What measures does the White House to “close” Fox News?
Bills were brought up in Congress? Any movement or word in the Senate or the House floor? Obama’s speeches or call Fox News to see all citizens to stop? Did someone say: “Leave all to see?” Insurance companies have been attacked. Fox News, on the other side is like the child’s spy school all day and comes in an attack at the time to talk again at last.
March 4th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Bully behind the scenes anyone who associates with Fox.
spend money to fight them.
Refuse to talk to them
insult them
March 4th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
None.
March 4th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
None. Actually, I don’t recall President Obama saying anything about Fox news.
March 4th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
The truth hurts, doesn’t it…kid.
March 4th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
No actions thus far.
March 4th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
None whatsoever, Neocon. The White House could not care less of Fox “News”.
March 4th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
You don’t need to pass legislation to engage in dirty tactics designed to stop the media’s free speech.
The cowards in the White house are using their communications director and Mao-lover, Anita Dunn, to put pressure on other news organizations it isolate Fox News. Obama is also avoiding any appearances on fox because he is afraid of their tough questions.
http://cache.thephoenix.com/secure/uploadedImages/The_Phoenix/News/News_Stories/cover_obamascream_inside.jpg
March 4th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
How ironic Fox News has a base and friends in commie China. Go fig!
March 4th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
the government can’t shut down Fox News. Freedom of the press is a 1st amendment right, just because it is a conservative station instead of a liberal one like all the others doesn’t mean the government can shut it down.
March 4th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
They said it was propaganda, which it is. That is obviously threatening it’s welfare to lie and call it news, which it won the right to do in court.
March 4th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
No efforts are being made to shut down Fox News.
It is all a myth and a lie propagated by the right wing extremists.
March 4th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
They disagreed with them! isn’t that enough!?!?
March 4th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Obama has called upon his cabal of Keynan assasins to slowly poison the coffee of Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly.
Its true. I read it in a blog by some guy who’s a cousin of a Whitehouse janitor.
March 4th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
They haven’t taken official steps but they have tried to marginalize them by making inflammatory statements in the media.
March 4th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
Nothing.. Faux news just likes to freak out their viewers and up their ratings by saying that they’re under attack but never give any examples!
March 4th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
FOX’ rating just keep going up while Obama’s keep going down-
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
March 4th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
It’d be next-to-impossible for the government to shut down Fox News. They could try to get the FCC to revoke Fox’s broadcasting license, but I don’t think they’re do that.
Keep in mind that opposite Fox News is MSNBC.
March 4th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
The opinions of Oshama and the bumbling moron of a spokesperson…. are attacking Fox and openly encouraging all other forms of the media to NOT follow any Fox story.
The people who depend on White House access and Press Corps access for their livelihoods…… LISTEN to Obama. They don’t want to see their “meal ticket” cut in half.
So NO… you won’t see “legislation”…. because Obama isn’t THAT stupid. But if you want to deny he is using improper methods and force to silence his only critics… then you are blind.
March 4th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
The White House is calling on other news organizations to isolate and alienate Fox News as it sends out top advisers to rail against the cable channel
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/18/white-house-escalates-war-fox-news-1925819282/
March 4th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
We shouldn’t even be having a conversation about how a president who so such a wimp and so thin skinned that he can’t take any dissenting opinions and yes wishes to marginalize, demonize and I can guarantee find a way to shut it all down.
Dissent is the right of every American…we have the right, as did the liberals for eight years to tell our President we don’t like his policies, that he is wrong, that we aren’t going to go along with his agenda and plans, etc.etc.etc…and if he doesn’t like it…HE CAN LEAVE, but WE THE PEOPLE intend to stay and keep our freedoms.
March 4th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
So, who taught you that Freedom of Speech is only for those who agree with you???
Answer that one.
March 4th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
Read about the “net neutrality bill” and the “Fairness doctrine”.
They cant do much, constitutionally speaking but they will do everything they can to defame them.
