What Even The White House Respects About Fox News

In the course of reporting a story for this week’s TIME magazine, which is about the White House’s determination to take the fight to its critics, I came across a lot of sentiments like this quote about Fox News that I noted a couple days back. “They are the paid political programming for a party, and occasionally a couple of news stories break out in the midst of 23 hours and 45 minutes of political rantings and opinion,” said one senior administration official. “Everything about it is one-sided political opinion directed at a base. Period.”

Well, not entirely everything. Anita Dunn, the communications director, who is leading up the White House’s rapid response effort, did point out to me that there was at least one Fox News employee who she considered an upstanding member of his profession. Did she call out Fox News Sunday’s Chris “Biggest Bunch of Crybabies” Wallace? Or Shepard “Public Option” Smith?

No and no. “We think Major Garrett is a legitimate reporter,” Dunn told me, referring to the network’s White House correspondent. Sorry Major, if that hurts your rep among certain parts of the Fox News viewership. I would add that I personally have a professional affinity for Major, since we are both alums of Mother Jones magazine. (Note to Glenn Beck: Mother Jones magazine is named for Mary Harris Jones, who was a socialist. Put this fact up on your chalkboard and I am sure you will quickly conclude that both Garrett and I constitute a KGB sleeper cell with White House press credentials–a clear threat to the republic. Or maybe not. Nothing wrong with asking questions. Etc.)

While we are on the topic of the media and politics, I recommend that people take a moment to read the latest from Thomas Edsall, a poker-playing mainstream media lion, most notably for the Washington Post, who betrayed his “village” roots (I use that term ironically) and started working for Huffington Post a few years back. He has a new piece up at Cjr.org, arguing that reporters should stop protesting and just acknowledge their own (usually) liberal views, which, it must be added, do not always lead to coverage with a liberal slants. Indeed, he complicates his whole argument by attacking, you guessed it, Fox News and its institutional kin. To wit:

The mainstream press is liberal. . . . But, and this is a mega-but, even though the mainstream media are by this measure liberal, ending the discussion at this point would be a major disservice to both the press and the public. While the personnel tend to share an ideological worldview, most have a personal and professional commitment to the objective presentation of information, a commitment that is not shared by the conservative media. FOX News, The Weekly Standard, National Review, The Washington Times, Drudge, The Washington Examiner, The American Spectator, CNS News, Town Hall, WorldNetDaily, Insight Magazine are all explicitly ideological. FOX makes the bizarre and palpably untrue claim of ideological neutrality, “We Report, You Decide”—a claim it violates so routinely that no one takes it seriously.

While the mainstream media often fail to live up to their own standards, their committed pursuit of neutrality and objectivity is crucial to the quality of American journalism. While the mainstream media often fail to live up to their own standards, their committed pursuit of neutrality and objectivity is crucial to the quality of American journalism. That commitment is the main reason the mainstream press is so intensely sensitive to allegations of bias. The refusal of mainstream media executives to acknowledge the ideological leanings of their staffs has produced a dangerous form of media guilt in which the press leans over so far backward to avoid the charge of left bias that it ends up either neutered or leaning to the right.

On this point, I believe, many in the White House would agree. Edsall then offers a number of solutions to this conundrum. Read it all here.

Finally, my honorable mention for the day goes to Mediaite’s Glynnis MacNicol who found the funniest (and most SEO-friendly) spin for my magazine story: “The White House And Glenn Beck Agree! Mainstream Media Is Failing At Its Job.” Well played, Glynnis. Well played.

Related Topics: anita dunn, Fox news, major garrett, shepard smith, White House
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  • gysgt213

    This is Shep’s latest rant.
    .

  • trifecta55

    Neutrality stinks. The shape of the earth has been questioned by the flat earth society, while most scientists disagree type reporting is awful.

  • stuartzechman

    Michael Scherer:

    …betrayed his so-called “village” roots (I use that term ironically)…

    I just can’t get a moment’s peace around here with constructs like that.

  • http://twitter.com/michaelscherer Michael Scherer

    don’t want to disrupt your life any more than necessary. I deleted the redundant so-called. hope this helps.

  • square1

    Edsall’s piece is a bunch of nonsense.

    His effort to debunk Thomas Frank’s thesis is a sorry mess of unsupported claims and poor arguments.

    In truth, Frank is 100% right. Poor, rural voters have absolutely been convinced to vote against their economic self interest.

    Likely out of his own elitist projection, Edsall assumes that this means that Frank is accusing such voters of being hick rubes. In fact, all socio-economic groups are susceptible to being scared into voting against their own interest.

