The Obama war against Fox News: Risky business?

The Obama White House is making no secret of its distaste for Fox News.

In a round of Sunday talk show appearances, the administration escalated its war against the network that likes to call itself "fair and balanced" but that happens to feature quite a few conservative voices.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said on CNN that Fox News isn't even a news organization.

And White House political guru David Axelrod, who had coffee a few weeks ago in New York with Fox News founder Roger Ailes, told ABC that Fox News is "really not news. ... Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way. We're not going to treat them that way."

But some are wondering if this is smart politics. Given that Fox News boasts a far larger audience than cable competitors CNN and MSNBC, and given that most elections are decided by independents who might occasionally watch FNC, the strategy could backfire.

“It's a very risky strategy,” perennial presidential advisor David Gergen said recently on CNN. “It's not one I would advocate.”

For its part, the administration seems content to keep the battle going, even though the wars have already claimed a few victims. Glenn Beck pounded the lectern relentlessly about green jobs czar Van Jones for signing a petition suggesting government conspiracy in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Jones resigned.

Now Beck has turned his furor on White House communications director Anita Dunn for saying that China's Mao Tse-tung was one of her favorite philosophers. Firing back, Dunn said she picked up the line from renowned Republican strategist Lee Atwater and that it was meant as irony.

"The use of the phrase 'favorite political philosophers' was intended as irony, but clearly the effort fell flat -- at least with a certain Fox commentator whose sense of irony may be missing," she said. Keeping up the White House attack, Dunn also charged that Fox serves as "the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party."

Now Beck is charging that the White House attack is akin to media genocide, like going after the Jews during the Holocaust.

I dunno, don't these folks have something better to do?

-- Johanna Neuman

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Comments

[Timothy]

I believe that it is Fox news that resembles the Nazis. They take the smallest dust of truth and warping and twisting it into their own vision. They twist words and manipulate information so that it benefits their cause, regardless of how far from the truth their statement is. Any type of resistance is immediately met with furious retaliation by Fox News. Similar to the Nazis, Fox News is growing from its propaganda and manipulation even though outsiders can clearly see the truth. This is extremely dangerous because eventually, like in Germany, people will adopt these non-truths as "fact".

[Quark]

Risky? Probably not considering Obama's almost "cult" following. The sheep will follow the goat even to slaughter. He's pushed our national debt to extremes that will take multiple generations to pay back - if ever - and shows no sign of letting up. That hasn't hurt him, so this can't be considered "risky" by comparison.

But scary? YES!

The President of the United States is attacking a media outlet in a coordinated effort using tax-payer paid government employees. Am I the only one who sees something really, really wrong in that picture?

Whether Fox is right, wrong, newsworthy or only entertaining is completely irrelevant.

The President of The United States is coordinating an attack on a media outlet. ….

Now I’m wondering what was really written in that book Chavez gave him? …….

[sangjmoon]

Why not? If Chavez's strategy of eliminating negative news about him works, it should work for Obama. I frankly stopped watching all the "news" stations long time ago. Their main purpose isn't news; it is ratings. MSNBC is the Democrats' propaganda arm. CNN lost my respect when they went for cleavage and legs over news. All the others are driven by the majority Democratic membership of their staff. The reason why FOX News is outrating the other news stations is because all the other news stations have gone off the left end. Nobody is forcing people to watch FOX news. Nobody is forcing people to listen to conservative radio. I remember that you Democrats called Bush the divider, but the country is even more divided now than ever, and it turns out that the dividers were you.

[Ramon]

Did Bush also cry about the way NBC,CNN, ABC covered his administration? I see a little baby crying about the way the stories are covered. Obama needs his mommy to protect him from the Big bad News companies.

[Quark]

Risky? Probably not considering Obama's almost "cult" following. The sheep will follow the goat even to slaughter. He's pushed our national debt to extremes that will take multiple generations to pay back - if ever - and shows no sign of letting up. That hasn't hurt him, so this can't be considered "risky" by comparison.

But scary? YES!

The President of the United States is attacking a media outlet in a coordinated effort using tax-payer paid government employees. Am I the only one who sees something really, really wrong in that picture?

Whether Fox is right, wrong, newsworthy or only entertaining is completely irrelevant.

The President of The United States is coordinating an attack on a media outlet. ….

Now I’m wondering what was really written in that book Chavez gave him? …….

