Fox, White House Said To Agree To Truce

By: Charles Cooper
Topics: In The News

(CBS)

Looks as if Fox News and the White House caught the holiday spirit a couple of months early. Not exactly peace in our time, but at least it's a start.

A report late Wednesday by FishbowlDC (and subsequently confirmed by Politico,) brings word of a truce following a meeting between Fox News senior vice president, Michael Clemente, and White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs.

From my (admittedly narrow) perspective, I must confess that I'm sorry to see the abrupt end of what was turning into a prime-time novella. For a blogger looking for easy pickings, this ridiculous cat fight was simply too easy to lampoon. But let's acknowledge the obvious: both sides wised up and did the right thing. (The biz dev guys would describe it as a win-win.)

From the get-go, there was little upside for the Obama administration. After being singled out as unfair, Fox easily turned the tables on the White House and played the role of plucky underdog to its advantage. The ruckus also gave the unholy trinity of Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck more fodder than they knew what to do with. The Fox freeze-out also left the White House seeming petty and prickly. When Barack Obama started getting mentioned in the same breath as Richard Nixon, the PR geniuses counseling the president ought to have recalibrated the White House media strategy in a big hurry.

Meanwhile any temporary ratings boost, notwithstanding, Fox didn't come out of this episode smelling like a rose. The network's protestations that it accorded a fair shake to a liberal Democratic administration invited a new round of complaints that Rupert Murdoch's minions sorely failed to live up to the network's professed standard of being `fair and balanced.' That may not bother the red meat eaters who comprise the network's core audience. But the legions of journalists and producers who work at Fox aren't any different than the folks who go to work at the other electronic media outlets. They want to get stories first and they want to get them accurately - a big enough job by itself. Having to defend themselves from charges of reportorial bias was not something they signed up for.

Of course, a cease fire isn't worth the paper it's written on if the two sides fail to find common ground. Let's see how long the truce lasts. Think it will last through Christmas?

Charles Cooper is an executive editor at CNET News. He has covered technology and business for more than 25 years, working at CBSNews.com, the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie.

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by watervliet November 3, 2009 3:10 PM EST: SOME PEOPLE I KNOW OVERSEAS THINKS WE ALL ARE STUPID TO LISTEN TO FOX NEWS...; Reply to this comment


by watervliet November 3, 2009 3:08 PM EST: FOX S-U-C-K-S!!!!; Reply to this comment


by ianlou October 30, 2009 10:51 AM EDT: President Obama,
Nice of you to decide to tolerate the mentally handicapped at Fox News.

I recommend you still have nothing to do with them. Let them go interview Rove, Cheney and Bush for "the truth".; Reply to this comment


by Lawyers-Guns-n-Money-01 October 29, 2009 1:59 PM EDT: by proudscot October 29, 2009 12:43 PM EDT
===========================================

For the life of me I can't figure out why you would out yourself as such and, even more ludicrous, be proud of the fact.; Reply to this comment

by bradkt1 October 29, 2009 1:13 PM EDT

Good. There was no profit in the White House persuing this. Fox News will continue to be a biased partisan political arm of the GOP...but so what? Every Administration has had its supporters and detractors in the news media...it goes with the territory.

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by Biggest_Rick October 29, 2009 1:36 PM EDT: LOL, like MSNBC and CNN aren't biased partisan arms of the Democrat party? For NEWS (not editorial) Fox has a lot of very good professionals. I would hardly call Chris Wallace for example a GOP partisan. I agree that all administrations have to deal with supporters and detractors.


by endurorob_5 October 29, 2009 12:23 PM EDT: Not sure what this truce is to entail. FOX was reporting facts taht made the white house look bad so the white house got mad about it and started spewing negative opinions about FOX. Does FOX now have to stop speaking factually so the white house quits whining?; Reply to this comment


by Surelyoujest October 29, 2009 12:20 PM EDT: "Fox, White House Said To Agree To Truce"

I bet they're negotiating the No-Fly Zone territories.; Reply to this comment


by endurorob_5 October 29, 2009 12:20 PM EDT: docpeter1953 October 29, 2009 12:17 PM EDT
No, actually sounds about right to me.

You mean left?; Reply to this comment

by endurorob_5 October 29, 2009 11:55 AM EDT

Could CBS have found a more liberal reporter to write this story. He calls O'Reilly, Beck and Hannity the unholy trinity. uses the term Murdochs minions. Calls the core audience of FOX red meat eaters and seems to mean it in derogatory terms. Obvious nutball liberal.

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by docpeter1953 October 29, 2009 12:17 PM EDT: No, actually sounds about right to me.


by devil8975 October 30, 2009 3:58 AM EDT: Nutball liberal.

kinda redundant if you ask me.


by rocketjl October 29, 2009 11:23 AM EDT: Nice try. However, I expect that any news organization that rubs the WH the wrong way will get the same treatment. I guess that is why CBS is trying to make this out as a cat fight between a couple of personalities, so the big dog won't look their way. I disagree with the CBS effort to make FOX appear to be a mouse that roared at a lion. Truth be known, it seems that only FOX is trying to keep Obama honest. Don't feed us any bull about some unknown person in the WH did something that the President did not know about or did not approve. You gotta do better than that son!!!!; Reply to this comment