The Media Stands with Fox News Against White House

The Obama White House has embarked on an effort to isolate Fox News, a right-wing 24/7 news channel. Last Saturday, White House officials - including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel - appeared on Sunday morning news shows and maligned the news network as being partisan and biased and not a real news outfit. The White House stated that it would continue to speak with Fox News, but would not treat them seriously given their alleged hostility to the president.

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So the caption says.

Then later in the week, Politico - a daily political publication - wrote that the White House is crafting a strategy to isolate critics and smear their criticism as outside the mainstream. Not only is Fox News a target, but also right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh and the Chamber of Commerce. The White House is in essence creating an Enemies' List akin to Nixon's and then go after critics so as to marginalize all criticism of its policies and proposals.

Although the White House stated that it would still speak to Fox News - just under a new understanding and not hesitating to criticize an admittedly fiercely critical of Obama news channel - the White House today tired to entirely push to the sidelines Fox News.

The White House press corps consists of a "pay poll" of the three broadcasters (ABC, CBS, NBC), PBS (a partly-government owned network), and two of the three main 24/7 news networks (CNN and Fox News; MSNBC shares its position with NBC). The "pay poll" part of the White House press corps shares costs burdens for managing the news from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The White House invited the elite television media "pay poll" to all sit for an interview with the so-called Pay Czar Kenneth R. Feinberg - after his decision to limit executive pay at companies that took bailout money. All but one. The White House actually told Fox News that it was not invited despite being a full member of the "pay poll". Is this the politics of inclusion that Obama was taking about?

Yes, Fox is conservative. But Glenn Beck is not sent out to do interviews with Obama or Feinberg. The White House did not think that Fox would be unfair in its shared question of Feinbern, instead this is all about the plan to marginalize Fox. If Fox is not allowed to interview government officials - so the theory goes - then the network is seen as losing credibility and almost as not serious. A news channel dis-invited by the White House would not seem to be in the league of other news networks. Fox has been very critical of the administration - and its reporting even led to two Obama officials resigning - and the White House wants to undermine the network. But the plan backfired. Instead of going along with the White House's plans, all the other network told the White House that if Fox could not sit for the interview then none of them would either. Because Fox is conservative and the rest of the media is liberal, the White House did not expect this journalistic solidarity. The White House did not want to admit full failure and cancel its scheduled interview, so in an act of swallowing one's pride the White House reversed itself and let Fox attend.

The White House's decision was wrong, and its reversal all too necessary. The White House's war with Fox can only make Obama look petty, insecure and mean-spirited. Fox cannot lose this battle since no one but radical liberals will like the idea of a government shutting out critical media, particularly since Fox correspondents tend to be very professional unlike some of the partisan show hosts. The White House should never have attacked Fox, if the network is unfair then call them out on it. But to resort to publicly attacking and then not allowing them to attend meetings they normally should have a right to just makes the White House look no different than the same spinning operation Obama criticizing coming into office.

The White House needs to stop the attacks on Fox and tear up the Enemies' List.