Obama's Declared War with Fox News Channel

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And President Obama shut out a station he didn't like that has one of the highest viewerships of the cable networks. When you are president of the whole nation, and knock folks out of the 'pool' ( which is the incident I was reacting to) then yes I think it is wrong.

1. You aren't responding to what I wrote. I agree that it is poor form, but I assert that it is not censorship, and therefore it is qualitatively different from what Chavez has done.

2. You act as though Obama shut Fox out. No, a little departmental peon briefly tried and failed to bump Fox from a minor press event. Fox has been covering the white house. They have credentials. They are in the pool. They are there for every press conference.

3. You act as though this behavior is unusual. Yet George W. Bush never gave an interview in eight years of office to the New York Times, which is has been the paper of record for national news and is our largest metropolitan newspaper. Are you outraged at that? Because Obama has already been on Fox. And even out of office, Bush has never granted an interview to NYT.

Yes-I thought that former President Bush was parsimonious with the news, especially when he was asking the country to put faith in a massive war effort. He should have communicated more, in every venue-friendly/hostile. I also think that Sarah Palin realized quickly she was under-prepared for interviews and quickly rolled herself back from potentially probing questioning. In my opinion, she was an under-prepared, under-whelming candidate and that move was a reflection of such. Is that what is going on with this Administration when they shy away from appearing on the opinion segments of Fox News? I would hope they would be prepared now that they are, in fact, the leaders and have the faith to stand by their own policy in different venues. However, what is being discussed is the 'news arm' of Fox being purposefully not invited along with the rest of the pool of reporters to a pretty typical reporting session. Don't minimize what the 'little departmental peon' did. Was there accountability? Was the peon fired? If not, that reflects a White House stance. Yes, that is a move towards "Sending a message" to an 'unruly news organization" ie we will punish your news arm because we don't like your opinion segments. Yes, that is totally in line with Chavez. Manipulative of the media. Trading in intimidation. And totally futile in a country that prides itself in a free press and will never settle for anything less. Have I answered your various points? You can bring up many more Republican examples and I will answer them I guess. However, the topic under discussion was Obama's Declared War on Fox News Channel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And President Obama shut out a station he didn't like that has one of the highest viewerships of the cable networks. When you are president of the whole nation, and knock folks out of the 'pool' ( which is the incident I was reacting to) then yes I think it is wrong.

1. You aren't responding to what I wrote. I agree that it is poor form, but I assert that it is not censorship, and therefore it is qualitatively different from what Chavez has done.

2. You act as though Obama shut Fox out. No, a little departmental peon briefly tried and failed to bump Fox from a minor press event. Fox has been covering the white house. They have credentials. They are in the pool. They are there for every press conference.

3. You act as though this behavior is unusual. Yet George W. Bush never gave an interview in eight years of office to the New York Times, which is has been the paper of record for national news and is our largest metropolitan newspaper. Are you outraged at that? Because Obama has already been on Fox. And even out of office, Bush has never granted an interview to NYT.

Yes-I thought that former President Bush was parsimonious with the news, especially when he was asking the country to put faith in a massive war effort. He should have communicated more, in every venue-friendly/hostile. I also think that Sarah Palin realized quickly she was under-prepared for interviews and quickly rolled herself back from potentially probing questioning. In my opinion, she was an under-prepared, under-whelming candidate and that move was a reflection of such. Is that what is going on with this Administration when they shy away from appearing on the opinion segments of Fox News? I would hope they would be prepared now that they are, in fact, the leaders and have the faith to stand by their own policy in different venues. However, what is being discussed is the 'news arm' of Fox being purposefully not invited along with the rest of the pool of reporters to a pretty typical reporting session. Don't minimize what the 'little departmental peon' did. Was there accountability? Was the peon fired? If not, that reflects a White House stance. Yes, that is a move towards "Sending a message" to an 'unruly news organization" ie we will punish your news arm because we don't like your opinion segments. Yes, that is totally in line with Chavez. Manipulative of the media. Trading in intimidation. And totally futile in a country that prides itself in a free press and will never settle for anything less. Have I answered your various points? You can bring up many more Republican examples and I will answer them I guess. However, the topic under discussion was Obama's Declared War on Fox News Channel.

