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If it looks like a fox, acts like a fox ... By Michael C. Guilmette Jr. Originally published on Oct. 22, 2009, in the Connersville News-Examiner. A week after apologists for President Barack Obama began spinning to justify his undeserved Nobel Peace Prize, the Obama administration took aim at a news organization high on its enemies list — the Fox News Network.
No real surprise there, honestly. The claim that Fox News is to the GOP what CNN and MSNBC have long been to the Democrats and their agenda is not a new charge. Fox News makes a convenient scapegoat for liberals displeased with hearing a differing point of view than that espoused on CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio, The New York Times, Newsweek, et. al., and critics regularly target Fox News’ most notable opinion show hosts — Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. The Obama administration could have easily dismissed Dunn and her statements as a loose cannon by saying she misspoke and her comments do not represent the official view of the White House. The administration, however, chose to double down. White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod, appearing on ABC News’ ‘This Week’ on Oct. 18, defended Dunn and backed her assertion. “The only argument that Anita was making is that they are not really a news organization, if you watch even its not even their commentators, but a lot of their news program. It’s really not news,” Axelrod said, “it’s pushing a point of view and the bigger thing is that other news organizations like [ABC News], ought not to treat them that way. And we’re not going to treat them that way ...” Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, told CNN the same morning that President Obama does not want “the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox.” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Obama’s chief arrow-taker, backed the position to reporters, saying the administration’s criticism is based on Fox News’ opinion shows. Generally, I do not watch television news, cable or otherwise. Call me a print snob, but I prefer to read the news instead of having it read to me. Therefore, I am not all that qualified to comment directly on the glitz and glamour that is televised news programming. It may be that the administration’s points are valid, or they may be unfairly singling out Fox News, or it may just be prime time drama disguised as news. In fact, the left-leaning blog politicususa.com posted on Sunday the administration “isn’t attacking Fox News as it is treating it differently because of its political activities. The Obama White House has decided that FNC is going to be treated like a political organization.” But is that really so? Lost in the fray of accusations and the revelation that one of Dunn’s favorite philosophers is former Chinese dictator Mao Tse-Tung was a report on FoxNews.com Monday featuring Dunn claiming the Obama campaign exercised “control” of media coverage. “Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn’t absolutely control,” Dunn said on Jan. 12 in the Dominican Republic, adding the campaign’s strategy was “making” the media cover only what they wanted. Dunn said the campaign preferred live video in order to keep Obama’s words from being edited, implying a simple public relations effort, but words like ‘control’ are troubling in a time when the mainstream media all but ignores the John Edwards affair — broke by the National Enquirer — and the ACORN corruption scandal — first featured on Fox News — but will dutifully repeat bogus quotes attributed to Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin. On Tuesday, the Columbia University Journalism School released a report titled “The Reconstruction of American Journalism” by former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie, Jr. and Prof. Michael Schudson. In it, the two lament the loss of newspapers while proposing methods to shore up “quality public affairs reporting.” Chief among the report’s suggestions was to allow news organizations to become non-profit organizations, citing the already non-profit magazines Harper’s, Mother Jones and The Washington Monthly. The report further recommends that philanthropies and universities act as news organizations. While these may sound like innovative ways of expanding news coverage, ideas like these are an open door for media control and make an end run around the First Amendment. The government regulates 501(c)(3) organizations and their activities, philanthropies are beholden to their directors and universities regularly attempt to control student newspapers, not viewing them as legitimate media. The Student Press Law Center, a watchdog group for student media, has many examples of administration/newspaper battles. Also troubling is the report’s suggestion that national leaders of public radio and television should “reduce wasteful rivalries among local public stations, regional and national public media, and production entities; and launch concerted initiatives to increase local news coverage.” In other words, they should all be collectively reporting the same news. I am left wondering who would be providing this new kind of news. Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union, said the press “should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses.” With the Obama administration attacking and shunning a legitimate news organization while a university renown for journalism calls for public journalism, the real fox in the henhouse is plain to see. • Guilmette is managing editor of the News-Examiner. He may be contacted at mguilmette@newsexaminer.com. |
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Copyright © 2009, Michael C. Guilmette Jr. |
It all began with Anita Dunn, the White House’s communications director saying in an Oct. 11 interview with CNN that “Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.”