[babbo]

For what it's worth, the Beck video, like the Dunn quote cited in the article, is a paraphrased quotation meant to invoke a certain irony in other media outlets' criticism of Fox News.

Interestingly, it's hard to tell if Beck didn't know the poem well and was just paraphrasing off the cuff or if he selected that particular line of the poem intentionally; but the first line is actually "First they came for the -communists-..." which would have been fantastically ironical for him to have quoted exactly, considering Beck's well known fear of commies.

[jena]

Obama's regime is scary. Is everyone blind to his agenda?

[chance]

I don't think Axlerod and Emanual has ever read the quote "you don't pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel"
I think this strategy will have a serious negative impact on public opinion. The public likes to think the press is free from government pressures. It's also very clear to many in the public that the remaining networks are very pro Obama. ev en if youe like what Obama is doing.

If this was Rahms idea, it's a bad one.

[Midori]

This was the last mark against this administration for me. I voted for Obama but I will not again. So many things going on and all they really care about is obviously fear of being outed.
Of course everyone knows FOX is favored towards Republicans just like everyone knows that CNN and MSNBC is favored towards Democrats. And of course everyone knows that if a Democrat is president you watch FOX to find out what the Democrats don't want you to know just as everyone watched CNN when Bush was president to find out what the Republicans did not want us to know.
Everyone knows all these things so everyone with one ounce of sense knows that this is about the Obama administration wanting us to not know anything about any mistakes they may be making or might make. That is an attack on our freedom of speech and without that we lose everything.

[Mark]

I generally have a moderately positive view of the administration but I find this deeply, deeply disturbing. Essentially they are trying to squash dissenting opinion, which is un-American; such ruthlessness and fierce control may be how you achieve things behind the scenes in DC but it is not the way America should operate. Fox is of course biased, but it is a lone conservative voice in a sea of liberal media bias, from the New York Times to CNN to MSNBC on down--I know; I work in the media.

It's very disturbing to me that Obama and his administration would attack the singular conservative channel. What is it with liberals, anyway? They control almost the entire media and yet have a visceral paranoia of the few conservative media outlets, like Fox and talk radio. Does it matter that they have their own radio station, Air America? No, they still want to re-introduce the fairness doctrine to reign in Limbaugh.

I find that kind of attitude, the paranoid rush to silence criticism, deeply telling. I have always despised such chicanery. The fact that the entire administration is embroiled in it really speaks volume about their attitudes at large.

[Tim]

Only communists and wanna-be dictators control the media. Only complicit or dishonest media allow themselves to be controlled.

[owen]

How could saying something that is obvious to anyone with a pulse be 'politically risky'? How is it possible to conceive of a FOX news fan that may support Obama? Or even someone who tunes in periodically and is ging to change his vote becuase he doesn't see Summers or Axelrod? ridiculous.

[Chas]

It's obvious Fox is not a real news agency. Since when does a news agency accuse? CNN and MSNBC could do better also. News agencies should stop giving opinion and just deliver the news like Walter Cronkite did. Instead of reporting, "Sarah Palin said today that the Obama administration is creating Death Panels to kill our elderly. The White House denies it." They need to investigate and add, "Our investigation of the 3 healthcare bills reveals that Palin's charge is totally unfounded." But instead they say, "Let's hear what Maude Perkins from Nashville thinks..." BTW, want to see Glenn Beck's (or Obama's) record for telling the truth? Look at politifact dot com. Unbiased and only the truth.

[swf]

Fox boldly dissemenates politically charged misinformation, but it's the FCC's job to call in their news license, if any such thing exists in the cable world, and not the President's.

[Ange Lobue, MD, MPH, BSPharm]

Risky Business?

American media corporations which support the radical views of the right wing, racist mouthpiece, Fox News Network, by giving them EQUAL weight in manufactured debates labeled "news," should be considered co-conspirators fomenting anti-American unrest bordering on treason, a right not protected by the First Amendment.

To be considered news rather than propaganda or opinion, reportage should be devoid of opinion, without inflammatory sensationalization through exagerated content or attacking style.

The idea that Americans should be forced to choose between competing, simplistic, absurdly fanatical positions on every public issue is not only insulting to our intellect, but a corruption of critical thinking.

The inability to tolerate the tension of holding a complex thought in one's gaze is evidence of unstable mental function and should be called out wherever it appears as proposed public policy.

