Even before President Obama was sworn into office, there was a visible tension between the infant administration and the monolithic Fox News network. Fox is known for its conservative team of anchors who tend to be somewhat critical of the liberal Obama Presidency. The White House has retaliated in a passive manner over the last few months by giving interviews with the President to other, "friendlier" news networks, ignoring requests for appearances on Fox programs, etc.
Yet earlier this month, in a highly unsuitable move for an Administration trying to unite the opposing parties of the nation, the White House declared war against the network. White House representative Anita Dunn spoke out on CNN without subtlety and announced this assault on Fox News: "Let's not pretend they're a news network." To put it short, Fox is now Public Enemy Number One.
Obama has been the media's golden boy since well before he took office in January. The media outlets, with the exception of Fox News, has tended to lean more liberal than conservative, which is nothing new, and Republicans know that they are taken with a grain of salt.
But Obama has set new records as not only a highly publicized politician, but even as a full-blown celebrity. It's not only his stance on health care that matters; we also care about what's on his NCAA bracket.Granted, we may be in a much more connected world than even the days of the 1990s, but the amount of publicity that Obama is getting is on the high end of the spectrum. The media masses gloat over him, champion him as America's savior. He will cure the economy, fix health care and education, reform every aspect of social life that was built up in the tyrannical Bush era. Oh yes, and crush any media outlet that stands to oppose him.
The White House's attack on Fox News is a testament to the unhealthy extent to which Obama is revered by the mainstream media. Passive avoidance of Fox's reporters is one thing, but going out directly and blacklisting the entire organization is, as one Baltimore Sun article mentioned, almost about to cross a line into a violation of the First Amendment.
The Glenn Becks of the world, or at least of the democratic world, have the right to state their opinions about what's going on. And granted, let's be honest, Glenn Beck perhaps takes it a bit too far in his shows, but he has the right to do so.
Fox News, though more conservative than your typical news outlet, still has the Constitutional right to air its journalism. A direct attack by the Presidency on this matter, calling out Fox News is, like the Sun said, almost an attack on the entire institution upon which the press is based. Americans and people worldwide criticized the Bush Administration's support of anti-terrorism initiatives, such as the Patriot Act, which had elements of privacy infringement in them. The media certainly made sure that the average person knew that his/her telephone calls and e-mails could be tracked by Big Brother Bush. That was 2005's rule apparently.
In 2009, the new Administration can leave Fox News out of press events and almost breach the First Amendment, but expect that the mainstream media will still support it. Fox News may be enraged, but who cares? It's the one black sheep of the crowd, and with enough support from the other news corporations, its voice will not be heard or taken seriously.
Who or what is to blame for this whole mess? Is it Obama's administration, which is slowly changing from "Yes We Can" to "Yes, I Will Make You?" Except for this outburst against Fox News, I would say no. Strongly no.
The real culprit is the mainstream media's fawning over the President. All of the news corporations treat Obama as a celebrity. With everyone gloating over Obama's achievements and the change he is bringing - and honestly, he is doing quite a good job in the first few months of his term - any opposing viewpoint has to be fairly strong in order to even be heard.
The criticism that Fox sometimes goes too far is fair enough; but going one step beyond what is considered the norm is also the only way a single entity can stick out amongst the tide going against it. The loud are heard, the quiet are silenced.
Since the White House blacklisted Fox News, Fox has seen a near 20 percent increase in viewership. Some would call this ironic. To me, it makes sense. Fox News has to stick out in order to be heard, and the White House has ensured that Fox will stick out.On the surface, this has become a war between the White House and Fox News. At a deeper level, it is really about how strong the mainstream media has grown. Strong enough, it seems, to threaten or force out opposition.
One glimmer of hope comes out of all this confrontation. Many of the mainstream media actually supported Fox News in light of these events. Despite their differences with the Glenn Beck monolith, they agree on principle that every news corporation has the right to present its journalism, biased or not.
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