Obama goes on offensive against Fox News

By Joe Byrne
Saturday, October 17th, 2009 -- 9:18 pm
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Update (at bottom): Senior White House adviser says Fox News 'not really a news station'

barackobama20080821 b Obama goes on offensive against Fox NewsThis week, the Obama administration quietly announced their intentions concerning a change in behavior towards Fox News, reports the NYT's David Carr. No longer comfortable ignoring the animosity the news network directs at the president, “We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent,” Anita Dunn, the White House communications director, said in an interview with the Times.

Until a month ago, the conflict between Fox News and Barack Obama only went in one direction. As soon as Obama was in office, promotion and coverage of tax day 'tea parties' was aimed at the new president. More recently, the extreme right-wing statements of Glenn Beck drew attention to the infamous network. The discovery of Van Jones' past activism and the coverage of the investigation contributed to the dislike between both parties.

Fox News Network's general offensive against president Obama has been paying off: according to Carr, ratings are up 20% this year.

Obama has much more to lose than Fox News. On the campaign trail, one of his hallmark traits was the ability to take the higher road and be above partisan squabbling. “I will listen to you,” he declared after emerging as the victor, “especially when we disagree.”

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But the disagreements that Fox News and Obama's administration have are just too big to overcome. On September 20th, the president appeared on all the Sunday talk shows except Fox News'. As a guest on CNN, Anita Dunn explained, "What I think is fair to say about Fox -- and certainly it's the way we view it -- is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party."

Additionally, the White House has told Fox News not to expect presidential access until at least 2010.

Update: Senior White House adviser says Fox News 'not really a news station'

Speaking with ABC News host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, senior White House adviser David Alexrod explained that Fox News is "not really a news station."

"It's not just their commentators, it's a lot of their news programming," he said. "It's not news, it's pushing a point of view. We're going to appear on their shows. We're going to participate, but understanding that they represent a point of view."

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel also took time on Sunday to criticize Fox News, saying they are "not a news organization, so much as it has a perspective."

"More importantly," he continued, "is not have the CNN's and the others in the world basically be led and following Fox, as if what they're trying to do is a legitimate news organization."

"On 'Fox News Sunday,' anchor Chris Wallace said the White House had declined to provide a guest," Politico reported.

This video is from ABC News, broadcast Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009.

This video is from CNN's State of the Union, broadcast Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009.

Stephen C. Webster contributed to this report.

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Story comments are below...

  • vadergrrrl
    Fox News are terrorists and should be treated as such under the Patriot Act. Further, they should not be allowed on any work televisions on military bases. As a military spouse, I have noticed Fox News on countless public televisions on all the bases. This is mutinous behavior and harsh disciplinary action must take place on whoever is in charge of television programing on the base.
  • .
    Regarding the Captain's post at the top: I'd just like to thank the RNC for weighing in on this important issue. We value your distinctively ruddy perspective here.
  • turnip
    Fox is just the other side of the coin, . . telling you that 'war is peace'. You can switch to the >other network, which will tell you that 'peace is war', and that the holders of the opposing view are bat-shit crazy. Well, if neither statement is true, and war is war, and peace is peace, both are liars. Both will also sprinkle in a kernel of painful truth in with the bat-shit so that it loses any relativity that it would have if we had a honest free press. We, collectively, are owned. Lefties, righties, whites, blacks, poor welfare recipients, and starbucks yuppies alike. Sooner or later, or not, people will wake up to the social division programing that has us all pointing the finger at the other guy. I'll be alright. There are generations and millions that will not be,
  • trout
    'Bout time !
    If I was him I'd call in an Air Strike.
  • starvapor
    "Fox News Network's general offensive against president Obama has been paying off:
    according to Carr, ratings are up 20% this year."
    This is verification that Fox New's ratings reflect a 20% increase for their efforts to generate fear of the black president. Fox News and its on-air-Wing-Nut-Loons are openly proud to capitalize on such racism.

    They must also be proud that because of their efforts "The unprecedented number of death threats against President Obama, a rise in racist hate groups, and a new wave of anti-government fervor threaten to overwhelm the US Secret Service, according to government officials and reports, raising new questions about the 144-year-old agency’s overall mission."

    How fucking patriotic of them... Benedict Arnold would be working for them if he was still alive.
  • wyrdless
    The link between right wing anti-government groups, for example tea parties, and racism is way over blown.

    Joe Byrne, the author of this article has an axe to grind; next time you read a Raw Story article about racist anti-government people, check the author. It will be Joe Byrne. I have posted on several of his articles to this effect because it is so consistent.

    Anti-government sentiment has to do with excessive government spending and taxation, which has run rampant for the past 30 years since Reagan.

    The Republican party (ie the 50 million republicans in this country) are in the process of ditching the leadership or changing direction of the party away from big government big business country club republicanism.

    Many self identified republicans think 'liberals' are stupid. At the same time, according to the posts I have read, most posters here think 'right wingers' are stupid. The funny thing is that on a lot of the big issues there is a lot of common ground in what reasonable people think on both sides.

    The crux of our problem as a nation is that
    It is the corruption of the leaders on BOTH the right AND left, that has lead us astray; big business lobbies the government, so that it can have more power, then the
    the big corporations write the regulations in their favor so that they don't have to compete in a real free market.

    To show that right and left is meaningless observe the distinction of Hitler as a 'right' and Stalin as 'left'. Is there really a difference? And still observe the difference between Mao and Mother Theresa as two 'leftists', I point at that this distinction is also meaningless.