Google Borderline Personality Disorder to learn more about a disorder, a sub-clinical form of which may be of epidemic proportions in America today.

Ange Lobue, MD, MPH, BSPharm
American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
trinidadca@gmail.com

[David George DeVries]

Does not freedom of speech not include the White House?

Why should the Republican Party not be vulnerable to its obvious transparentcy?

I'm a Republican. I've seen many obvious transparentcies,
I have not voted for a Republican President for three (3) terms.

It is a real shame what "George Bush" did to cripple a fine party. DDV

[Sharon Zirn]

I am afraid to exercise my first amendment.

[Justin Niklaus]

Glen said the word "YOU" 20 times in 2 minutes, a little FYI for YOU ppl out there.

[Robert Alexander]

Fox News!?

I believe what they have conspired to do for the sake of profit and not for the sake of professional journalism, is what has been done successfully in the world of Infomercials. Stage a mock up news room and pretend to interview an expert (really the guy or gal selling snake oil) on how to lose ten pounds in a day without so much as lifting a muscle. In the case of Fox, it is how to stimulate the economy without doing anything at all and if some muscle must be lifted, make it the opposite of the Obama administration is either thinking or doing.

Fox News is the title of an Infomercial series, fencing a fundamentally conservative product (possibly snake oil) in the guise of a legitimate news broadcast.

Professional journalism is Wolf Blitzer, as second nature, seeking the weak link, asking a six year old a question that opens up a can of worms. Professional journalism is investigative. It is non partisan. It will go equally for the juglar of an ethics commitee chairman/chairwoman who is found with porn chat sessions on his/her computer, Democrat, Independent or Republican.

Fox, on the extreme other hand, is the quintessential Infomercial. A fundamentalist conservative Republican found with such stuff would find a sympathetic ear on Fox and they would try the best they could to link an undercover liberal staffer with a criminal background of 10 unpaid DC parking tickets and a warrant, as the "real" criminal culprit. And if that was not good enough, in light of overwhelming evidence, they would find a senior Democrat who wore pink underwear and call him a Sissy, equally abhorrent to Fox as any hypocritical GOP politician.

[a.olinde]

I watch all channels from time to time, and have experienced the right leaning bias of Fox, sometimes subtle sometimes raw as in Beck and Limbaugh as examples, but even in daily news.
I fear that this type of broadcasting is responsible for the extreme hate I hear at times from some of my aquaintances- near psychotic in usually normal people!

[hlj]

Questionable game the WH and Rahmbo are playing. Alinsky playbook perhaps?
Obviously they don't have enough on their plate to do? Then again, I'd rather have them worrying about Glenn Beck and Hannity than trying to fix things. They've done a crappy job so far so maybe it will save us from what they have next up their corrupt, sleezy Chicago thug sleeves.

[Fill]

I used to like and watch Fox News a few years ago. But, boy they got pretty weird. I'm not a huge Daily Show fan (I don't think some of the dumb skits and things are all that funny), and Jon definitely leans way left. But, dang, can he put the finger on the contradictions that Fox News pulls (and CNBC, CNN, etc. too).

I worry for the people who watch Fox News and actually believe the Fair and Balanced tag line. In reality I don't think you can have a bias-free news outlet, but OMG, Glenn Beck? Hannity? O'Reilly? It's conservative yelling and hate that's painful to watch.

[CasualViewer]

Anita Dunn said it was "irony"???? I saw the video... I did not see any irony...

[Lowell]

Your closing line - "don't these folks have something better to do" - is kind of flip coming from someone who works in an industry that has been heavily damaged by the blurring of the line between journalism and "infotainment."

Journalism is being assailed relentlessly. If it dies, what will become of our democracy? And if it dies, what blame can groups like Fox share?

And if it dies, how much of the blame will lay at the feet of journalists who didn't speak out?

[John, Ventura CA]

Perhaps the Obama regime is so sensitive about Fox, because Fox is hitting close to home? It's interesting that everytime Fox breaks a story like Acorn or Van Jones, the President and his administration throw them under the bus and distance themselves...? Perhaps where there's smoke there's fire and Fox is just better at sniffing it out?

[Jane Sharpe]

It seems to me that this administration is thin-skinned, paranoid and at the same time arrogant. They are just unbelievable!

