I think Anita Dunn's statements were pretty petty which so far I haven't heard her or anyone else from the Admin. counter so I presume her statements are approved.
Those avenues of communication are also open to other media and to supporters of the Admin to counter Fox news also. Anyway if you are saying that the Admin. attacking Fox News it will keep the lie from getting started the only way that would work is if they shut Fox down. By publicly criticizing Fox won't make them stop and if anything will give more credence to Fox's POV by saying that clearly the Admin. is so afraid of their reporting they are going after them.
No, the admin. criticizing Fox makes it easier for them to say "sorry, we won't comment on stuff that Fox makes up" the next time some lies are spread. This is the aim of the current criticism, to give other organizations pause when thinking about picking up a story put out by a faux "news" organization.
rj, you and others are deliberately overstating what is going on. The aim is not to shut FOX down, but to marginalize them, just like the Glad man noted in the above post.
no they are not - dailykos, huffington post, the daily show etc don't have that level of access to the white house that Fox News gets. It's been noted several times - but the fact that the ostensible story on which this thread was based - as reported by Fox News, live on national TV - was a falsehood - pretty much crystallizes the argument that is being made. Fox is not a real news network, it is an entertainment package for right wing viewers. It doesn't deserve to be treated any differently than the National Review or the Drudge report.
You know I usually just troll through the political topics in here and smirk or agree or disagree, but I feel like saying something about the above post. Why is it every time something is pointed out, about what the white house is doing now, there is always the traditional "Well, look what Bush did! So we can do it too"?.. I'd just like to ask one question, didn't our current President promise change? I guess in this case change is defined by doing wrong on the left as apposed to doing it on the right. Politics never changes, it just seems to change sides..
did you even read his post? It's not "So we can do it too" but "where was your outcry when Bush did it?"
And why is that, Mr. Fisher? What purpose does granting access to a given media institution serve for the White House? They want to get their message out to a mass audience, and none of those outlets you mentioned can do that for them. It has nothing to do with them being or not being "real news network." All the cable news networks are in the business of enternainment with a newsy angle. The key in this story is that the Obama Administration found an out to marginalize one of its opponents and they took it. They used a baseless notion of what "real news" is as a pretext, and the lazy left lapped it up.
I think you might be seeing things that aren't the case. There are a lot of times where people (myself included) bring up Bush, but for me it is to point out how much WORSE Bush was and why the people crying foul over Obama's actions just don't ring true to me. It's not about "we can do it too," it is things like... People carrying assault rifles to anti-Obama rallies when people were arrested at Bush rallies for wearing a t-shirt... Obama's administration is somehow violating the First Amendment rights of Fox "News" (by the way, this one was made up by Fox) when Bush engaged in much more egregious actions with regard to media (Jeff Gannon was given a White House press pass for God's sake!). I'm not trying to give you a hard time, homer, just a little perspective.
First, daily kos and huffington post have millions of hits daily - Huffington post is among the top 50 most trafficked sites on the internet and gets more web hits than the Washington Post or the LA Times. it has 24 million unique visitors per month. Please tell me why taht is not a "mass audience" - that's the criteria that you're saying is needed for WH access? Anyway - I'll ask again a question that nobody seems to want to answer- Fox's news shows get about the same Nielsen ratings as Access Hollywood. On this basis, should Access Hollywood be made into a full member of the WH press pool? Yes or no? Why or why not? None of them has the same deliberate angle that Fox does or has the same directive (arguably MSNBC's opinion shows do but NBC news itself does not). It has been documented too many times to even bother to explain here, but Jacob Weisberg does an excellent job of explaining the fundamental differences with the way fox covers a story here: http://www.slate.com/id/2232563/ Have you bothered to read the thread? This story itself as reported by fox news and breathlessly relayed by the threadstarter was false. talk about lazy...
Its not the Admin's call though on what other news organizations pick up. Consider that the Clinton Admin and Clinton himself didn't comment at all about the Drudge Report story on Lewinsky and we know how that ended up. Anyway the only way to get Fox News to stop reporting is to shut them down. Criticizing or marginalizing them isn't going to stop them especially with the communication systems we have.
ABC, NBC, and CNN do. For that matter Obama appeared on the Colbert so if they wanted to they could grant the Daily Show access too.
As usual - you are manufacturing a balance where there is none. There is a fundamental difference in the way ABC, NBC, and to a lesser extent CNN report the news as compared to the way Fox does it. This has been extensively documented (and is obvious to any casual viewer). Anyway are saying that the Daily Show should have a full-time correspondent, permanent posting in the press corps, and given the same level of access as Fox? Why or why not.
Just to add the AP, NYT, NPR, Washington Post, Los Angelos Times and etc... all have the same amount of access that Fox has. Fox is one voice in many but the more attention they are given it raises the volume of their voice. If the goal is to marginalize Fox attacking them isn't the way to do it.
They aren't trying to stop FOX from getting rating points or even shut them out. The WH is trying to discredit Fox so OTHER networks stop picking up the anti-Obama stories being put out by Fox. It's really that simple.
Do you think that is going to work? What I saw on tMeet the Press on Sunday and what I heard from commentators on NPR the past week was a defense of Fox. The impression I am getting is that rather than marginalize Fox they are getting more attention then they have in years.
