One of the things that's getting little discussion from Jon Stewart's penetrating take-down of Fox News yesterday night, is the way in which White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, when asked to compare Fox News to MSNBC, basically fumbled the exchange.
Interviewer: Do you think FOX News is biased?
Valerie Jarrett: Well of course they're biased, of course they are...
Interviewer: Do you also think MSNBC is biased?
Jarrett: Well, you know what, this is, this is the thing, I don't want, actually, I don't want to just generalize all FOX is biased, or another station is biased...
But that's silly! Valerie Jarrett definitely wants to generalize about the biases of Fox. And why not? As Stewart points out, "Just say of course MSNBC is biased, but they agree with us! So we're not fighting with them!"
Of course, that's a bit of an oversimplification. Joe Scarborough is a former GOP Congressman-turned-MSNBC host who frequently objects to the Obama administration. Dylan Ratigan, formerly of CNBC, frequently objects to the Obama administration and Democrats for their failures to ameliorate the ills of the financial markets. Ed Schultz is a liberal firebrand who frequently calls out the Obama administration for abandoning the Democratic party base. Rachel Maddow is a beloved figure in liberal circles, yet here she is, criticizing the Obama administration on detainee policy. Here she is again, criticizing the Obama administration on how they handled the financial crisis.
All of which demonstrates a distinction between MSNBC and Fox that Mickey Kaus got exactly right when this "war on Fox" first bloomed (emphasis from the original):
I guess there are two distinct axes on which you can judge press organizations--actually, there are many more than two (see below), but two are important here: 1) Neutrality--Are they attempting to be "objective," trying to serve the "public interest" in some balanced way, or are they ideologically (or otherwise) driven in a way that inevitably colors their coverage--what topics they pick, what 'experts' they rely on, etc. 2) Independence--Whether they are biased or generally neutral, can somebody--a political party, a Mafia family, a government-- tell them what to do?
I think it's pretty clear MSNBC and the NYT and Breitbart.tv are not neutral. They all have an agenda and they pursue it. But they are independent. The Obama White House can't tell Bill Keller what to do. They can't tell Keith Olbermann what to do. (They can suck up to him, and it will probably work, but that's a different issue.) Breitbart is for sure independent--I can't see anyone telling him what to do.
I think Fox is also not neutral (which, again, doesn't bother me) but it's also not independent (which does). This isn't because it's owned by Rupert Murdoch--moguls are, typically among the more independent sorts. It's because it's run by Roger Ailes. I have zero faith that Ailes is independent of the Republican party or, specifically, those Republicans who have occupied the White House recently--the Bushes. As I said, I think if Karl Rove called Ailes in 2003 and said "We don't want so much coverage of X" it's extremely likely that X would not be covered on Fox. A ... suggestive example of Fox's loyalty is the debate on immigration, in which Ailes' network initially seemed to try valiantly--against the beliefs of most of its audience--to push the Bush White House line in favor of "comprehensive" legalization (while brushing aside its viewers' views).
Now, I have to imagine that Kaus views Stewart's segment from last night as a rather elegant demonstration of his point -- party hack talking points are absorbed by Fox and opined upon. Those opinions become reported news. The reported news is re-advanced by the opinion meisters as confirmation of the validity of their opinions. The reheated opinions attract more newsy attention. Then they throw a Tea Party, and voila, the talking point is out in the world, from the GOP's brain to the lips of protesters, laundered and amplified by Fox's Party-cle accelerator. Now, if they wanted to, MSNBC could make a series of editorial decisions and build a set of mechanisms to mimic this sort of thing, but as it stands right now, nothing of this kind is happening there.
Going forward, whenever Valerie Jarrett is asked what makes Fox different from MSNBC, she can simply say, "What Jon Stewart said." Stewart has basically done her a solid (in a strictly non-neutral but independent way) by pointing out what he pointed out. (And The Daily Show again demonstrates their dizzying capacity to produce razor-sharp, well-researched critiques. REAL TALK: their capability in this regard far exceeds the White House's own.) But let's face it, Jarrett should have had a clear and concise answer at the ready. How could the question, comparing Fox to MSNBC not have been anticipated from Jump Street? All of this basically reiterates to me that the White House decided to do battle with Fox without much of an idea about what they were going to do once they let slip the dogs of war.
[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]