    One could easily write a book entitled “What’s the Matter With Wall Street? Why corporate executives sabotage their business competitiveness by embracing employer-provided health care and opposing single-payer health care.”

  • stuartzechman

    Michael Scherer:
    .
    Thanks so much for your generosity; I can only hope that this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6SdxDQ6MrM repays you a hundredth of the goodness you’ve demonstrated here.

  • stuartzechman

    That’s a very interesting argument, Sqr1.

  • http://24ahead.com/ kattest123

    While we’re on the topic of objective reporting, maybe [laughs] Micheal Scherer [laughs] would care to [laughs] find out [laughs] where stories like these come from [laughs].

  • xxception

    Michael, regardless of their purported intent, i.e. neutral reporting, it is VERY hard to report anything without using your personal bias if you have nobody in the room to question you. Every person on the face of this earth has biases and to think they are sooooo intellectually superior as to see their own and ferrett them out is an extreme stretch. You’ve got all these guys/gals in a room thinking they are the smartest people in the world becasue the people around them believe the same way they do.

    It’s like the old joke: “I’ve never met anyone that voted for (insert winning politician here) and he still won.”

    “Perhaps you need to get out more and broaden your horizons.”

  • xxception

    If media guilt results in the press leaning so far overboard to show their neutrality, why did Obama receive such a disproportionately positive coverage versus any candidate before him? I would hate to see how biased they were before they leaned so far over.

  • jcapan

    Agreed, Sq. What’s the old adage, if you want to have the life of a rich republican, you gotta vote like a dem.
    .
    Most vivid ex. in my lifetime of voting against your interests: Bob Riley’s attempt to enact Amendment 1. The people it would have directly helped enormously voted against it in droves.

  • http://hotair.com/archives/2009/10/08/white-house-communications-chief-our-favorite-fox-news-reporter-is/ Hot Air » Blog Archive » White House communications chief: Our favorite Fox News reporter is…

    [...] …not whom you would expect. Anita Dunn, the communications director, who is leading up the White House’s rapid response effort, did point out to me that there was at least one Fox News employee who she considered an upstanding member of his profession. Did she call out Fox News Sunday’s Chris “Biggest Bunch of Crybabies” Wallace? Or Shepard “Public Option” Smith? [...]

  • http://michaelcactus.wordpress.com michaelcactus

    xxception, your sentiment seems to imply that candidates are entitled to an equal amount of good press, regardless of their merits. Building that approach into media policy is dishonest and disadvantageous to the superior candidate. I mean, why do butterflies always receive such disproportionately positive coverage over mosquitoes? It’s clearly just the media’s anti-malaria bias.

  • pneogy

    “Note to Glenn Beck: Mother Jones magazine is named for Mary Harris Jones, who was a socialist. Put this fact up on your chalkboard and I am sure you will quickly conclude that both Garrett and I constitute a KGB sleeper cell with White House press credentials–a clear threat to the republic.”

    I must say that your feeble humor is hardly the appropriate response to a determined effort at shifting the Overton Window.

  • Deggjr

    Who cares whether reporters are liberal? The politics of the top people is what matters. I’ve never, ever been in an organization where the front line people set policy.

    Jack Welch signed (at least figuratively) Tim Russert’s paychecks. Young Michael, I sense I am revealing a new truth to you, but here it is: Jack Welch’s opinion is the one that mattered.

  • http://24ahead.com/ kattest123

    70%
    .
    (The probability that “michaelcactus” and his “The MSM Knows Best!” attitude is for real. I swear, sometimes I think I’m reading old copies of Pravda.)

  • Cliff

    Those have been around for a while now.

  • Cliff

    While the mainstream media often fail to live up to their own standards, their committed pursuit of neutrality and objectivity is crucial to the quality of American journalism. While the mainstream media often fail to live up to their own standards, their committed pursuit of neutrality and objectivity is crucial to the quality of American journalism.
    .
    What more needs to be said, really?

  • http://phd9.blogspot.com Paul Dirks

    neutrality and objectivity
    There’s the flaw in your reasoning right there. Objectivity and neutrality are not the same thing. If you use the words together like that, you make clear that you need to be educated about the difference.

  • stewartiii

    Hot Air — White House communications chief: Our favorite Fox News reporter is…
    http://hotair.com/archives/2009/10/08/white-house-communications-chief-our-favorite-fox-news-reporter-is/

  • shepherdwong

    “…reporters should stop protesting and just acknowledge their own (usually) liberal views…”
    .
    Wow. 1) do you agree that reporters feel that they themselves have “(usually) liberal views” and 2) if so, why would they keep them secret? Just wow.