[JJGH]

Found this from a Blog on About.com:

"It's astounding the White House cannot distinguish between news and opinion programming," Clemente said. "It seems self-serving on their part."

"The Obama administration is fighting a losing war with Fox, and should concentrate on the Taliban. Fox has the highest news ratings for a reason, and Obama's ratings are dropping. They should shut up and take the criticism and stop whining about blaming Fox for biased news. With so many liberal kiss Obama's butt news networks, they should be grateful that only one network doesn't cowtow to Obama's crapoganda."

[Todd Gatts]

I don't really have a problem with The Administration asking news organizations to stop reporting the silly things Fox News is broadcasting. The only thing really being asked of news organizations is to make sure they are reporting news and not meta-news ... news about news. When Fox News breaks a story, first decide whether Fox News breaking the story IS the story. If Fox News is the story, then don't repeat it. So, if Fox News says, "Obama is stupid!" Go find out whether Obama is stupid. If he is, report it. If he isn't, don't fall back on reporting that Fox News reported that Obama is stupid. That's not news, that's news about news, and we don't need any more of that. -- Todd Gatts

[Dangerous]

Having the executive branch of the government attack a news organization is very dangerous. They do not have to like what Fox News or anyone else says, tough. This is at best a subtle subversion of the 1st amendement gaurantee.

It is time to grow up and toughen up. You think any of the last presidents like what the media said about them? The administation needs to make their case and provide a clear and rational argument for what they want to do. The media will do what they do.

[Robert]

Beck is a disgusting idiot. Here is treasonous individual making millions for being polarizing and toxic. Beck called the POTUS a racist, a socialist, and a Marxist. All completely slanderous lies. Yet here is Beck and Fox crying victim. This is ridiculous. My violin is playing for the poor republican "victims". Beck and Fox better watch themselves. The vast majority of Americans don't like them and don't think promoting violence and racism and hate is good for America. Their entire viewership are right wing crazy confederates.

[J Ziegler]

The administration shows serious weakness when it can't stand up to a cable news network that simply doesn't support everything the President says or does. Good thing we have no opposition in the world, or we would really be in trouble as a country. It’s scary..

[BriLynn]

it's all diversionary tactics to divert the masses from the obamination that is the health care debacle. is everyone really so dumb as to think it's about the FNC? Gimme a break.
Don't forget to write your senators and representatives and tell them what they should be doing on your behalf. I personally will be voting mine OUT for goose stepping with the goons in the white house...and oh yeah, I'm a chicago democrat, these thugs have gone too far.

[benito]

If the White House could admit that NBC, the NY Times et al. are the lapdogs of the DNC, it would have more credibility. But no, as usual it's heads we win tails you lose. I want access to points of view other than the government's, regardless of which party is in charge.

[MichaelT]

Maybe the White House is on to something. There is no doubt Fox is far right in its news and views. Why would the WH not treat them as an opponent? Only the temerity of the "liberal media" has kept them playing follow-the-leader on this. At some point someone needs to say "the king has no clothes on."

[Karl Quick]

I watch/listen to BBC, Fox NEWS, CNN, ABC News, PBS and others via internet, Sirius radio and via cable.

Some of the most insulting stuff about Obama has come from the BBC and other British outlets. Fox NEWS shows have always been very respective but every bit as tough as they have on Bush. Some Fox News OPINION shows ARE very critical of administration policy and motives.

But most of all, the attack is DUMB STRATEGY!

Thousands of Obama supporters will tune in and when what they hear does not match the impression the Whitehouse has presented, they will begin to wonder about other things they hear from the administration.... and it does not take listening to Fox News to hear many of the president's own words that he later has to take back, or "recalibrate".

In particular....

By attacking Fox News, the Whitehouse has given credibility to Glen Beck that he could NEVER have earned on his own.

Big Mistake: Glen Beck is NO Republican.... he skewered Bush for YEARS. He is sometimes a libertarian, sometimes a populist, but always INDEPENDENT. Do you remember that he was hired away from CNN (or was it MSNBC?) less than 2 years ago? Do you remember that the INDEPENDENT (anti Bush) vote made the difference in electing President Obama?

Oh! ...maybe I see the strategy! ...promote Glen Beck, inspiring the "we hate both parties" crowd to form a 3rd party AND split the conservative vote in 2012!

