Obama Is Right About Fox News

Journalism has a special, hallowed place for stories of its practitioners' persecution. There is no higher claim to journalistic integrity than going to jail to protect a source. And the Newseum in Washington, D.C., establishes the profession's legitimacy with a memorial to fallen scribes, thus drawing an implicit connection between the murdered abolitionist editors of long ago and the struggling outfit that gave you this morning's page-one story about cute pets in Halloween costumes.

But no journalistic operation is better prepared to sing the tragedy of its own martyrdom than Fox News. To all the usual journalistic instincts it adds its grand narrative of Middle America's disrespectful treatment by the liberal elite. Persecution fantasy is Fox News's lifeblood; give it the faintest whiff of the real thing and look out for a gale-force hissy fit.

As the Obama administration has discovered by now. A few weeks ago, after Fox had scored a number of points against administration figures and policies, administration spokesmen decided it was time to start fighting back. Communications Director Anita Dunn called the network "a wing of the Republican Party," while Obama himself reportedly dismissed it for following "a talk radio format."

The network's moaners swung instantly into self-pitying action, likening the administration's combative attitude to Richard Nixon's famous "enemies list."

They should remember that it wasn't just the keeping of a list that made Nixon's hostility to the media remarkable. Nearly every president--and probably just about every politician--has criticized the press at some point or other. What made the Nixon administration stand out is that it also sued the New York Times to keep that paper from publishing the Pentagon Papers. It schemed to ruin the Washington Post financially by challenging the broadcast licenses for the TV stations it owned. It bugged the office of Joseph Kraft, a prominent newspaper columnist. One of its most notorious henchmen was G. Gordon Liddy, who tells us in his autobiography that under certain conditions he was "willing to obey an order to kill [columnist] Jack Anderson."

It is interesting to note that Mr. Liddy, that friend of the First Amendment, appeared frequently in 2006 on none other than the Fox News network. In fact, the network sometimes seems like a grand electronic homage to the Nixonian spirit: Its constant attacks on the "elite media," for example, might well have been inspired by the famous pronouncements on TV news's liberal bias made by Mr. Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew.

And, of course, the network's chairman, Roger Ailes, was an adviser to Mr. Nixon in the 1968 presidential campaign; his signature innovation back then was TV commercials in which Mr. Nixon answered questions from hand-picked citizens in a town-hall style setting.

Although they cry persecution today, the network and its leading lights have not really distinguished themselves on the issues surrounding clashes between the government and the press. When Mr. Ailes was on the other side of the politician/press divide, making ads for the presidential campaign of George H. W. Bush, the Washington Post once found out in advance where one of the commercials was going to be filmed. According to an article that appeared in that paper in 1988, Mr. Ailes was moved to comment thusly on the situation: "'These leakers!' he told an inquiring reporter the night before the planned event. 'I think they should all be executed and tortured.'"

Mr. Ailes was joking on that occasion. But faced with one of the biggest First Amendment cases of our own time--the New York Times's 2005 story on the George W. Bush administration's domestic wiretapping program--how did Fox News react? By impugning the motives of the Times, of course, with different Fox personalities speculating that the Times deliberately published the story when it did in order to dissuade the U. S. Senate from reauthorizing the Patriot Act.

To point out that this network is different, that it is intensely politicized, that it inhabits an alternate reality defined by an imaginary conflict between noble heartland patriots and devious liberals--to be aware of these things is not the act of a scheming dictatorial personality. It is the obvious conclusion drawn by anybody with eyes and ears.

Still, one wishes that the Obama administration had taken on Fox News with a little more skill. As cultural criticism goes, this was clumsy, plodding stuff. What the situation required was sarcasm, irony, a little humor. Simply feeding Fox a slice of raw denunciation was like dumping gasoline into a fire. It did nothing but furnish the network with a real-world validation of its long-running conspiracy theories--and a nice bump in its ratings.

