that any detractors only appear to him as misinformed or misguided. His entire march to the presidency was marked with praise and adoration, and only now as he sits as the most powerful man in the world, is he finally feeling vulnerable.
I think he truly sees himself as a victim. He disregards how the other networks have treated previous presidents or how they still treat Republicans on Capitol Hill. He ignores the fact that the tougher that Fox News gets on him and his administration, the softer that the big three networks, CNN, and MSNBC get in their coverage of the “maligned” Chief Executive. He feels mistreated and misrepresented, and he wants the world to know that Fox News is the one in the wrong here. He is absolutely blind to the cover he has been / is provided by the Popular Rule on a daily basis. He wants to focus on the “biased” coverage he receives from one network while he takes for granted through his divine providence the favorable coverage he receives from everybody else.
What the president seems to overlook here are two glaring points that he either ignores or is blissfully ignorant to. One is that maybe – just maybe – Fox News is providing a valuable service to the nation by offering balance to the News world that has been Left-Leaning for so long that it began to hardly even notice; and two that maybe Fox News is simply a shining example of capitalism at work. There is obviously a demand for their version of news reporting and if there were not, Fox News would likely be filled with programs chasing Hollywood actors around town with the hopes of catching a bad hair day.
I am not foolish or naive enough to believe that Fox News is “Fair and Balanced.” I can see their Right-Leaning message for what it is. What Liberal Progressives like President Obama cannot now (or ever) begin to understand is that we as Republicans or conservatives have the ability to perform this clever little trick where we see the tilt in the news we get from media outlets. We developed it through years of filtering through all the Leftist propaganda that was pumped down our throats by the other networks before we had Fox News to turn the dial to.
Here is Glenn Beck’s response
These people are idiots. Nuff said
What would these people do if Rush joined the Fox line-up? I think their heads might explode if the mainstream got to hear and see Rush on tv every night. It would kill the other networks even the regular shows. They think they have it bad now, put Rush on and they would cry all night
I am pretty sure that you may be right, but I think Rush gives them enough sleepless nights as it is with his 30 million listeners. I don’t know that even Rush would make this worse. They are concerned that there is a media outlet that they don’t control and manipulate. Its the same reason they despise talk radio. Popular Rule will not rest until they both are eradicated.
Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?
Of course. Have at it.
Polprav?
[...] The Administration Takes upon a Evil Empire which is FoxNews … [...]
When will this stop?
What is that Nappy Roots link about? Spam? These brainiacs are bungazoids who wouldnt know news if it fell on them. They are so used to a favorable media that they cry the second someone says something bad
Today’s Gibbs moment with tapper from ABC was another sign of an administration that has no respect for the 1st amendment. I do not understand how more journalists cannot realize that an attack on one news organization is an attack on the entirety of the press.
[...] confronted Gibbs about the administration’s position regarding Fox News not being a “News Organization.” I have posted a video and a transcript of the back and forth [...]
qJiSh7 knkvwjdybxnj, [url=http://ylktkuusoaqn.com/]ylktkuusoaqn[/url], [link=http://snfnjdnyurij.com/]snfnjdnyurij[/link], http://wbijuxnvcbgx.com/