    With tyranny there is no left and right only a make believe facade of left and right. Our big business big government military industrial complex does not have the distinction of left or right either.

    My answer to this problem is small government, lots of investigations and to vote new and different candidates into office to replace the crooks.
  • starvapor
    Two points...

    1. If you took the current "Black" out of the presidency, you could bet your ass and win big in Vegas, that the Tea Parties, Birthers and other associated wing-nut-loons would wash out with the next low tide and just start eating their young.

    2. Voting in new candidates is just a matter of replacing the incumbent crooks with a newer, more unknown set of wanna-be crooks.
  • wyrdless
    1> Tea party activism started before the elections actually and Birthers
    wouldn't exist if Obama published his birth certificate. Your
    colorful phrase about people eating their young was a lamn waste of space
    which conveys little more than how stupid you are.

    2> There is a time delay between when somone gets in office and when they
    becoming totally corrupt. That's why term limits are a good idea.
  • dan
    You've been saying the same thing for 40 years while doing what you've just described. But this time you really, really, really mean it, eh?

    Why is it your idyllic capitalist utopias always end up with Democrats rounded up into stadiums for torturing and assassinations; with strong men supported by corporate transnationals, crushing business competition and devastating the middle class?

    That's a rhetorical question. The answer is that anarcho-libertarianism is a fraudulent ideology, perpetuated by think tanks, funded by globalists, to gain populist support for full on, fascist tyranny.
  • wyrdless
    Yes I'm sure you are right

    Think tanks support libertarianism (small government, no foreign wars)
    becasue they want to torture democrats and bring on fascist tyranny

    whatever
  • dan
    Friedman trained "Chicago School" economists were the inspiration and driving economic force behind Pinochet. That's an historical fact.

    All the right wing think tanks with few exceptions support military adventurism.

    Your Ron Paul "Libertarians" are the exception, not the rule when it comes to professed Laissez Faire capitalism. The proponents of "free enterprise" that provide the intellectual impetus for opposing regulation of commerce, spout sweet sounding rhetoric for popular consumption. The end result is always freedom for the heavily capitalized transnationals, and local hyper regulation for smaller, more competitive businesses and individuals. Regulation enhances free enterprise. "Free markets" as practiced, result in fat cats bribing administrations to legislatively suppress competition. It is in fact, restraint of trade.

    Maybe you should unplug the gizmo and look outside the provincial bubble the media, owned by transnational corporations, has created for you.
  • wyrdless
    Well supporting military dictatorships, corporate welfare and hyper
    regulation of business are not "free market" policies. There are a lot of
    liars and frauds in every group for example so called socialist revolutions
    which never really did what socialism espoused.

    Right now the US pretends to be free market but we subsidize tons of stuff
    like High fructose corn syrup and tax everything. My point is that I
    understand that there are a lot of people who say that for example Alan
    Greenspan and Regan were "free market" but I don't think they are right
    because they supported giving money from poor people to rich people through
    credit created by the Federal Reserve.

    I am a Ron Paul type and the whole idea is that government should be small
    and not give away money and attack other countries.

    I haven't had a television for over a decade so why don't you just take a
    chill pill and stop wagging your finger at me. What makes you think that I
    don't know about how the media companies are owned by defense contractors?
  • tom444
    What a crock! When you don't have the facts to support your case, then pound the table -- or scream "racism" as is the case here.

    Only FoxNews has delved into the unbelievably corrupt Acorn -- which the Obama Administration has still refused to defund, And Fox is keeping us informed about the concerted effort to shove ObamaCare down our throats--even though we don't want it.
  • dan
    actually, Bubba, the vast majority DO want it. welcome to eternal political marginalization.

    enjoy your languish because you will never have power again.

    mu-AHH
  • Eyeball_Kid
    The Obama Admin. likely has deliberated and done a risk analysis. They probably concluded that the slight short term bump in FNC ratings will be followed by a lessening of credibility for FNC in the medium and long term. This is a policy decision with strategic implications. Have no doubts. They finally figured out that the "opponent" wants to weaken federal government for the benefit of corporatism. That's what Murdoch is all about. It's corporatism that can only thrive with a weakened public arm of governance. Another way to see it is that the Obama Administration is pushing back on creeping fascism. The strength and effectiveness of the push isn't known just yet. It may be the last scream before the democratic republic drowns in a sea of corporatists
  • disappointed voter
    Finally, Obama shows a hint of balls. But he has a lot farther to go.
  • America the lost
    Several weeks ago people were complaining Obama was a pussy for not taking these assholes to task. Now he's wrong for doing so???
    Fuck y'all.
  • Fox News is the propaganda arm of the GOP - as such, ad buys on Fox should be counted towards companies maximum political contributions and we need to start identifying Fox's advertisers as supporters of extremists and make decisions about doing business with those advertisers accordingly.
  • Talis
    LOL. Your hero is drug addict and comedian OxyRush Liarbaugh? The man wouldnt know the truth if it was standing in front of him. RepublicOns are the buffoons of the last 4 decades. Their intent is too destroy this country and turn it into a fascist state. And you are one of the many sheeple who are willingly voting against your own best interests on the way to doom.
  • robertlockwoodmills
    Fox is owned by Murdoch. Murdoch is an Australian right-wing ideologue who uses vast wealth to impose his world view on a foreign country...us, that is. Fox Network isn't news, it's pure propaganda.

    I doubt that Australia would allow a left-wing American to take over one of its media companies and spread Socialistic propaganda from Sydney to Perth. The Obama administration shouldn't get into a spitting contest with Fox, but it should systematically refute every lie and every distortion, one by one.
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