  • Paul-no not that one

    Given the amount of navel gazing that the media does it is impressive how little they change much less improve.

  • http://chessmemoryaids.com/blog1/2009/10/08/the-white-houses-favorite-fox-news-reporter-time-magazine/ The White House’s Favorite Fox News Reporter (Time Magazine) « Chess-Stack Discussion Forum

    [...] link: The White House’s Favorite Fox News Reporter (Time Magazine) Share and [...]

  • southernbell49

    There is no doubt in my mind that the MSM bends over backward to favor Repubs over Dems. If the exact same circumstances of the Whitewater affair had applied to George Bush, there is no way any investigation would have happened. I can just hear Cokie and Broder scolding any Dem who would dare interupt the nation’s business for something that had happened so long in the president’s past.

    The rest of the press let’s itself be pushed around by Fox news. I’m sure presidents Carter and Clinton would never say they got fair treatment from the media. And of course Johnson famously said if he lost Walter Chronkite, he had lost the country.

    Rightwingers are either delusional or cynical when they insist there is a media bia in favor of Democrats.

  • hotbbq

    Objectivity and neutrality are NOT the same thing. Objectivity is paramount and neutrality can take a back seat. When you report with objectivity the story can stand on its own merits. Write with neutrality and you will always have to qualify it.

    If the media were truly doing their jobs, the government would be equally standoff-ish towards all reporters. All news organizations should be called out explicitly and consistently when they get it wrong. Period.

  • sickofhollywood

    I find strange and it make me wonder why the President cannot stand any news outlet not laying flowers at his feet and dropping to their knees in a bow when he speaks. I find the media today to be very frightening as a regular everyday taxpayer. I see ABC, NBC,CBS, CNN, MSNBC and most news magazines as the 3 hear no evil, see no evil and say no evil monkey’s when it comes to anything period with Obama and his administration. I am very concerned about this and wonder why the media bias is so high. This country is in a economic crisis, citizens feel betrayed by our goverment and the media bias, we are made fun of if we stand up and demand our voices be heard on policies. Pelosi wants to stop talk radio to silence our voices also. We just went through the Clinton years when we heard of Monica Lewinsky and many other non flattering things on Pres. Clinton. During the last few years of the Bush administration we had nearly 24/7 Bush bashing. This hurt because Bush warned us nearly every year of a coming economic crisis beginning from Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac but no one cared to even investigate and look now what has happened. After just the 16 years of press coverage of just Clinton and Bush why is the media afraid to ask questions? Why does our President feel is above questions by the media and especially the American people? Why does so many American people feel we are being lied to by the liberal media by covering up stories and not investigating anything in the administration? Sadly all we have is Fox News and Talk Radio to not hear the media “Singing Everything is perfect in Obama Land” nightly, daily in the most news papers and weekly in most news magazines. I wonder are there any reporters working anymore that love our country first? I had such high respect for years of “the nightly news programs” I will never see them in that same light, sadly I will see them in the same class of trust as I see a used car salesman, a ambulance chaser lawyer and the lowest of the low a member of congress. It is a sad day for our country now because the trust is gone in so ways and places, sadder that the President thinks he is above any question and “calls out a news network” Pray for us.

  • howie1

    gosh as far as tv goes with the news i think the dems should have no complaints what so ever. i quit watching and canceled time and newsweek back during dan rathers vietnam expose in 88 for what i saw as regular avoidance to objectivity.so i would put the scorecard as dems 4-5 to 1 for news channels with regards to conservative view points. time’s writers need to get off their whiny butts and earn back the publics general respect, not just that of their adoring left leaning friends.

  • tc125231

    Fox News –America’s Pravda! (gee, then the GOP would be….)

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  • carkrueger

    Looking at the dismal cable ratings of CNN and MSNBC one would think that they would be 1. Finding a new audience or 2. Stealing Fox viewers or 3. Both.

    Honestly, if you were a Republican would you tune in to Keith Olberman and enjoy watching him and Garafalo call you ” Teabagging, Redneck Racist”?

    What liberal media outlet could you watch that comports with your ideaology and frankly probably a little bit of your Christian beliefs.

    People have been critizing Fox since it aired 13 years ago. Fox is still standing and stronger then ever. As hard as it might be for some to find the good in Fox they are doing something right.

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