Why the Obama administration should lay off Fox News
This might come as a shock, but “fair and balanced” Fox News isn’t particularly fond of the Obama administration. Underwhelmed? Naturally. But the Obama administration is acting as though this is some sort of epiphany. For over a week, the notoriously conservative-skewing news organization has been locked in a war of words with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, communications director Anita Dunn and senior adviser David Axelrod. And the kicker is, it’s more snide remarks than substance.
Even though White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has mostly kept the administration playing nice with the media, calling out Fox News on their brand of pseudo-journalism doesn’t seem too detrimental on the surface. In fact, some might be rooting for the degradation of ‘Faux News.’ But amid a massive health care debate and dropping approval ratings, the administration should be on its best behavior. A tit-for-tat tiff is the last thing Obama needs right now.
“[Fox] is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective,” Emanuel said on CNN’s State of the Union. I agree completely, but then again I’m not the chief of staff for the most powerful man in the country. When someone as influential as Bulldog Rahm says it, a whole new level of cattiness is achieved. Dunn called Fox “an arm of the Republican Party,” also on State of the Union. Old news, Anita. Plus, the Democrats have their own appendage – it’s called MSNBC. She later told The New York Times that the administration would “treat them the way we would treat an opponent” – hardly a fair fight.
The White House probably thinks that its valiant whining efforts will be met with great support. Finally, someone has the guts to stand up to big, bad Fox News. They’re making a statement and asserting their power. But what they fail to realize is that the administration is only hurting itself by pulling a Regina George on Fox. By shaking a stick at the media, the administration is just giving those who cry ‘Obamunism!’ more fuel for their fire.
“It’s really not news — it’s pushing a point of view. And 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’s This Week. When the most powerful players not only single out a media source but go so far as to tell other organizations such as CNN and MSNBC to reject them, it makes people wary of our government officials. Some of the more extreme Obama naysayers might even argue that the administration is stifling Fox’s freedom of speech in their defensive attack.
It won’t be long till Americans take statements like, “There is something very disturbing about the Obama administration fighting harder against Fox News than the Taliban” to heart. If one is already suspicious about the administration, Bill O’Reilly’s seemingly ridiculous comment could actually incite some real negative fervor toward Obama. The president says that he doesn’t have much to worry about, but as long as Fox milks this fight, he will be judged unfairly.
All the drama has put the commander in chief in an awkward position. Realizing that he would not be able to win this fight, Obama stepped out of the spotlight and declined to go on Chris Wallace’s show. The snub was discussed on The O’Reilly Factor: “He just doesn’t like you,” O’Reilly joked with Wallace. “No, he doesn’t like you too!” said Wallace with a laugh. They’re loving this. And Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chairman, is also relishing in the fact that the feud has “tremendously increased their ratings.” So who is this all really benefiting? Certainly not the administration, supposedly founded upon the idea of open communication and cooperation.
The Obama administration has a right to defend itself — to an extent. But after a while, their credibility suffers on both sides of the aisle. Without respect from the general public, getting support for the tasks ahead become immensely more difficult. How can an administration give the appearance of strength when it can’t handle some trash talk from Glenn Beck?
In an interview with Wallace just a few months ago, Obama said, “I don’t always get my most favorable coverage on Fox, but I think that’s part of how democracy is supposed to work. You know, we’re not supposed to all be in lock step here.” Good for you, Barack. You don’t need to be sipping on Rahm’s Haterade. But where has that good-natured spirit gone? Let O’Reilly hate-monger, let Hannity blather on, but most of all, just let them all be. Why now and why bother, I say. So thanks for the entertainment, guys, but if I want a good catfight, I’ll stick to Real Housewives.
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At least Rahm Emanuel isn't ruining your party. Or you can return home.
There is an argument to be made here. Namely, that by allowing the attention to be focused on Fox, the Obama administration is restructuring the debate — moving it from Obama v. Congressional Republicans to Obama v. Loudmouthed Conservative Nutjobs on Fox News. By empowering Fox, Obama has weakened the sane (they do exist) Republicans in Congress. Giving O’Reilly, Beck, and Hannity more voice, and allowing that voice to represent the Republican party may enthrall die-hard conservatives, but it will also leave folks in the middle of the road with a bad impression of what the Republican Party has become. This recentering of attention is going to lengthen the GOP’s quest to find a viable leader, and in the meantime is going to make Obama look all the more palatable in comparison to those voices that are quickly becoming representative of the Republican Party in the public eye.
But....
October 26, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Not to mention that Fox News’ focus has shifted from real issues to themselves. The Obama administration prefers Fox News to talk about how the Obama administration hates them, because it prevents them from using that time to talk about health care, Iraq or Afghanistan. So it’s not just restructuring the debate, it’s changing the focus of the debate. If you have followed politics for a while, or just watched “The West Wing,” you’d know that most politicians are usually looking for a fight if they need to distract from a larger issue. Picking a fight with the people who happen to be giving you the most negative attention not only distracts them from the issues, it also distracts the public.
Also...
October 27, 2009 at 2:03 am
I don’t think that the WHite HOuse is giving more power to Fox. Actually, I think it’s kind of an old issue. At least in the black community, there have been many strong movements that call for boycotting the network. So I think the White House is finally stating their opinion on something that others have agreed upon a while ago, doesn’t empower Fox, but rather puts a national stamp on the movement itself.
