The Assault on FOX News Is Yielding Positive Results — For FOX News
posted at 11:55 am on October 19, 2009 by Howard Portnoy
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This weekend, the White House stepped up its assault on a news organization. The attack is beginning to bear fruit: FOX News’s ratings are reaching stratospheric levels, with new viewers tuning in every day.
As I noted here, attacking a news organization can’t possibly help any White House, but it can severely damage the reputation of this White House, which ran on a promised end to partisanship and petty bickering. You would think the administration would have learned its lesson from the blowback to Anita Dunn’s rant last Sunday.
Instead, it released two more of its attack dogs this weekend. Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, appeared on John King’s “State of the Union” on CNN, and David Axelrod, White House senior adviser, made an appearance on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos.
Emanuel helped clarify the argument thus:
Well, no, it’s not so much a conflict with FOX News. But unlike — I suppose, the way to look at it and the way we — the president looks at it and we look at it, is, it is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective. And that’s a different take. And more importantly, does not have — the CNNs and others in the world basically be led and following FOX, as if that — what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization in the sense of both sides and a sense of value (ph) opinion. [Editor's note: This passage will be sent out for translation as soon as we can figure out what language it's in.]
Axelrod was slightly more on point, stating that
[t]he only argument that Anita was making is that they are not really a news organization, if you watch even it’s not even their commentators, but a lot of their news program. It’s really not news, it’s pushing a point of view and the bigger thing is that other news organizations like yours, ought not to treat them that way…
At least, in Axelrod’s defense, he wasn’t in the MSNBC studio when firing off this volley.
So how much is the continuing war “helping” the White House? It received the attention of Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik, hardly a conservative sympathizer, who wrote, “As many problems as I have with Fox News, I am fundamentally opposed to any administration trying to bully any part of the press into submission.”
To summarize, this weekend marked Round 2 of this not-so-heavyweight bout. The lone aggressor in the fight, despite reeling, continues to lunge forward and flail. And all FOX News needs to do to counter the assault is continue to report the news.
Cross-posted at Zombie Contentions
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Don’t know how to break this to Rahm and David, but some folks really aren’t looking for the news. We’ve already got the news—TARP, bank bailouts, government take-overs of private business, 800 billion stimulus, 9.8% unemployment, etc. Now we’re looking for the agenda behind all this!
texabama on October 19, 2009 at 2:29 PM
After reading the comments on the original article it appears that many of the KoolAid crowd are firmly entrenched in their belief that only stupid neo-cons watch Fox and that they deserve to be shunned for their sin of not accepting that ONLY Fox has a bias.
katiejane on October 19, 2009 at 2:44 PM
Who are they trying to convince??? Emanuel and Axelrod could be more “believable” employing a vomiting six year old in their collective laps.
Roy Rogers on October 19, 2009 at 2:52 PM
Guess it’s time to update the old saw about not picking fights with organizations that buy ink by the barrel. Maybe something about organizations that buy bandwidth by the spectrum.
The only people who are buying this adminstration act are already at the core of its base. But I say, keep it up, David and Rahm! Fox can always use more viewers.
J.E. Dyer on October 19, 2009 at 4:00 PM
The other maxim I seem to remember, JED, is not to punch down. Although, with this bunch in the White House, perhaps they’re actually “punching up”.
Bruce NV on October 19, 2009 at 6:39 PM
It’s called the Streisand Effect – the more you try to suppress something or keep people away from it or dissuade people from using or viewing or paying attention to it, the more they’re going to find out about it.
It’s a real phenomenon, and I’m sure it existed before the Intertubes but it took on new levels of awesomeness with the Web. The term was coined by Mike Masnick of Techdirt after Barbara Streisand tried to suppress pictures of her California coastal home taken by a left-wing nutjob trying to show proof of coastal erosion. Her cease and desist only served to piss off the photographer, who posted the pictures on his website and who allowed others to link to and copy the pictures, where they spread like wildfire.
So basically, it makes sense that if Barry wants to smother FNC and FBN, that he’d pretty much have to ignore them and stop mentioning them and act like they aren’t there – otherwise everything he does furthers the feud and slams the gas pedal through the floor on Fox’s ratings.
jamesrileyjr on October 19, 2009 at 7:53 PM
Hope Fox knows they are in a war. Wait til the Won goes after the sponsors.
Kissmygrits on October 19, 2009 at 9:27 PM
Come on, I know how this game is played. Anything Barack can’t do becomes intractable. That there has been so much partisan bickering since President Obama was elected is only proof that they didn’t know how polarized the opposition was.
Obama and cohorts will always be intellectuals and right no matter how glibly they deemed it was a thing of the past and despite how many times it is a tantamount admission of misjudgment.
Everybody can play this game:
Post-Racial? Only shows that Obama, in his generosity, underestimated how much racism was still underground.
Axeman on October 19, 2009 at 10:02 PM
Good!
beachgirlusa on October 19, 2009 at 10:12 PM
To me its called a common sense understanding of human nature.
beachgirlusa on October 19, 2009 at 10:14 PM