Leadership

Inside White House War on Fox News

By Steve Tobak

Updated on: October 29, 2009 / 11:36 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

President Obama's White House communications folks have launched an all-out war on Fox News. On the surface, this would appear to be a classic PR blunder, i.e. "If you want to elevate your enemy, attack them publicly." A smarter move would be to embrace them, as in "keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

But a closer look reveals the work of a white house desperate to ensure that others didn't follow in the cable network's footsteps.

The first salvos came when, according to ABC's Political Punch:

White House communications director Anita Dunn told TIME that FNC is "opinion journalism masquerading as news."
"The reality of it is that FOX News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party," Dunn said. "It really is not a news network at this point."

Fox News fought back, according to the New York Times:

Michael Clemente, senior vice president for news and editorial programming at Fox, said the White House was conflating the network's commentary with its news coverage.
Mr. Clemente suggested that the fight was part of a larger White House strategy to marginalize critics. He cited a report in Politico about a strategy session in August at which officials discussed plans to move more aggressively against opponents.

But that strategy began to unravel when ABC News correspondent Jake Tapper grilled White House press secretary Robert Gibbs:

"It's escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations "not a news organization" and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it's appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one."

Moreover, when the white house attempted to exclude Fox News from participating in a five-network "pool" interview of pay czar Kenneth Feinberg, the five network bureau chiefs banded together and agreed not to participate if Fox was excluded. The White House ultimately relented.

And that brings us back to the New York Times story:

Jill Abramson, one of [The NY Times] two managing editors, described her newsroom's "insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio." The Washington Post's executive editor, Marcus Brauchli, had already expressed similar concerns about his newsroom.
White House officials said comments like those had focused them on a need to make their case that Fox had an ideological bent undercutting its legitimacy as a news organization.
[Senior White House Advisor David Axelrod] said, "Our concern is other media not follow their lead."

And there you have it. Axelrod makes no attempt to hide the administrations motives. Still, the question remains: was it good or bad strategy for the White House to go on the offensive against Fox News? What do I think? In my experience, you catch more bees with honey than a net. I think it was a bonehead move that will continue to backfire. But that's just me.