Lovejoy Journalism and News Literacy

Obama vs. Fox
by Brian MacQuarrie '74

For US presidents, criticizing the news media is expected, a de rigueur exercise designed to keep reporters and commentators on the defensive and use the White House bully pulpit to advance an agenda through the usual thicket of problematic questions, investigation, and analysis. And today, with the unstoppable advance of the nattering juggernaut of cable news networks, finding a target has never been easier.

But for President Obama, a self-proclaimed champion of greater government transparency and accountability, the decision to single out the Fox News Channel as a water-carrier for the Republican Party carries risks that could outweigh the benefits. Fox appears to be relishing the fight, and the spat can only serve to highlight its formidable position at the top of the heap for the three major cable news outlets. In addition, the criticism from top Obama officials, and the exclusion of the network from the president's unprecedented Sunday morning blitz of five news talk shows, is certain to buoy and cement Fox's already rabid following.

What does the administration gain? The criticism of Fox from aides such as Anita Dunn, the White House communications director; David Axelrod, the president's senior adviser; and Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, voice what much of the public already seems to know: that Fox News is not as much a neutral broker of the news, as it is a not-so-thinly veiled purveyor of conservative perspective. For a president who railed against the secrecy of the Bush administration, the offensive against a hostile media voice seems out of bounds.

After all, this is a president who, in nine months, already has commanded the nation's attention with nightly news conferences as many times as his predecessor or President Bill Clinton did in their entire two terms. Obama's media presence seems ubiquitous, and the September 20 merry-go-round of the Sunday talk shows, in which he pushed hard for health-care reform, was as breathtaking for audacity as for its display of stamina. There is no doubt: Obama is a locked-down, bona fide media darling, but one who also is a canny manipulator of that dazzling star power.

There are precedents, of course. John Kennedy kept careful score of his friends, and Franklin Roosevelt attacked press opposition to the New Deal with withering scorn. Richard Nixon included journalists on his famous enemies list.

Obama is correct when he laments the blurry line between news reporting and commentary that pervades much cable fare. And he is right when he says that fringe views -- those opinions on the rhetorical extreme that generate heat and often higher ratings -- seem to receive much more attention than they deserve. The effect, an incessant drip-drip-drip of outrage over discussion, is polarizing. The national debate is skewed, and a default interest in conflict, instead of consensus, becomes the business plan.

As a result, Obama said at a memorial for legendary CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, "we fail to understand our world or one another as well as we should -- and that has real consequences in our own lives and in the life of our nation."

Those cautionary words illuminated a troubling trend. But punishing a single outlet, no matter how distasteful its programming can be to a president's objectives, is a rejection of the very principles of vibrant, varied, and occasionally discordant discourse that lie at the heart of the ideal of American democracy.

For the last 20 years, Brian MacQuarrie '74 has been a reporter and editor for the Boston Globe, where he has covered a wide range of major breaking stories, including assignments as an embedded reporter during the invasion of Iraq, the Sept. 11 attacks, and Hurricane Katrina. He is the author of a recently released book, The Ride, a nonfiction work that chronicles a family's long recovery after a devastating murder. He lives in Boston.