Remember, President Clinton won in 1992 with a minority of the vote because the conservative and anti-government vote split between George H. W. Bush and independent Perot!

Damn good strategy! ...and another example of the "transparency" of the most administration that was going to bring us all together!!!!

[Tim]

I think that the White House should stick to the facts, and don't get so wrapped up about who says what over the airwaves. If they can produce real results, the proof will be in the pudding. Most people perceive FOX to be fairly conservative, and the other networks are fairly liberal. Shouldn't politicians stay out of it?

[thx1138]

PURE POWER Image

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

[Ronin]

War with faux news? No, the Whitehouse simple said what everyone thinks. Calling faux news a news media is like calling the National Enquirerer a fact finding newspaper. The management of Fox should be fired and new intelligent personnel should be found to manage it.

[thx1138]

"We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us; so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instance of death we cannot permit any deviation . . . we make the brain perfect before we blow it out."

[Sue Maple]

I do not see how it could be "risky." FOX News, for example, has taken Republican congressmen who were experiencing negative publicity and labeled their pictures as Democrats on more than one occasion. Coverage like this example is not conservative "opinion" it is bad journalism and there are many example like this. I do not see why it is risky to correct continuing factual errors in Fox reporting, which appear to be common on the network based on my experience.

[thx1138]

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

[Karl Quick]

Please remember candidate Obama's promise of transparency.

We are not convinced we KNOW what the president wants....
- just follow the remarks about "government option" from the president and his staff.
- just follow the strategy he outlines in March for Afghanistan.... where are the "thousands" of state dept people who were suppose to come in to help win the war by expanding it from "just a military solution".
- consider the fact that we have now outlawed "torture" of enemies captured on the field of battle, WHILE greatly expanded the use of remote control aircraft to kill the enemy while they sleep in the own homes. Does that represent a more "humane" strategy?

These are not questions that come from Fox News... they spring up in our own minds when we listen to what is going on, regardless of the source. (In fact, I would expect the majority of Fox News people back the increased use of Predator drones, since they generally view the "war on terror" as more important than the "war on insurance companies".)

[William]

Anita Dunn has stated that the Obama Campaign and Administration has controlled the media coverage of their agenda, and refused to allow questions that they do not want to answer. Fox has not followed the other major media markets by asking questions that the White House will not answer. These questions are valid and of concern to many of the American people. This "war on Fox" is the White House response. Calling Fox "not a news organization" shows how contemptuous the President and his minions are of the American People and their desire to question the agenda.
Disagreement with the Administration is met with dismissal, ridicule, and disdain. This is "Change we can believe in?"

[News Fan]

I agree entirely, Fox is not a news network

[Gary T]

I dunno...I wrote to the White House twice asking that they suggest a news organization that would provide me with the news and commentary the White House wants me to hear. They haven't gotten back to me yet.

[Harold]

I don't think FOX is attacking anyone. There are videos of Anita Dunn,
shall we say Chairman Dunn. They weren't altered like the Palin interviews were. No one "hates" Obama, American's hate what his policies are doing in destroying this country. Big difference. Old Anita shot herself in the foot by basically telling the world that she's a communist. All she has to do is say she's not, right. Obama and his staff may think there privileged but their track record stinks. Every other week there's something wrong. Acorn, Van Jones, Anita Dunn, Obama's past ( or lack there of ) and the Chicago mob. I though Bush was the worst.

[Hamoth]

"happens to feature quite a few conservative voices. "??

They actively create and promote republican protests and call the president a nazi. CNN happens to feature quite a few conservative voices. Fox features nothing but conservative-fringe screaming.

The way people act, it's like Obama decided to hunt down this poor defenseless company or something. They have been attacking democrats as a central aspect of their business for about 20 years now. Somebody finally steps up to them, and he's portrayed as the instigator. This is madness!

[Susan]

Like Nixon: Dick had his "enemy's list." Obama now has his -- conservative media. It's nuts. Obama is just as thin-skinned and intolerant of those who oppose him as Nixon was.

[John A. Millard, M.D.]

Maybe someone should introduce the Constitution to President Obama. I believe there's something in there about free speech and a free press!

[Tim Haugen]

Fox "News" the propaganda arm of the GOP? Sort of like calling the Universe "big". It's blatantly obvious that the self-described "fair and balanced" network is anything but.