Read other OpinionJournal articles:
Holman Jenkins: Washington's Suicide Mission
Scott Gottlieb: Why You Can't Get the Swine Flu Vaccine

 

Comments

[mike197788]

Yes, Fox News does have a right slant, but every other media network has a slight slant if not a cliff to the left. At least Fox News has the guts to put both Democrats and Republicans on during round robin discussions. Some of the Fox lineup is commentary not news i.e. Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reily, and Sean Hannity. But there is a difference between those programs and Fox's regular news coverage. I know it's trendy to hate Fox News because Obama said so, but even the rest of the networks went to bat against the President for Fox News. Doesn't that throw up a red flag?

[wolfsvssarah]

The important thing to remember is that Fox does not report the news, they report right wing propagada. It's nonsense, and why anyone with a brain would watch it is beyond me.

[profproof]

i bet you watch msnbc and think there is no slant there

[truthartbeauty]

as a bleeding liberal who's 91 year old ultra conservative mother lives with him and keeps on Fox news all day long as loud as it goes......­it is brainwashing, nothing short of it. If you listen to that nonsense and hate over and over and over day after day it will ruin you. Life is too short to have to listen to that sht. Go outside, listen to the birds sing. Try to see some beauty, some peace, some truth. some kindness. FOx news is a very negative and ugly thing and no, it is not about news.

[Clayton139]

Agreed !

[profproof]

if you didn't live with your mommy you could watch msnbc instead

[mlaiuppa]

It's not called Faux Noise for nothing.

They proudly trumpet that they don't have to tell the truth. That means they're not a news agency.

They are a bunch of whiners and sore losers, though. They are the queens of hissy fits.

Glen Beck is their poster boy.

[profproof]

you would have to lose in order to be a bad loser and FOX is whipping the pants off of everybody.

[LALAW]

It would have been the wrong strategy to use humor to take on FNC. FNC would simply have told its viewers that Obama is arrogant and dismissive of their concerns.
FNC was taken off guard by the White House's approach. Ailes thought the administration would conclude that it couldn't take FNC on directly in a serious manner. He miscalculated.
FNC now has no room for error. Every time they report inaccurately, which is every day, they lose more credibility with the newly indoctrinated. Fair and Balanced and We Report, You Decide are damaged goods.

[imfedup]

They remind me of the weasley bully in A Christmas Story. When someone actually fights back, he cries for his mommy. Very satisfying.

[vegemight]

Right on, as usual. There's nothing to argue with in this piece at all.

I always look forward to your posts, Mr Frank.

[SewaneeLeftist]

Very good article, Mr. Frank. Good perspective on the government's historical attacks on journalists. As you say it's a badge of honor for TRUE journalists -- after helping lie us into war, for example, Judith Miller was panting to go to jail to build her nonexistent cred, and then went to her true home, the ideological mouthpiece, Fix News.

I disagree about the clumsiness, however, or that the WH's dismissal of the unfair, unbalanced, ersatz news channel needed a lighter touch, irony, or humor. On the contrary, even though it feeds the paranoia and "oh poor me" world view of the right, Faux News needs some daily slapping down from the highest levels, on the order of Media Matters writ large.

Light touches, irony, and humor don't work on reality-challenged fanatics who long to fall for the Orwellian lies these nutjobs put out (the twisting of the Newsweek article calling Fix unamerican to make it seem Newsweek had criticized the Fix critics is a classic of this slimy practice).

Fox Noise has a right to lie, but it doesn't have a right to pretend it's a news organization when it's not presenting news. That's a truth in advertising thing, not a first amendment issue. Just like toy advertisers can't show their toys doing things the toys can't actually do, pretending to be a news organization when you're not should be a violation of some FCC rule or some consumer protection law.

[Memphis Blues Again]

I get my news from NPR, BBC and PBS primarily. I know that makes me a horrible liberal, but I just can't take the talking heads on any of the major networks. I only know of a few people who watch Faux news.

Here they are.

