Is president right to take his shot at Fox bias?

[larrymeyer]

http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2...a336966003.txt


Is president right to take his shot at Fox bias?
Published: Monday, June 22, 2009

By Neal Zoren
Times Television Columnist



Sunday, June 21, 2009.

Barack Obama showed signs of being thin-skinned during his successful campaign for the U.S. Presidency. He seemed to have a hard time realizing a segment of the population or the press may not always, or ever, agree with him.

Now he’s president, and while far from experiencing the trouncing George W. Bush did from a press that seemed to take on a sour face every time some commentators mentioned his name, President Obama is becoming publicly prickly about how television treats him.

Obama is a salesman, and he shows obvious dislike to people who criticize his product or his policies. He says he likes “tough questions” and knows there will be opposing points of view, but you can tell from the way he presents some of his administration’s plans that he mostly desires unanimous agreement and fast-track passage of the bills he wants enacted. His usual way of expressing this is to scoff, congenially as a comedian or someone at a party would, at his opponents by saying they don’t understand or, more often, they don’t like change or want to stand in the way of progress, as defined by Obama.

President Bush rarely commented on the way the press almost automatically sneered and suspected any policy he put forward. Al Gore, in his 2007 book, “The Assault on Reason,” is the politician who went the furthest in speaking about press bias and the undue influence of a partisan, subjective, and frequently uninformed press that is more interested in being controversial than accurate or clarifying.

Now President Obama is speaking up. He chose friendly territory, CNBC, to comment on the treatment he thinks he and his administration receive from the Fox News Channel.

“I have one television station entirely devoted to attacking my administration,” Obama said while complaining on one cable outlet about another. “(That station) is a pretty big megaphone, and you’d be hard pressed, if you watched the entire day, to find a positive story about me on that front.

President Obama also said, “We welcome people who are asking us some tough questions. I think I’ve been as accessible as any president in the first six months with press conferences, taking questions from reporters, and being transparent about what it is we’re trying to do. I think that the reason that people have been generally positive about what we’ve tried to do is they feel as if I’m available and willing to answer questions.”

That “generally positive” is, even after six months. He has to create the impression that he is doing something good and necessary even when he may not be.

The president never mentions Fox directly. His allusion is more than clear, and while I put in his statement into the “thin-skinned” file I began during his primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, the President has a point. A small one but a definite one.

News in general, as Mr. Gore says, is partisan, perhaps dangerously so, as Mr. Gore implies in his argument.

Fox has positioned itself as a voice of opposition. This is natural. It has been the conservative station while CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and the news departments of all three original stations have taken the role of liberal voices.

On all of these stations, reading of news, even the most innocuous or straightforward of stories, is read with an editorializing tone. Bias is rampantly displayed in the ways stories are introduced —- guilty a little in that quarter myself today, but I identify as a columnist who is supposed to present a point of view —- the quotes that are chosen, and the way stories are delivered. I am constantly amazed at how blatant Fox, CNN, and the others are in their partisan skewing of the news. Barack Obama has one station with which to contend. George W. Bush had seven. So, in a way, did John McCain.

Fox, through personalities like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly, are going to present a conservative side to issues. In Beck’s case, the point of view may not be strictly conservative. Beck is an avid researcher and fact finder. He may break ranks with his Fox brethren. He shows you the thought pattern that leads to his conclusion, and that conclusion in informed by a decision to favor small government over large, the individual over the group, and human initiative, i.e. the market, over legislative mandate beyond those needed to keep matters as honest as possible.

Beck, though partisan, is not knee-jerk. Most of his colleagues on Fox, and the Keith Olbermanns, Anderson Coopers, and commentators at other networks, take any idea and conduct a by-the-book conservative or liberal litmus test, usually an extreme conservative or liberal litmus test, before they speak. They are more interested in ideology than they are at delivering or analyzing the news.

When George W. Bush was president, I used to ask his detractors to say one good thing about him that did not include Jan. 20, 2009, his last day in office. If they could or would not, I told them I couldn’t speak to them. They weren’t open to conversation. They wanted debate or to convince me, with arguments I’d either heard or thought of already, that they were right, and I was wrong.

That’s what news is today. Al Gore is correct is excoriating it. Barack Obama has grounds to complain about it.

Even news commentary, stated and approved editorialization, should have perspective. Opinion about a policy should not be based on who champions the policy, it should be based on the policy itself.

In general, Fox argues against the big government the Obama administration wants to impose. Someone said to me recently that “socialism” is not a dirty word. I said, “Oh, but it is.”

Fox commentators takes stands against what they see as blatant socialism being sold as progressive legislation. The problem is not that they do it. It’s how they do it. Glenn Beck uses a combination of reason and attack. I say he mounts an attack backed by reason. Most others just attack. They turn everything into a rant.

CNN does the opposite. It used ridicule and sneering as tools during the Bush administration. Now it uses gushing tones and enthusiastic voice to back the regime it helped put in office.

