In the unfair and unbalanced opinion of President Obama and his White house staff, Fox News poses a danger to its remaking of America. The problem, at least as they see it, is that Fox breaks stories the mainstream media are forced to follow. That’s why presidential adviser David Axelrod expressed his fear on ABC News that by following up on Fox’s exposés on the Obama administration, the mainstream media lends legitimacy to the only cable news station with a conservative bent. Axelrod went so far as to demand, “…organizations like yours [ABC], ought not to treat them that way.”
White House Communications Director Anita Dunn told the Los Angeles Times, “I think the mainstream media has to ask themselves at a time when there are wars, when there is a bad economy, when there are huge challenges facing this country, whether they want to chase a narrow political agenda.” The answer to Dunn’s question appears to be…YES!
New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said, “if someone else breaks a good story, and if -- important if -- our own reporting backs it up, we'll run it. Even if it's Fox.”
Los Angeles Times Editor Russ Stanton agrees, though in a sheepish and wordy way, “We would follow any news story -- after confirming the facts and figuring out a way to advance it -- if we believed it was important to the readers of the Los Angeles Times, regardless of the organization or individual that broke it."
The mainstream media first became aware that it was blinded by its left-leaning prejudices when Glenn Beck broke the story that Obama “Green Jobs Czar,” Van Jones, founded a San Francisco Maoist organization. The revelation led to Jones’ resignation. As the Los Angeles Times noted, “The story was belatedly picked up by the rest of the media, prompting editors at the New York Times and other news organizations to say they needed to watch the [Fox] network more closely.”
In an interview with NBC News, President Obama insisted his flap with Fox was no big deal. “…If media is operating basically as a talk radio format, then that's one thing. And if it's operating as a news outlet, then that's another thing. But it's not something I'm losing a lot of sleep over.”
With major media, including “America’s newspaper of record,” looking to Fox for news leads, the only way Obama is getting any sleep is by asking nervous White House aids for sleep aids.
-- Mr. Curmudgeon
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