(HOST) The White House decision to do battle with FOX News is seen by many liberals in the media as justified – but bad politics. This morning veteran ABC News diplomatic correspondent and VPR commentator Barrie Dunsmore examines the issue.
(DUNSMORE) For much of this country’s history, the relationship between the president and the news media was based on what journalists once believed was their role in society – to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Abraham Lincoln was called "despot," "liar," "thief," "tyrant," "fiend" and "butcher" – and that was just in Northern newspapers. John Kennedy once tried to get the New York Times correspondent David Halberstam fired for his reporting from Vietnam. Richard Nixon had his "enemies list," which included numerous well known print and television reporters.
History suggests that for a president to openly feud with the news media is like wrestling with a skunk – he can’t win. So when White House communications director Anita Dunn recently charged Fox News with being "…opinion journalism masquerading as news," I confess that my initial reaction was that this was not a fight Obama needed. But on further reflection I realized that reaction was based on what the news media used to be – not what they are today.
Once upon a time the news divisions of the television networks actually were fair and balanced – the dubious claim Fox News makes for itself today. I would like to think that we had high journalistic standards and ethics in those days. Yet, truth be known, for both networks and local stations, if you did not maintain those standards of equal time and objectivity, the Federal Communications Commission could revoke your license to broadcast. Of course, the FCC has long since lost that power due to major legislative revisions of its mandate. So nowadays, notably on cable television – virtually anything goes.
The bias of FOX News is anything but subtle. It refused to carry President Obama’s last prime time news conference and his recent speech to a joint meeting of Congress to discuss health care reform. Its anchors and pundits, including the infamous Karl Rove, regularly intone the talking points of the Republican Party. FOX sponsored, promoted and gave lavish coverage to the so called "tea parties" this past summer that were filled with angry anti-Obama rhetoric that contained more than a little racism. FOX’s latest prime time star, Glenn Beck, has said Obama himself is a racist who "hates" white people.
Like all of us, FOX News is protected by the First Amendment and can say what it likes – but by no stretch of the imagination is it an objective news organization. Beyond that, however, FOX and its owner Rupert Murdoch have shown that ideologically packaged news is a big money-maker – prodding competitors CNN and MSNBC into becoming louder and more partisan. As Jacob Weisberg wrote in the latest Newsweek, "In this way, FOX hasn’t just corrupted its own coverage. Its example has made all of cable news unpleasant and unreliable."
So given this new media landscape – and the unrelenting assaults by FOX News on the Obama administration – I believe that those old rules that presidents would be better to ignore such attacks, may indeed no longer apply.