I don’t often agree with John Nichols of The Nation magazine, but he nails it in the lead when commenting on President Obama’s stupid war with the Fox News Channel. Nichols writes, “The Obama administration really needs to get over itself.”
There’s more, and you can read it here … what an embarrassing pompous performance by Anita Dunn, White House communications director, who told CNN, “What I think is fair to say about Fox … is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party.” Now, understand, Dunn would never say this without Obama’s OK, so what we are really hearing is Obama’s thoughts on the most popular cable news network — one that leans right in its evening opinion programming but otherwise plays its down the middle during its hard news hours.
If President Obama thinks that Fox News is a tool of the Republican Party – a party with about a 10 percent approval rating — he is being very foolish. The growth in viewership of Fox News this year, which distinguishes itself by not being reflectively obsequious to the commander in chief, has been accompanied by a decline in support for President Obama among independents. Despite what its many detractors may believe, independents are a big chunk of Fox News’ viewing audience. And many are not pleased with the Obama White House.
Perhaps Obama and Dunn think that a clumsy attempt to link Fox News with Republicans will cause independents to abandon the channel for White House Comfort Zone MSNBC or even CNN, which still commands viewer dominance in airport terminals. That won’t happen. Having the White House for an enemy is ratings gold for the network.
A final irony to all this comedy: According to the study by the Pew Research Center of six weeks late in the 2008 presidential campaign, Fox News had the most evenhanded coverage. Pew reports that both candidates, Sen. John McCain and Obama, had 40 percent negative news stories on Fox. In contrast, CNN had 61 percent negative McCain news stories and 39 percent negative Obama news stories. MSNBC had 73 percent negative McCain news stories and only 14 percent negative Obama news stories. Read
It’s tough for the Obama White House when one network has no reporters who feel a thrill go down their leg when the president speaks. But a White House temper tantrum is not the answer. There will always be irrational hatred of Fox News from people who never watch it, but the White House should rise above that ignorance.
Preston
on Oct 13th, 2009
@ 8:23 pm:
I’m genuinely worried about Obama’s intentions. I don’t think this is a political blunder, whether or not it gives Fox News better ratings right now. You could say Lenin just needed to get over himself; obviously he took himself too seriously to believe his politics deserved to prevail even if it took a bloody revolution. The fact that Obama believes his opponents don’t have 1st Amendment legitimacy means that, if he thinks he can do it, he will silence them forcibly. Study the actions of all despots and they all let their intentions be known ahead of time. They start by denouncing. And with this guy denouncing in a manner no president has ever done, we just might expect him to do things no other president has tried since Woodrow Wilson.
Midwinter
on Oct 13th, 2009
@ 9:50 pm:
It really doesn’t sound like it’s the Obama admin that’s having the tantrum. The admin is marginalizing a network that it perceives (rightly) as hostile to it, and now that network is raising a stink about it—and so are sympathetic blogs across the internet[s].
Eventually, FOX will get tired of this new drama and move on to something else and Obama will go on ignoring it, just like Bush ignored the Nation.
Neal Humphrey
on Oct 14th, 2009
@ 5:28 am:
I disagree with the “pompous” adjective. “Juvenile” would be more appropriate. The kid in the White House is an amateur.
Michael Trujillo
on Oct 14th, 2009
@ 9:11 am:
I can’t believe you’re defending Fox. You are truly leaving no stone unturned in your quest for conservative gold, even if it’s only fool’s gold.
As always, you find great comfort in polls and statistics, even though polls and statistics can be manipulated to mean just about anything. Furthermore, you show your own bias by using words like “embarrassing”, “pompous”, “thrill go their legs”, “irrational”, etc. Since this is a Blog, rather than a news article, you’re not obligated to stick to only the facts. This is a forum for you to share your feelings about news reported by other sources. OK. But what’s the point? Are you merely jumping up and down, shouting, “See. See. Look at this! I told you so!” If so, your Blog is simply an on-line tabloid; publishing an unflattering photo of a politician in a speedo at the beach or digging through a celeb’s garbage to find their drug store receipt.
Everyone but you knows that Fox in NOT a fair and balanced news channel. Television news has become as partisan as the politicians they cover. Fox has an agenda that you happen to agree with. The other 24 hr. news channels have agendas that you don’t agree with. It’s as simple as that. Obama dislikes your favorite news channel. Yikes. That’s big news in Utah, I suppose. Hey, it’s your Blog. You do what you want with it.
Just a note regarding the irrelevance of your Pew statistics as you’ve presented them: 1) What is negative coverage? Neither Pew nor you define it. 2) What were the “actual” positive and negative events occurring during the campaign that the various news channels were reporting on? In effect, which news channel came closest to getting the negative/positive ratio of reportable news right? Neither you nor Pew say. 3) How did Pew measure the tone of a story? Was a story negative if 2 out of 3 paragraphs were “negative” but the 3rd was “positive”? Neither Pew nor you say.
So, the belief that news is balanced as long as there are equal parts positive and negative is idiotic. That’s why news should be “measured” or judged by how factual it is. Let the facts fall where they may.
