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Memo to Snyder: Don’t stop the radical reforms now!The White House vs. Fox: Fox wins
October 12th, 2009 | 
Author: 
Bob Franken
Is it me or does anyone else have an impression that White House Communications Director Anita Dunn has a second job…that she is a public relations spokesperson for Fox News? What else would possess her to declare that FNC is not a news organization at all but “…often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party”.
PR for the Republican Party.
What else could she possibly utter that would cause the right wing nuts and any others not enamored of the Obama Administration to lock their TV remotes on the network’s channel wherever they live? It’s hard to imagine a siren song more seductive to them. Rupert Murdoch and/or Roger Ailes surely sent her flowers after she said that.
The only other possibility is that the Obama group is so bent out of shape when someone doesn’t follow the message of the day that its members don’t realize they are downright petulant.
It doesn’t matter that Fox is generally slanted toward the right…shamelessly so. Even though there are many fine journalists who work there, the story selection and tone during straight news reporting is almost always conservative, to say nothing of the bulk of its “personalities”, guests, and most blatantly, its strategy of becoming a megaphone for the partisans who organize contrivances like the so-called “Tea Parties”.
That’s what happens when news business becomes show business. That’s what happens when the corporate decisions have nothing whatsoever to do with a responsibility to adequately inform those who vote and everything to do with currying favor with one mass of true believers or another. Those of the conservative persuasion are just as convinced that other media, particularly MSNBC, are nothing but shills for the Democrats, and they too can make a persuasive case.
Here’s the problem: A White House of either party can seriously inhibit a news organization by freezing it out. The way the Washington reporting game is played requires access to the newsmakers. Obviously, the bulk of those come from the people in power. When one network or another, or one paper or another is frozen out or ostracized it can seriously inhibit its ability to play the game. And when the motivation is that it isn’t part of the administration’s team we have a situation comparable to the Nixon “Enemies List”, where the power of government was turned on those who didn’t follow orders.
That’s one reason why Anita Dunn should abandon the campaign against Fox News. But it’s not the best reason. The best reason is that it’s a dumb strategy, it’s counter-productive, it plays right into the hands of Fox News, which thrives on victimhood. Don’t we all.
The only thing that might work is some sort of popular movement that holds news organizations accountable for the reporting they do. Before that can happen, we’ll need to decide if we’re even interested in getting substantive information about our government and society or if we prefer the fluffy entertainment and simple-mindedness we’re fed today.
As for the politicians, they need to acknowledge that their public opinion manipulations take full advantage of the triviality which news organizations dole out instead of news these days. On both sides they should stop whining about them. They only encourage them.
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What this war of words is really about is the frustration of Obama and Congress when Fox points out the truth. Obama and Congress do not want the truth to get in the way of them pushing an agenda that is contrary to the will of the people. Democrats will drop like flies in the next election. We need to vote them out before they plunge the next generation into a financial abyss.
Fox News is a gigantic news media out to propagate Republican Party’s ideology. The best answer to them by the Obama White House is to ignore them and let the public judge who is telling the truth or not.
This Administration acts as if it won a mandate by majority – a veritable landslide, and acts upon the false premise it did. It doesn’t look at the numbers very well. The top 13 of 20 News-related shows on cable and broadcast are owned or produced by Fox. More than half of the news audiences name Fox as its preferred news source.
Obama won by capturing 54.3% of a 54.6% voter turnout. Multiplying the numbers means an effective winning percentage of really 30.1% of eligible voters. More than half of them now watch Fox news, so he is missing a chance for a supportive ear. Fox may be conservatively more than liberally slanted, but a person can not discount true liberals sharing viewpoints like Greta, Geraldo, Brett, Shepard, and the becoming-more-mainstream Libertarian O’Reilly. (If you don’t believe it, watch how liberal his show has become since Obama appeared last year, and O’s fulsome praise of Obama in PARADE Magazine this past summer…)
More and more viewers are expressing dismay and anger the Established Liberal Media (ELM)is not only liberally slanting news for the White House, in many cases they aren’t getting stories covered the Administration doesn’t want covered – but finding out about it through Fox or the internet. There will be an accounting, and more and more of the ELM is going to drown in red ink if it doesn’t wake up.
Great points, Bob. Thank you.
Fox News can also be called, The Jesus Channel/ GOP TV/ The Glorious Official Republican Government News Network.
While Fox News has the highest ratings, it’s also the same group of people that make up just 20% of America’s electorate… the far right-wing of the GOP.
There will always be an audience for the far right and that’s Rupert Murdock’s Fox News demographic.
Rupert keeps them frothing at the mouth with manufactured fear and GOP talking-points, phony outrage.
Fox is also a right-wing echo chamber.. notice that when “The Wall Street Journal”, “The Weekly Standard” people are on Fox News there’s never disclosure that these people are all Rupert Murdock employees.
Imagine if MSNBC or CNN did this… I don’t know how Fox News gets way with constantly recycling Rupert Murdock’s employees (sockpuppets) from his various media properties.
There’s hardly a word on the “MSM” about Murdock’s world wide (far right-wing) media empire.
Murdock has a lot of influence, example: all of his various sockpuppets, Hannity, Beck, etc, and all of Murdock’s worldwide media holdings trash global warming, President Obama and anything else right-wing Rupert Murdock dislikes.
I think that press and especially individual journalists are deathly afraid of Rupert Murdock and what he can do to them professionally.
Rupert Murdock is the new William Randolph Hearst.
Another thing, Sarah Palin, who is a favorite among the Faux News/ Right-wing crowd is getting Rupert Murdock’s wingnut welfare.
Palin’s (Rupert Murdock’s ghostwriter) book publisher is HarperCollins… a wholly owned Rupert Murdock subsidiary, you ‘betcha.
Also, there should be an award given to the guy that writes the ominous, scary music for Fox News… he’s obviously a full-time employee.
No seriously… whenever there’s a special where Rupert Murdock wants to convince Americans that
Saddam Hussein has WMD, or that Iran/North Korea is going to attack America tomorrow, or a Hannity or Beck segment where they want to scare their right-wing audience (even more) there’s always that ominous music to go along with the story.
It’s like a scary GOP music video.
David:
“Imagine if MSNBC or CNN did this… ”
Heh? When was the last time you watched MSNBC or CNN? Wolf Blitzer fact-checking an SNL skit because it was critical of Obama? What?
Speaking of sockpuppets, did the DNC E-mail you their daily talking points this morning?
Sounds like it.
MSNBC is TOTALLY in the tank for Obama, and in this piece, Franken totally shows his bias.
Why is it that whenever Liberals are confronted with the truth, with logic that they cannot refute, they resort to name-calling, to attempting to kill the messenger? If MSNBC can shill for the president 24/7, why can’t FOX have a viewpoint? Could it be that it’s because they refuse to bow down to the GREAT O? I am sickened by the fawning coverage of the government and its march toward totali
tarianism. Virtually every other network is in the tank for the pres. Can those of us who think otherwise not have ONE news outlet that’s not afraid to broadcast the truth?
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Happily, there are signs that the Obama administration is beginning to have second thoughts about the wisdom of engagement. It has resisted China’s call for “emergency” talks with North Korea, on the grounds that reopening negotiations would amount to a reward for bad behavior.
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