1. A few old people who think Obama is a 2 headed alien from outerspace or the devil.
2. Some friends of mine who attend g u n shows, believe Adam and Eve came from another planet and were sent to Earth as punishment. They attended a tea party in their state of Wyoming. They LOVE Glenn Beck and say Faux is all they watch.
3. A millionaire who owns a large corporation in town who told me that my boycott of Wal Mart was stupid because the children who work in the factories would be prostitutes if they weren't working in our factories. Seriously. He only allows Faux to be played in his office lunch room for employees. He calls CNN "The C o m m u nist News Network.

[BrianManning81]

That makes you an informed citizen rather than a kool-aid drinker! Keep it up and fanned!

[profproof]

I only know a few people who watch NPR and PBS. One is dead, he's the one that watches NPR, and the rest are people who have made bad choices in life and what somebody else to pick up the tab.

[bgfsh]

Seriously, nobody with at least a "normal" degree of education, awareness and intelligence considers Fox as news. The exception being those that have ruined this country by destroying the fabric of a once proud nation - the ultra-conservatives that knowingly use any means (Fox) toward their end - lining their own pockets and feeding their narrow views.

[DonJM]

Is Faux still trying to pass itself off as a legitimate news organization?

[truthartbeauty]

religion still tries to pass that off as truth too

[lvogt]

Mr Franks, You forgot to mention the most important element. FOX News is dishonest.

[jdrourke]

Fox *News represents much of what is wrong with America. It is a propaganda machine of huge proportions that claims to be the little guy. It is right-leaning and claims to be fair and balanced. It is a lie...

http://jdrourke.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/thats-quite-enough-liberal-media/

[AIC22]

You must be a huge CNN, MSNBC, and major network fan. Typical.

[Liberal Angel]

If by "typical" you mean can see distortion and know lies when you encounter them from a network like FOX, then I'm typical too. FOX is NOT news, it's a circus.

[panamarine]

Given that the USA is not a "third" world country under a Dictator, it stands to reason that they (The Government­/Administr­ation) can not shut FOX down because they oppose EVERYTHING this administration says or does...BUT on the same token the Administration has a right to single them out too and exhibit their displeasure at the Adhominems coming from FOX 24/7. To be quiet about the noxious propaganda coming from FOX is to tacitly admit it as fact. Then, also to standby while being DISRESPECTED 24/7 by the hooligans at FOX is not an option. The world and the country is watching. Why get sucker punched in the face on a daily basis and not counter punch the puncher? So, as far as I'm concerned it's not beneath the Administration to get down-and-dirty with the cayotes.

[1will]

All of the networks are biased. Why do liberals feel the need to complain about the one news network that leans to the Right when every other network is solidly in the Leftwing camp?

[ccoppe]

There is no "leaning" involved, as Fox VP Bill Shine and his talking head Chris Wallace freely admit.. They ARE the right-wing opposition.

"Fox VP Bill Shine: We are the Voice of the Opposition":

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0793892/news#ni0720799

[demockracy]

Sorry, "every other network" ... and for that matter most of the print media are owned by a handful of corporations. Mussolini didn't call his form of government "corporatism" for nothing. The pounding of the war drums is so loud in these "liberal" networks and papers because GE, among others, gets a tremendous boost to its bottom line when war continues. They might have to produce something useful rather than something that exploded, otherwise.

Probably most useful in assessing the right/left balance in media, however, is the absence of a Labor page in most newspapers. They've all got a "Business" section, though. If they're so "liberal" where is the labor reporting? Or the reporting about all the stuff you'll hear about only on www.democracynow.org, (or www.chomsky.info).

The lie that the media is liberal is exactly like the rest of the Faux News talking points -- largely fabricated.

[sabredance]

It isn't the bias in opinion that's the issue; rather the factual errors of Fox and outright manipulation of the news. Remember Fox is the only organization that took whisteblowers to court in order to lie -- and won. Of course the obvious lie is that Fox calls itself Fox News. If they would just call themselves Fox Opinion and made a bright line between their editorial content (90%) and their reporting (10%) much of the controversy would go away.