I think those who anticipate some kind of pan-media backlash from other organizations seeing this as an attack on “the Press” as a whole are mistakenly assuming that anyone in the legit media regards Fox as actually being part of the Press, or feels any solidarity with them, especially since no other network on television spends as much time attacking a demonizing the legit news media as Fox does.
There isn’t going to be any backlash. The “MSM” is not going to come running to FNC’s defense.
Today’s such an era in which cute cat videos and videos about homely, middle-aged, amateur English singers can “go viral” and be seen by millions of people, do you really think this is a possibility?
IIRC, Fleischer’s comment was directed at encouraging the media to keep governmental secrets secret. The criticism of Fox has to do with bias in journalism. Those are quite different things, other than “someone in the White House said something about journalism.” If that’s your standard of debate, Nixon once made a funny joke at a White House Correspondent’s Dinner, so if Obama criticizes Fox, people will enjoy hearing Obama’s comments.
If Bush had said something similar about CNN, for example, then it would be a different case. Different in that you can’t compare “Rush Limbaugh or Michael Moore are biased media figures who play fast and loose with the facts” with “David Brooks and Tim Russert are biased media figures who play fast and loose with the facts.” See the difference?
And sensationalist at the end. As to the OP: I think these statements (recall the Rush Limbaugh “controversy” at the beginning of the term) part of an ongoing and overt strategy to marginalize individuals and organizations that the administration feels make a habit of disseminating disinformation.
Regardless of the argument that one can make about the wisdom of taking on someone who buys ink by the barrel, it is hard to see how coverage on certain media outlets toward the president and his party could get worse.
Weakness? Well, I suppose I’d rather elected politicians in general be less savvy regarding the possible interpretation of press secretary/aide/whomever drabblings and more focused on policy in general, so that aspect I will leave for others more interested.
However, anyone who sees this as an assault of any kind on the first amendment is quite off base, since, as we all know, that amendment concerns protection of the press from official government sanction, and we have seen no indication of its abridgement based on these critical comments by representatives of the administration.
<ruminating> I suppose it is quite forthcoming to suggest that one’s political opponents should simply ignore criticism directed at them. IME, it appears that this has the effect of allowing unchallenged statements to become the ‘common wisdom’… and that much harder to dislodge from the public consciousness. I can also see possible benefit of tying FOX and GOP together. Anyone got those FOX approval numbers yet? </ruminating>
Come on. I don’t think the White House should do this kind of thing at all, and it’s a stupid strategy to boot, but if you stood on top of this statement and looked down, you would not even be able to see where “over the top” is.
The Obama administration has adopted this kind of style from day one. Nobody benefits when the White House starts fighting with the press. It’s not good for the press, it hurts the level of discourse nationwide, and it does not help the White House. You cannot outtalk people who get paid to talk for a living. Nobody’s going to vote out Fox News next November.
No there aren’t, and the government is not “attacking” Fox News. The White House is just making a truthful statement that it’s not really a news organization (I don’t know how much of it you see up there, but it has degraded in recent months to being an out and out, 24 hour political opinion network – i.e. it’s all conservative hosted political opinion shows, with all conservative panels – with maybe 2 or 3 minutes of actual news reportage per hour. It’s virtually identical to a conservative talk radio format now – one right wing host after another with some brief little news breaks in between. There’s not even a pretense of objectivity anymore), and that, while it will still go on the shows, it will do so with the recognition that it’s a political organization, not a news organization.
This White House is not telling Fox what to do.
It’s telling other networks to mindful that Fox is not a news organization, and not to accept its claims at face value. That is truthful. Fox is not a news organization.
Bush tried it all the time. He demonized the media constantly and called it a “filter.”
There was no anti-Bush organization analogous to Fox, though.
The problem is that these Fox stories are false. They are not “breaking” on Fox, they are being fabricated by Fox.
It’s not just that Fox is biased–Fox is partisan. Rabidly partisan. There is a vast difference between the two, and I’m glad the White House is no longer going to play Fox’s reindeer games.
