Saturday, July 16, 2011

Obama’s War on Fox News

Well, this isn’t surprising at all.

Rewind to October 2009: Fox News Channel and the White House were at war. In one particularly heated incident, Fox claimed the Obama administration had tried to oust the “fair & balanced” network from an interview with Treasury official Kenneth Feinberg, when the other four news nets in the TV coverage pool had been offered access. In the end, Fox was included, and a Treasury Department spokesman snarled: “There was no plot to exclude Fox News, and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing.”

Emails that surfaced last week, however, through a public records request by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, suggest otherwise.

“We’d prefer if you skip Fox please,” a White House broadcast media staffer advised a Treasury Department public affairs secretary ahead of the interview. In other emails during the same time frame, deputy White House communications director Jennifer Psaki called Fox News anchor Bret Baier “a lunatic” and boasted that “I am putting some dead fish in the fox cubby—just cause.” In yet another email, another White House press officer wrote: “We’ve demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews …”

Proof of an anti-Fox agenda in the Oval Office? Judicial Watch thinks so.

“These documents show there is a pervasive anti-Fox bias in the Obama White House,” said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton in a statement. “The juvenile Mafioso-talk in these emails has no place in any White House. For the Obama administration to purposely exclude a major news organization from access to information has troubling First Amendment implications.”

(10) Comments
Posted by Owen at 0818 hrs
Politics + Politics - General

  1. Poor Fox. Its parent company embroiled in an international scandal…and now this.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 16, 2011 at 0917 hrs


  2. There was no need to include Fox.

    News Corp already had the info off a hacked cell phone.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 16, 2011 at 0919 hrs


  3. 1st Amendment? HA! Since when did the Constitution stop him?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 16, 2011 at 1100 hrs


  4. Your 1st Amendment rights don’t include the right to force the White House to talk to your new organization. Maybe if Fox showed even the remotest interest in covering both sides of the political spectrum equally, people wouldn’t purposely avoid the network. It’s Fox News’ own dumb fault if they don’t get all the unlimited access they want.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 16, 2011 at 1138 hrs


  5. Back in those days newly elected, inexperienced Pres Obama got a dose of reality that he probably never expected. The Unions and others forced him to bail them out and the economy was slipping fast. To top it off his own party handed him 2700 pages of gobbly kook they called his health plan rather then a plan that got him elected. He had plenty to be upset about.

    It seems to me that all these things would change a persons mind about some of the prejudices they previously had. I remember when George Bush Sr. during an interview, I think on CBS, not in these words but essentially told them to stick it. The public at the time loved it but lets not forget he didn’t win a second term.

    The press is a powerful force and should be treated with respect regardless if its Fox, CNN or any of the networks and local providers.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 16, 2011 at 1233 hrs


  6. Can you imagine what the left would’ve said if Bush had tried to exclude MSNBC from a group interview?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 16, 2011 at 1447 hrs


  7. Amazing how quiet the left is since 11/08.  Imagine Scott Pelley reading off a White House script during a Bush interview. 

    Wouldn’t happen…

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 16, 2011 at 1846 hrs


  8. Ace,
    Yeah, you mean like when Bush put the people that did not agree with him in “free speech zones” about a mile from wherever he was appearing?

    Give me a break! Fox News is about as fair and impartial toward the Republicans as Joseph Goebbels was toward Der Fuehrer. CNN at least approaches the journalism of the CBS news of the Edward R. Murrow era where the network news believed it had a duty to be the 4th estate rather the lapdog of the corporate interests.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 17, 2011 at 1736 hrs


  9. While there is no question that Fox News is a Republican mouthpiece, it is hard to imagine that virtually all of the other main news networks are not Liberal mouthpieces.  Note, I used the words Republican and Liberal on purpose as opposed to conservative or Democrat.  I do think the rest of mainstream media pushes a liberal agenda rather than a Democratic one.  The difference is fine but distinct.  Democrats that screw up(get your Wieners here!) or get suddenly sensible, I mean conservative, get dragged through the same mud as Republicans.  Dave, CNN only ‘approaches’ neutral journalism if you are a Liberal.  Defend a news outlet that a conservative also respects and we could talk.  I hate most Republicans as much as any other Liberal, but I don’t see responsible journalism anywhere.  Give me a break indeed.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 18, 2011 at 0756 hrs


  10. They sound pretty similar to me, with the trippy, muffled feel. I’m not saying that the lyrics, or the music is ripped off, just the style.

    Posted by iPhone on August 10, 2011 at 0447 hrs


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