On neither station do you find perspective. Neither station can claim to be nonpartisan. Nor can CNBC, MSNBC, or the Big Three, NBC, CBS, and ABC. Each one does a disservice to the viewing public by presenting bias as news. There is no news section on television today, only a big editorial or op-ed page that rants on 24/7/365 and gauges the attitude each station thinks it’s supposed to have over telling complete stories or analyzing with objectivity before presenting an opinion about a conclusion.

Long ago, I had my personal July 4th about television. I declared independence from believing a word I hear on any of it that is not confirmed somewhere else that I can count as reliable. We do not have newspeople or journalists working today. We have entertainers who build their reputation on controversy and couldn’t analyze why an egg boils let alone a matter as complicated as bringing health care to people who legitimately cannot afford it.

If Barack Obama wants to change news, he needs to speak out about every station because each one is uniformly guilty of corrupting the news and, therefore, public perception. Obama chose Fox before it is his sore spot. Yes, he’ll take tough questions, but look at his obvious disappointment when his smooth tones and less than specific approach to answers does not charm his auditor into submission. The expression on his face can boil eggs, or more metaphorically, sour lemons.

No president should be beyond criticism. The lack of respect for the office displayed in criticism since the days of President Bill Clinton is appalling, but criticism in itself is good.

Genuine criticism is based on precepts that are defined and stated, so one reading or hearing the criticism knows its basis. Television news forgets to provide that important underpinning. It will say there’s not time or that too much explanation will bore people to death. Not if you know how to write, it won’t.

So, Mr. President, you’re right. Fox is picking on you and by the mandate of its executives, no doubt. Opposition to your policies is part of the game. I wish Fox did a more professional job while opposing you. Just as I wish CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and the rogues at traditional networks did a more professional job in supporting you. The president’s complaint is not about news, but about agreement. He obviously supports stations that support him not matter how sycophantically and Uriah Heep-like they do it. That makes me like Fox more. And I don’t like Fox at all. It’s just one more container of trash in the cesspool.

[JoeWilliams]

Poor wittle Usurper is mad at mean ole Fox News because they won't turn their programming over to him like ABC and others have.

That's a darn shame.

[jimbo]

Great story.... anyone know the political leanings of Neal Zoren? I did a quick google and read a few stories he wrote and from what I read, I can't tell. IMO, that's how journalists should be. We shouldn't be able to tell what their political leanings are. They should be presenting the facts and all the public to decide. That's what Fox claims to do, and I personally feel that the do an OK job at it, but could be MUCH MUCH better.

As far as Obama is concerned..... ugh. I'm amazed that people haven't seen through him yet. Half of what he says is BS, and the rest is him complaining about what he inherited or how bad others are treating him. He's the leader of the free world (at least until he takes away that freedom) Grow the f up and act like a man there Barry

[PocketProtector]

If your not on your knees "honoring" him like the State run Media, then you are a target.

Won't call N. Korea the enemy, won't call Iran the enemy, but will call Fox News the enemy. Won't call a terrorist a terrorist but if ya got pro-gun or prolife bumper stickers, you could be a terrorist. Which in effect is calling everyone not in line with his holiness's socialist shitstorm..the enemy......sheeesh.

[camper]

The man who thinks "put partisan politics aside and come to a mutual agreement" means the right bowing down to whatever the left wants upset that one news station is critical of him?

The hell you say!

camper

[H.E. Pennypacker]

For a guy who has every media outlet in his (and his party's) pocket (except for the internet), he sure is a whiny son of a bitch.

[knight0334]

Fox biased against Obama and other Dems? ...so frigging what!

Back during the elections and campaigns - every other damn word spoken was "Obama", or every interview held of run of the mill people, celebrities, or politicians was blantant liberal propaganda on the likes of CNN, MSNBC, and Headline News.

Whine whine whine that one network tells more of the truth with a slight conservative standing... Meanwhile the rest of the damn news networks, and all of the other broadcast network new services are liberal media whore of the Democratic party and the mindless numbnuts that believe in such hogwash.

[ChamberedRound]

The President, this one and every other one before and after, has a right to their own personal opinion of the media and its bias. However, one must realize that this opinion is in-and-of-itself born from a biased point of view. In other words, by going on television to bash Fox, he acted no differently than the network he tried to vilify. In addition, he communicated such opinions on a media network friendly to his views; if BIAS is truly the problem, then he should have criticized his hosts as well, and the media in general. But he didn't because their particular brand of bias is favorable to him.

In a word: hypocrite.

[Kenshin]

Yep Fox News is soooo bad so why is it they hold the top 10 news shows in the country? Seems to me that people want the news and not the liberal spin that comes from all the other channels. I'm waiting for the day when the rest of the liberal media goes to him and goes "Waaaaaaaaahhhhh Fox news toook our ball daddiey, make them giv it back!"

[Dredly]

What I do really like about Fox is they rarely have on just one side of a story. Yes they are a conservative station, but I've seen more dem senators and reps, aides,...

they do present people from both sides... sadly it just normally lends more support to them though