I think the timing is brilliant. Fox has long antagonized legitimate media outlets, pretending to be the “real” news source. This was embodied by/culminated in their recent Teabagger ads (the ones where they pretended to excoriate other news outlets for not covering their promotional events). Not only was there blatant hypocrisy between their war and tea protest coverage, a few days later they gave virtually no coverage to the gay rights rallies.
So on the heels of a relatively failed smear against the real media (the teabag ad), Fox is going to garner much support?
I dare say this promotes First Amendment values. The value isn’t just in the right to speech, it is in promoting civil discourse. Fox, with its overtly partisan stream of lies and mischaracterizations is repugnant to the ideals and aspirations of the First Amendment.
I hope this creates an atmosphere in which legitimate news sources aren’t cowed into covering such inanities as death panels.
Fox News is not the Press.
It makes him look weak. You could say the same thing about him in this situation that many said about Sarah Palin during the campaign - if he’s unwilling to go toe to toe with some Sunday morning talk show host, how can we expect him to play hardball against the likes of Putin.
Granted Obama playing nice with Fox News probably isn’t going to win him many converts among its audience. But picking a fight isn’t going to make anyone stop watching it either.
“And that’s why—there was an earlier question about has the President said anything to people in his own party—they’re reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.”
-Ari Fleischer
It wasn’t that long ago, Sam Stone, so do I really need to explain to you why people objected to what Fleischer said here? He was speaking about Bill Maher but specifically broadened his comments beyond the press to say “all Americans … need to watch what they say.” It’s pretty close to the last thing a White House flak should ever say: it was a heavy handed and threatening response to a statement made by a comedian.
It underscores why the Obama White House should not be doing what they are doing with regard to Fox News, because from their standpoint, the risk is they are going to sound like Fleischer, who gets distinctly Big Brothery in this quote.
There is a give and take between reporters and any source. People who write something the source views favorably will get more access, those who don’t get left out. This can get very coercive and nepotistic, and under the Bush administration, it got extremely coercive and nepotistic. Since “Rush Limbaugh is the face of the Republican Party,” the Obama administration has been adopting some of these tactics. That’s not good for anyone.
The media is a filter. And you have to have pretty thin skin to think being called a ‘filter’ is demonizing.
Well said.
They’re part of it. I don’t expect the White House to start doing this with other news outlets, but one reason this is a bad idea is that you never know. And it’s not really that easy to isolate one news organization from the rest of the press: if Fox reports something and other news organizations deem it to be newsworthy, it’s going to be covered elsewhere. And from the standpoint of the public, if any stories get buried because Fox doesn’t get them any no on else notices, that’s a loss.
Agreed. I don’t like Fox News either (even not considering its politics, I’ve always found it too tabloidy) but the White House calling it out like this brings to mind a well-used but applicable simile about why you shouldn’t wrestle pigs.
No, it just translates into: “I am better than that. I don’t argue with people who are not interested in a real discussion. I don’t argue with stupid people.”.
I’m curious, has Fox ever had a liberal-themed talk show? There was Hannity and Colmes, but Colmes was little more than a punching bag for his co-host. I’m talking about shows like Glenn Beck or the O’Reilly Factor, but hosted by someone with a liberal bent. Has anything like that ever been on Fox?
Did the pope ever give a positive statement on abortion?
I think Geraldo has a weekend show. He might be the clsoset thing to a liberal host.
MSNBC at least has Joe Scarborough.
At the risk of hijacking my own thread: There are plenty of people who are far from conservative who reject that reading of Fleisher’s comment.
You can only do this once. If you call someone stupid, say you won’t argue with them, and then walk away forever, it works. If you say it a second time, you will soon find yourself saying it for the millionth time.
Where’s the quote from Obama saying that he is in anyway going to directly attack Fox News?
Sure, one of his representatives pointed out correctly that Fox “News” is pushing a specific ideological point of view in a way that is unlike any other examples in the mainstream media. Big deal.
This justifies a “Obama vs. Fox” thread title? Come on.