Poor Fox News
20 October 2009 5:02 pm by Taylor Marsh
This one even brought Brit Hume out of moth balls. As for who’s “stung,” it seems pretty obvious now.
Helen Thomas is an intrepid journalist, but it’s not 1962 anymore. Doesn’t she remember how Fox News Channel gave the dishonest Swiftboat Veterans for Truth a non-stop platform? Sean Hannity was their main booster, no matter what the guys Kerry actually served with were said. Regardless of what former Republican Secretary of the Navy, Sen. John Warner, attested to. In contrast, J.F.K. had his run ins, like when he tried to have the New York Times scuttle David Halberstam’s Vietnam reporting, but even with Human Events around and all the radio stations, today the onslaught is on steroids. People are simply wrong when they say the White House shouldn’t take on Fox.
Just look at what Glenn Beck is doing every day. I watch it slack-jawed.
But for some traditional media types, it’s not the over the top hyperbole, lies and propaganda that’s bad, instead it’s the Obama White House being honest that is giving Ruth Marcus the vapors. Nixon had an enemies list and did the dirty work in secret. The White House team is being transparent, simply saying what we all know to be true.
Jake Tapper was all a flutter today. How dare the White House say these things about one of our “sister organizations?” Asking how Fox News is different from Univision? Is he kidding?
Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock tonight. Or 5 o’clock this afternoon.
Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news organization” — why is that appropriate for the White House to say?
Gibbs: That’s our opinion.
They’re not alone.
The traditional media is nervous that when one of them has their credibility challenged it will rub off on all of them. That the White House is big footing the media, which plays a critical roll in our democratic republic. But it’s all out in the open for people to judge for themselves.
But is the White House punching down? Absolutely not. The power of the media and the outreach they have is something an Administration cannot ignore.
Obama’s team has driven over the media before to get to the people who matter; that would be the voters. The misinformation on Fox News has hurt the White House recently, with Hannity and Beck the main villains in this tale. But also because the network ran non-stop “death panels” coverage, followed by tea party brawls, while letting the truth and the facts of the matter be the one story left uncovered. Even if the two main political barkers are the main ones Gibbs singled out.
People aren’t stupid. They can hear what’s being said and can watch and judge for themselves. But for my money the White House is on very firm ground.
