austinrealtor wrote:As for this Obama vs. Fox News tit-for-tat, my personal take:
Fox News is absolutely unequivocally biased toward the conservative right. MSNBC is absolutely unequivocally biased toward the liberal left. It's as obvious to me as the sky is blue.
So what? Don't like one, then watch the other. Don't like either, then watch something else.
Obama Administration criticizing Fox News while giving a two-hour audience to Olbermann and Maddow? Same thing as Bush Administration criticizing the New York Times and giving exclusive interviews to Fox News.
{snip}
I have a degree in Journalism and worked in newspapers for more than 10 years. So I have some strong opinions about the ever-declining levels of "quality" news coverage in this country. The idiocy of all three major cable news channels mindlessly following that stupid aluminum Jiffy Pop balloon non-stop for hours the other day is just the latest example. The old axioms of television news "If it bleeds, it leads" and "live video trumps hard news. Every time." are more true today than ever before. Throw in "sex sells and political scandal sells out" to the equation, and that's the best you can hope for from most any news source these days. "Quality" news organizations are few and far between these days. Even NPR has lost a lot of its true news talent in favor of mindless feel-good urban liberal "talk".
AustinRealtor, It's not that I think of FoxNews as the only fount of truth, and you're absolutely correct that ALL of the cable news outlets' fixations on the dumbest stories is killing off the newsrooms. It's just that I don't share your perception that this administration isn't any different than any other with regard to adversarial relationships with the press. All administrations learn to be leery of the press, but also most administrations try to maintain the lines of communication, and more importantly, they don't go out of their way to alienate the press. The other networks are beginning to wake up and smell the coffee: if it can happen to Fox News, then it can happen to them too; and they don't like it one bit. Except for Keith Olberman, but he's special and eats his own boogers. He's ecstatic, but that's because he's too dumb to recognize the ideas of precedent and the turning of the worm. Today it's Glen Beck. Tomorrow it's Olberman. The last administration that alienated the press this way was Nixon's, and we all know how well that worked out for him.
Yes, the Bush administration tended to react favorably Fox News for their favorable coverage, but I also recall President Bush giving exclusive interviews to Tim Russert on a channel that was not sympathetic to Bush (MSNBC), because Russert was a consummately
professional JOURNALIST, even though he worked for MSNBC, and even though, statistically, he probably held democrat sympathies. The same cannot be said for Russert's replacement Dick Gregory, who wears his sympathies on his sleeve.
And, Bush did
not cut off the NYT from access —
even after the NYT leaked information with national security implications in its front pages which made life significantly harder for the administration. Now, one can argue about the legality/propriety of the wiretaps in question, but "Top Secret" means "Top Secret," and that has powerful legal implications that are
rarely ignored, apparently unless you are the NYT. People who violate that had usually better be prepared to get dragged into court to prove that their violation
served the national interest rather than harming it — the alternative being locked up in a cell with a 6'10" repeat felon named Killah and having a woman tattooed on one's back. Bush did no such thing to the NYT, even though some would argue that he had ample cause to do so. And neither did he cut them off from further access to the administration. And neither did he wage a war against them in the media. Why? because even though he might have bitterly disagreed with them, he respected the separation of a free press from the office of the executive.
Obama shows no such respect for the 5th estate, and it is obviously apparent. Heck, even Helen Thomas — no friend of Fox News — is telling the administration that this is a losing proposition for them. But Obama isn't listening, and that is
really creepy.
BTW, I spent 9 years working for a newspaper company in Los Angeles.
Hugh Hewitt had an intriguing suggestion a couple of years ago. He pointed out that financial reporters are required by the SEC to reveal whether or not they are vested in any company about which they are reporting. Hewitt suggested that maybe political correspondents ought to be required by law to reveal their party affiliation whenever reporting on American politics. Then their reader/listeners would be able to judge more easily whether the reportage was unbiased.
I
like it!
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, "Those Who Remain"
#TINVOWOOT
So I'll keep with my relatively inexpensive rum.
Beggin your pardon I am, but Is scotch a whisky or is it whiskey? 