Given the number of press events, I hardly think they feel unprepared. They probably don't like a station that jokes about the assassination of the president, encourage the wacky notion that he is not a citizen and therefore an illegitimate president, called him a terrorist, kept pushing the idea that he was a muslim and attended a madrassa when a simple fact check proved otherwise, calls his wife a baby mama. They actually had to put out a timeline of his marriage and the birth of his children to prove they were not born out of wedlock. WTH? I agree that they have a right to exist and should not be excluded from press events, but Fox's whining about not getting a live interview shows their real interest. They know that their ridicule of him boosts ratings. I'm glad they are making money off this, but they shouldn't expect that they can say things like this without at least getting a cold shoulder.

I don't think the peon was fired yet. I think he/she will probably be disciplined but I doubt they'll fire them since Fox actually wasn't excluded from the event in question.

[Anonymous]

OK, so I guess your same logic applies to Bush/New York Times? By the way, even a cursory search lists three Bush interviews with the times: http://www.allbusiness.com/government/elections-politics-politics-political-parties/13323953-1.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK, so I guess your same logic applies to Bush/New York Times? By the way, even a cursory search lists three Bush interviews with the times: http://www.allbusiness.com/government/elections-politics-politics-political-parties/13323953-1.html

So he did. I stand corrected on that point. Regardless, it is not unusual behavior for a president to favor one news outlet over another.

[Anonymous]

Right; I am not commenting on overall favoritism (though you have--insofar as it pertains to Republicans it seems). I am commenting on not inviting a news reporter to the usual pool. That goes a step beyond to me and I am glad the White House was called on it. Hopefully, whatever War the White House wages on Fox--that line will not be crossed again. To me, it is not a good line to step over--Republican or Democratic admin.

[Anonymous]

Agreed.

[Anonymous]

is it true that more democrats watch foxnews than msnbc and cnn combined? if so, makes the administration's decision even more puzzling (stupid).

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:is it true that more democrats watch foxnews than msnbc and cnn combined? if so, makes the administration's decision even more puzzling (stupid).

Um, no. That sounds like the sort of "fact" you might hear on Fox News. Fox is the news network watched least by Democrats and least watched by independents. In fact, a fewer percentage of independents watch it than Democrats:

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1395/partisanship-fox-news-and--other-cable-news-audiences

But, in your defense, another study found that Fox News viewers were the most likely to be misinformed:

http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Iraq/IraqMedia_Oct03/IraqMedia_Oct03_rpt.pdf

[Anonymous]

what does that mean? it looks like that article supports the argument that more democrats watch FoxNews than CNN or MSNBC combined. do the math, given the Foxnews ratings, if that percentage of democrat viewers is accurate.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:what does that mean? it looks like that article supports the argument that more democrats watch FoxNews than CNN or MSNBC combined. do the math, given the Foxnews ratings, if that percentage of democrat viewers is accurate.

I don't see how you can make that argument. Look at this chart that was included in the article:

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
But, in your defense, another study found that Fox News viewers were the most likely to be misinformed:

http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Iraq/IraqMedia_Oct03/IraqMedia_Oct03_rpt.pdf

A 6 yeard old report to make a meaningless point - you must have a lot of time on your hands.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:A 6 yeard old report to make a meaningless point - you must have a lot of time on your hands.

And you must get your information from Fox News.

[Anonymous]

not surprising that the Rep+Ind/Dem split that watches FoxNews is 70/30 or whatever. but even with that small percentage of democrats watching, the ratings for Fox News are SO much higher than the other cable news networks that it still means more total number of democrats are watching FoxNews. FoxNews has a considerably higher viewership than either CNN or MSNBC.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A 6 yeard old report to make a meaningless point - you must have a lot of time on your hands.

And you must get your information from Fox News.

You are the one who dug into the bowels of the internet to find the report and reference it or do you just sit in your basement all day and catalog every negative thing ever said about or by Fox News.

Great response - but then again that is your default when you have nothing intelligent to add.

Back to the basement you go for more "research".

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

You are the one who dug into the bowels of the internet to find the report and reference it or do you just sit in your basement all day and catalog every negative thing ever said about or by Fox News.

Great response - but then again that is your default when you have nothing intelligent to add.

Back to the basement you go for more "research".

At least I do research (or at least the facsimile of research that involves typing "Fox News Viewers" into Google") rather than simply casting uninformed and inaccurate assertions. Do you want to dispute the accuracy of anything that I've written, or just criticize me for researching what I write? If the latter, I suggest that you not start a fight about whose posts are more intelligent.