White House Declares War on Fox News
News Organization Becomes a Political Target
White House Communications Director Anita Dunn announced in October that the Obama administration considered Fox News less than a real news organization, calling the cable outlet a vehicle for Republican Party propaganda and an opponent of the president. "The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party."
The Obama Administration appears to be responding to some of Fox News' opinion programming led by Glen Beck and Sean Hannity. Their respective shows have been highly critical of the president and his agenda.
Escalation of Hostility Toward Fox News
This line of argument was continued by other administration officials on the Sunday morning talk circuit. Senior Advisor David Axelrod and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, both furthered the idea that the White House is attempting to delegitimize Fox News. On This Week, Axelrod stated "[Fox News] is not really a news station. It's not just their commentators but a lot of their news programming it's really not news it's pushing a point of view. "
Signs of the administration's discontent with Fox were evident in September when President Obama refused to appear on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, the same day he did appear on five other major network Sunday shows. As of mid-October the channel was told that Obama would grant no interviews until at least 2010. The edict was given to Fox News directly by a White House official.
Fox Responds
Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente questioned what was really behind the new White House strategy. "Instead of governing, the White House continues to be in campaign mode, and Fox News is the target of their attack mentality," he said. "Perhaps the energy would be better spent on the critical issues that voters are worried about."
In addition, the channel objects to the idea that administration officials are trying to promote their strategy through competing news organizations. Axelrod suggested to George Stephanopoulos that ABC News not treat Fox News as a legitimate news source. "The bigger thing is," Axelrod said, "other news organizations, like yours, ought not to treat them that way. We're not going to treat them that way. "
Fox by the Numbers
The Pew Research Center released a report showing that 40 percent of Fox News stories on Obama in the last six weeks of the 2008 campaign were negative and 40 percent of the stories on Sen. John McCain, were similarly negative. By way of contrast on CNN 39 percent were negative stories on Obama and 61 percent were negative towards McCain. The spread was largest at MSNBC, where just 14 percent of Obama stories were negative, compared with 73 percent for McCain.
Sources:
http://mobile.politico.com/story.cfm?id=28497&cat=topnews
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/12/white-house-escalates-war-words-fox-news/
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