Mark Shenefelt
on Oct 14th, 2009
@ 10:46 am:
Comically, some paranoids are perceiving Obama’s criticisms of FOX as the early stages of a nefarious plan to forcibly shut up and shut down the network. What balderdash. It proves the fringe of the right detects an evil conspiracy under every rock.
I agree with Doug that it’s at best a waste of time for the administration to be so aggressive-defensive with a TV network. It uncomfortably reminds one of the “nattering nabobs of negativism” from Spiro Agnew. However, Doug and cohorts are making too much of a relatively insignificant media tiff, and that highlights their need to find anything and everything with which to browbeat Obama.
One possible clarification: It think the infamous Chris Matthews comment was about a thrill going up his leg, not down?
Doug Gibson
on Oct 14th, 2009
@ 10:54 am:
Mark, I think the White House remarks are significant when you consider that the Democratic Party base has already cowed Democratic Party presidentials candidates from having debates on Fox News.
That type of intolerance, and the submitting to it by pols, has always bothered me about the Democrats. Republicans have no problem debating on MSNBC … not that they’re asked. Pat Buchanan is that network’s “conservative.”
Michael Tessmer
on Oct 14th, 2009
@ 6:10 pm:
Michael before you start attacking the author for not having the facts first. Fact 1 Do some research before you attack Doug for talking about Chris Matthews having a thrill go up his legs theres video all over youtube. if your willing to subject yourself to facts that dont support your view. 2nd of all, this is a blog hes giving his opinion. opinions are biased in nature. Third. Just giving facts alone is not enough to prove that a network is bias or not bias. I judge a networks bias based on how they present a story. One side may have their facts to base their arguments on how they side on a position and of course the other side may base their arguments based on other facts. When a network such as CNN or MSNBC or any of the other networks, I believe deliberately report facts that only back one argument devote a considerable amount of time to the ones side argument to the report and then mention maybe a sentence to the opposition followed by a comeback argument against that sides argument. Could you not see how that might be considered as biased but yet that happens everyday with the Leftist networks. Certain issues or positions are presented as matter of fact as thats the way it is or they misrepresent the opposition, using strawman arguments instead of accurately reporting what the other sides position clearly is. Sadly Fox News is the closest to this when its just a hard news show. In the evenings when they have opinion Pundits such as Hannity, O reilly, Beck of course those are right wing shows, They dont make any bones about it. They dont try to hide their bias like all these other fake journalist on the 3 networks plus CNN. I dont have a problem with opinion type shows as long as its out in the open. What I do have a problem with fake journalism. Where the storyline for how a story will be is already written before any investigation is done. What now happens is the journalist then go and present facts that support that argument not letting any other facts they may find along the way get in the way. and one more thing it was actually Hillary Clintons staff and I believe her herself who had stated that Foxnews treated them more fairly than any of the other news media and shes hardly a member of the vast right wing conspiracy. Lastly how the President is acting as well as his administration is childish and embarrasing. Bush could have only hoped to have coverage half as good as Obama has gotten from the other networks that even Obama has mentioned voted for him. Bush never once tried to ignore a network and not take questions or not go on a network. Obama is not classy at all.
Al
on Oct 14th, 2009
@ 6:59 pm:
Doug, Republicans don’t need to debate on MSNBC because they have Fox covering all their sound bites for them already. [I'll leave aside the notion that Pat Buchanan, who referred to Obama's Nobel Prize as an affirmative action victory, seems not to be "conservative" enough for you.] Seriously, after literally decades of freaking out about the liberal media (up to and including at the level of sitting presidents) and a summerlong orgy of cheerleading the most ridiculous anti-Obama rhetoric, the Republicans are throwing a fit because their house organ got called a name by a Democrat? What phony outrage.
Trisha
on Oct 14th, 2009
@ 8:23 pm:
I just see this as the latest WhiteHouse temper tantrum. I am a Democrat who is quickly becoming disenchanted and beginning to question the motives of this administration. Some really “questionable” people have been hired into this administration and some really “questionable” activities have taken place. They really need to clean up their act before questioning anyone else’s motives!
Michael Trujillo
on Oct 14th, 2009
@ 8:23 pm:
To the Other Michael,
There’s a course called “Reading for comprehension” you might want to consider taking.
1. I didn’t “attack” Doug for talking about Chris Matthews, as you say. I criticized his choice of works, including “thrill go down their legs”. It doesn’t matter who originally said it, he used it to berate News networks.
2. You repeated what I said – that this is a Blog and Doug is sharing his feelings about what Anita Dunn said. So your point is ….?
3. I didn’t say, or even imply that reporting facts alone is “…enough to prove that a network is bias or not bias.” (sic) You might want to read my post again and figure out what I was ACTUALLY saying.