...hm
October 27, 2009 at 9:17 am
Well the White House is giving more power to fox–as seen by their increase in ratings since this whole affair started. It’s very disappointing that a politician as smart as President Obama is making such a miscalculation (or at least his White House staff is). Whether people like their prime-time opinion personalities or not, it doesn’t change the fact that Fox is a news organization just like CNN, MSNBC, ABC etc., and that Fox has biases just like all other news networks do(albeit to the other side of the political spectrum).
It’s VERY unpresidential to attack a news organization just because the president (not just Obama, any president) doesn’t like said organization’s coverage of their administration.
matt
October 27, 2009 at 11:14 am
Wow. I wish that we could refer to the news stations that hated more right-wing ideas as “notoriously liberal-skewing,” the way the article branded Fox, but sadly they’re NOT notorious.
People think that the rest of the news isn’t skewed when they hear it that way, and that it just happens that democrats are always in the right and republicans are always wrong. Obviously this isn’t true- the answer should be somewhere in the middle.
I wonder if someday soon North By Northwestern will think it might be a good idea to have unbiased articles about politics? That would help at least our small community.
L
October 27, 2009 at 4:13 pm
As much as I want Fox News to go up in flames, you make a good point in this article (though the other commentators make other great points). This is a touchy situation no matter how you look at it.
The thing I find really sad is the decline of unbiased news in America. I just read an article yesterday that says that CNN (conceivably the last unbiased news organization) is now in last place among the news channels. The article mentions that people are gravitating more towards partisan news organizations that give opinions.
I really don’t like the idea of this. I’ll be honest–I stopped watching CNN because I thought it was getting too biased. Now I get all of my news online. I’d rather form my own opinions about the news rather than being told what I should think.
I understand there can’t ever be a truly unbiased news organization. The simple task of choosing which stories to air is in itself a form of bias. But I still think that all journalists should try like hell to stay as unbiased as possible. If there is an opinion piece, it should be clearly labeled as opinion (like op-eds).
Enough with scare tactic journalism. Seriously. (Glenn Beck…I’m talking to you).
Rachel
October 27, 2009 at 4:58 pm
MSNBC (Maddow, Olbermann, etc.) would have reveled in being attacked and feared by the Bush administration… but Bush was smart enough not to allow his cohorts to engage in pithy attacks with the network.
Fox News and MSNBC are defined by prime-time programs that cannot seriously be considered news, but they do engage in some legitimate programming during the day. Regardless, it’s inappropriate for the Obama administration to act as if they can determine which networks are legitimate or not. Besides, as this article says, all it does is strengthen Fox’s appeal as an underdog.
Also: NBN rarely engages in legitimate journalistic reporting either… occasionally an investigative piece will venture into real news territory, but on the whole NBN is in the entertainment business–and does a pretty good job of it.
NBN’s news seems to rely mostly on reporting other peoples’ reporting or gathering info from press releases… such as recent articles on the sexual assault and DM registration. This particular article doesn’t do any original reporting, L, and instead offers an opinion and shouldn’t be unbiased.
Sam
October 27, 2009 at 5:42 pm
To Sam:
Have you watched daytime news at all recently? There has been a dramatic shift in the way FOX, CNN, and MSNBC “report news”, by which I mean they don’t really report the news at all. Each channel still has the same flavor of bullshit as before, but they’ve forgone the whole unbiased thing and anchors now blatantly state their partisan opinions.
1984
October 28, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Shepherd Smith, Contessa Brewer, Bill Hemmer, David Shuster, etc. don’t come close to reaching the level of partisanship displayed by O’Reilly and the like.
Morning Joe remains the best source of fair political debate… Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell report the news in an unbiased fashion and then Scarborough and Buchanan and Barnacle go at it.
Sam
October 28, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I don’t think Obama is making a mistake. I think what Anita Dunn said was a smart move. I am not sure about after that
(i) it delegitamizes fox
(ii) it rallies liberals to continue supporting obama
Fox and MSNBC are not foils. Fox is far more powerful and more dishonest.
The problem with fox is not that it is conservative, but rather fox is dishonest and inconsistent. Even if MSNBC slants liberal, they are not dishonest nor do they seem to support certain candidates. For example, during the 2008 presidential campaign, Fox definetly showed bias toward Rudy Guiliani over other candidates (gave him more time, praising him, calling him by his campaign slogan ‘america’s mayor’). It has been known that Rudy and Roger Ailes have been friends so their definetly seems to be conflicts of interest which were not revealed to viewers.
Pooky
November 5, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Fox News is successful because it provides a right leaning media outlet in an industry that has traditionally leaned to the left. MSNBC being a counterweight to Fox is a joke. MSNBC lags woefully behind. Chris Matthews seems to be the only well-known person on MSNBC. By the way, I am not using stats, just my personal perception. CNN made a smart move by not trying to beat Fox in a who’s more liberal/conservative contest. Instead, most of CNN’s major personalities are relatively neutral in tone. Fox has tapped into a segment of the US population that I think has felt ostracized by the media. They have done this by employing large personalities such as Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck. No one at CNN or MSNBC can match those two men.
Anonymous
November 20, 2009 at 5:36 pm