Also dems made and announcement months ago that they would not do interviews on fox and they have stuck to it.
March 4th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
How many of you paid political hacks does Obama have posting here. Does he let you smell his butt as pay, your nose is sure pretty far up there.
March 5th, 2010 at 12:06 am
In the nature of Chicago style politics, Obama has used the office of the president in an attempt to intimidate advertisers on FOX. Obama is attempting to punish FOX, because FOX broke the ACORN scandal story. All other “news” outlets tried to ignore the story, but eventually were forced to cover it, because too many people had seen the story on FOX.
March 5th, 2010 at 12:31 am
Just have the White House continue to tell the truth while FOX lies.
That should be enough.
March 5th, 2010 at 12:53 am
What has FOX News actually done to deserve the treatment they are getting from the Obama Admin?….Since when is telling the truth become such an awful thing?
They have been accused of spreading lies but no one has been able to prove it…and you know it is not from lack of trying.
FOX News is doing what they are supposed to do…investigating the people that Obama has surrounded himself with and investigating Obama…why is that a bad thing?
March 5th, 2010 at 1:47 am
Are you serious? The only person who looks bad in all of this is Obama and his administration?
Now tell me if I am wrong…But it appears that if you don’t support Obama, the Administration just puts you on a enemies list?
You either support him or he drops you?
It looks like Obama has the problem…and again…if FOX is wrong…call them out with the truth…if you cannot call them out because they are telling the truth….just smear them…
March 5th, 2010 at 2:36 am
Nothing, because they really cannot do anything legally or constitutionally. Freedom of speech is our 1st amendment right. True they can berate and moan about what Fox News commentators say, but as far as shutting them down, no they cannot do anything like that. In my opinion I think there is nothing wrong with punditry. As Gen. Patton said, “If everyone is thinking alike, then someone isn’t thinking.”
March 5th, 2010 at 2:38 am
Dear karate Kid, looks like you are siding with the white house. It figures since you socialize with a person who country fought us in WWII. Us fox news will now call you a communist and a socialist. We will not let kids like you from broken homes and advocate violence to corrupt our children. Now I will pull out my victim card and pretend you used your karate to hurt me. All of America will feel sorry for us. Thanks fox news
March 5th, 2010 at 2:45 am
No one has ever even suggested “shutting down” Fox Snooze. Well, that’s not quite true: I HAVE! But even my suggestion involved merely excising drunks and lunatics from the airwaves, in which case that institution might have to become an actual NEWS OUTLET, instead of the cheap, fifth rate, junk outfit it has been under the scum bag Roger Ailes, their so-called “news director” who has no journalism background but DOES have forty years as a shill and “trickster” and propagandist for the ultra-right wing neo-Nazi wing of the GOP.
All this administration has actually done is state the obvious: Fox
is NOT a news outlet, they are a lying and propaganda outlet for
that branch of the reactionary party. After all, Obama did
appear with O’Reilly once, but Fox has steadfastly refused to
explain THEIR scams, exaggerations, lies, frauds, and general
moronic b.s. attitude. Indeed, they make many times the errors
of simple FACT in what they laughingly call their “news” portions…
What’s hilarious is, the gutless, sniveling, wimp cowards of the ultra-right simper about their “free speech”–which no one has even TRIED to challenge–but seem deeply offended when I or others point out some of the out-and-out fakery which cheap, lying degenerates like Hannity and Beck spew out, using “oily” defenses like “…..well, that’s just HIS OPINION, he’s an entertainer, you know!…” NO! When no one who knows the subject matter verifies the facts and details of what he’s saying, that’s not a misguided “opinion”, it’s a LIE!!!! And the two very clear examples with Beck ALONE in this missive do indeed identify clear and unquestioned FRAUDS.
Fox is bad joke, visited on the United States by a very shady,
Australian naturalized citizen who actually lives in China.