You like Fox. I don’t. So what? Doesn’t change the fact that the Pew Survey that Doug pulled his stats from is imprecise.
mick
on Oct 14th, 2009
@ 9:34 pm:
This President does not care what our recation is. These things he is doing is purposeful irregardless of how it looks to us. He is out to systematically crush freedom and liberty because he does not like the constitution. My guess is he had his fingers crossed behind his back when he swore to UPHIOLD and DEFEND the Constitution of The United States. To a man, we all must admit that we have a sense of something not right about him and the radical left of Pelosi, et al.. All of these Czars have socialist/radical/communist history. This is not a coincidence. We cannot underestimate him because his agenda has nothing to do with preserving our way of life. He dislikes the Constitution and his life’s mission is to fundamentally change it by doing an end run and collapsing our economy. Acorn/SEIU. He owns GM, he will own/control/ration health care. He will own and control energy with cap and trade. He will tax us to death with this climate change ruse. He is already taking steps to gain control over the internet thru the FCC. He is publicly announcing his targets, ie. FoxNews, now watch and see what he does about it. This is bad. He has further condemned those Iranian people who thirst and are willing to die for freedom by cutting important funding to democracy groups. This should not be a surprise to anyone as he stood by and watched as protesters to their election who by now have been dealt with. This President is not good when it comes to disspelling the office of the President and governing but I do not think that matters to him until he can reshape the country into a socialist democracy that he wants. Then, look out.
DennisR
on Oct 14th, 2009
@ 10:21 pm:
Most of the people in this administration have not matured mentally or emotionally beyond junior high. And it shows.
Al
on Oct 14th, 2009
@ 10:24 pm:
Every bit as eloquent and well-informed as a Fox News bulletin, Mick.
Michael Trujillo
on Oct 15th, 2009
@ 9:44 am:
How come the people with the most to say in defense of Fox and against Obama don’t know how to break their posts up into frikkin paragraphs?
Your points might be a little easier to digest if they weren’t written as one, long stream-of-consciousness rant.
laytonian
on Oct 15th, 2009
@ 6:48 pm:
” I judge a networks bias based on how they present a story. ”
….and I judge a standard.net contributor’s bias on how they present *their* story.
Kelvin
on Oct 18th, 2009
@ 2:15 pm:
And so when will news be news? My understanding is news are not supposed to give any point of view or opinions, but rather report things or events as they happen without an opinion, such news reporting must be heavily substantiated and vetted and should not rely more on money making factors or polls,
No news channel should be having or giving opinion, if it is too important to have opinions then opinion networks or channels should be created and news reporting should be left alone to do exactly what news reporting should be… Please leave news alone.
News here in the US has fast become like the news in 3rd world countries that only report heavily biased state run stories, in case of my country, so called news is heavily run by big businesses that only look out for themselves and do what ever it takes to stay alive, mostly by trying to build power, influence and money for themselves. There is nothing wrong with influence, power and money if it is not done at a cost of creating chaos, war and building or focusing on the negative.
The conservatives question the “liberal Networks, and now the progressives are questioning the conservative networks; this is now becoming a war all started, administered and pushed by the media. My deepest worry is that the media “news Networks included” and not forgetting the bloggosphere are pushing the country deeper into chaos rather than unification
Somehow somewhere the news outlets have lost their way and I mean all news media or so called forums
Barbar Gipson
on Oct 20th, 2009
@ 9:14 pm:
this whitehouse has got out of hand the people is going to have to stand up against it if you had told me 10 years ago it would be like this I wouldn’t belived you they are trying to take all our rights away and If we don’t belived like them they think we’re crazy.
MadeinAmerica
on Oct 26th, 2009
@ 10:07 am:
Net Neutrality has passed the first hurdle. This marxist administration wants to silence anyone who opposes their point of view. Hitler played this game so well that he rounded up 6 million jews and had them exterminated. Those who still have their heads in the sand will be running for lives when The Messiah institutes martial law. Remember, in the words of Rahm Emanuel, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” Your president and his cronyies are using Saul Alinksy’s, “Rules for Radicals” as their favorite playbook. These anti-American thugs will go down in history in shame.
Dovie
on Nov 1st, 2009
@ 7:54 am:
Love your headline. How about “Gibson’s attempt to catch your eye with a shocking one-liner that says it all?”
Bush federalized the banks, Obama gave them back. Bush started a war, and Obama’s getting us out.
I see no reason to foresee martial law being declared. Who do you imagine is going to enforce that? Bush has devasted the army and what’s left of it is in Afghanistan enabling them to increase heroin production. The Utah National Guard is so subservient to Obama that they are going to attack you?
Dovie
on Nov 1st, 2009
@ 8:08 am:
I can make up my own Doomsday scenario, and mine has some evidence. This will make you happy.
Bush & Cheney have a secret mercenary army composed of army contractors and people they bought off with the cash that disappeared in Iraq. 900,000 US weapons are unaccounted for in Afghanistan – so let’s say the army is about that size.
When Obama and the Utah Natl Guard come a knockin’, these heros are going to mobilize. Armageddon will have begun. The Bush team, financed by Afghani heroin, will ultimately lose anyway, because that’s Biblical. Actually, if you are a Biblical literist there is no hope at all except the rapture.
The end.
Dovie
on Nov 1st, 2009
@ 9:49 am:
90,000 missing weapons from US – I typed one too many zeros
135,000 from other countries, though