They don’t do “news” and outside of a few solid “talking heads”
that isn’t their agenda. HATE is their line of work. It’s time to
acknowledge that.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:22 am
The actions are pretty clear. Several White House spokespeople have gone on various media outlets where they were asked questions about Fox. In response to those questions they told the truth.
We know that this is an unacceptable tactic because the Bush administration is the summit and model of all proper government, and they never once stooped so low on any subject as to actually tell the truth.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:10 am
Not one time has the WH specified any “lies” put out there, instead they just state that they are “not a legitimate news organization” simply because they are becoming an increasingly big thorn in the side of the Obama administration. If they had a “lie” to site, I’m sure they would have at this point. I mean, how dare journalists actually investigate or fact check things as opposed to going along with whatever the WH says. CNN spends their time “fact checking” SNL skits to defend Obama. Yet CNN’s Rick Sanchez stated via Twitter what he couldn’t say on the air, yeah Twitter, quite the retraction, he was sorry he aired fabricated Rush Limbaugh quotes:
“I know Rush. in person, I like him. He’s right though. we didn’t confirm quote. Our bad.”
Our bad? How about “I was inexcusably reckless in airing fabricated quotes?” But this is at least the third time in the last year that Sanchez has required a retraction when attacking a conservative or Republican. While FNC “fact checks” WH czars and staffers who end up resigning. If this were due to “lies” coming from FNC, tell me, why actually resign or work so hard at damage control? Besides, there is a big difference between their news coverage and “Opinion” journalists like Hannity, Beck and O’Reilly, do you not get that? Oh, but Oberman, yeah, he gives it to us straight, right? Good lord, the attacks are directly out of the Saul Alinsky playbook, in Rules for Radicals, he writes that one of the rules of “power tactics” is to….
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that should be regarded as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and ‘frozen…”
“…any target can always say, ‘Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?’ When your ‘freeze the target,’ you disregard these rational but distracting arguments…. Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the ‘others’ come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target…’
“One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.” (pps.127-134)
Let’s consider the first sentence, which has become probably the most-quoted of the whole work, seriatim.
Pick the target. Do not make the mistake of thinking that FoxNews Channel is the actual target. The bullseye target of this campaign is all the public media. FNC’s role in this much broader attack is the next two precepts.
Freeze it. This does not mean to shock the target into inactivity, but to fix a certain perception about the target in the minds of the broader community, in this case the media figures in general and the minds of the community (in this case, the whole nation is the community) as a whole.
The White House strategy here is twofold. First, to freeze FNC away from being thought of as just one of the universe of media outlets. White House Communications Director Anita Dunn opened this volley by declaring that FNC is not really a news organization, but the propaganda arm of the Republican party.
“The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party. And it is not ideological… what I think is fair to say about Fox, and the way we view it, is that it is more of a wing of the Republican Party. But let’s not pretend they’re a news organization like CNN is.”
Personalize it. Attacking FNC puts a face, a personal identity on the White House’s enemy, but also serves to obscure the larger identity of the enemy. FNC is separated from the rest of the “real” media and personalized as a partisan, ideological arm of the president’s political opposition. The White House wants the other media to think that its fight is with FoxNews exclusively, hoping they won’t see that the real fight is with all media.
The other media may expect to be flattered as “real” reporters and news organizations who are actually the ones being “fair and balanced.” The more a White House reporters and editors toe the White House line, the greater access they will be granted, especially to power figures such as Rahm Emmanuel, David Axelrod and, ultimately, Barack Obama himself, whom we may expect to give a one-on-one interview with the biggest suckup reporter gaining Dunn’s favor. Reporters who don’t fall into place will discover they are being frozen out of access and will have to rely exclusively on press briefer Robert Gibbs, which is the kiss of death to a White House reporter.
Polarize it. The White House wants to set up an us-v-them dynamic among the White House press pool. Hence, “White House Urges Other Networks to Disregard Fox News.”
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN on Sunday that President Obama does not want “the CNNs and the others in the world to basically be led in following Fox.”
Get it?