Eric E. Burns: Fox News Is the Story

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Eric E. Burns

Fox News Is the Story

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Fox News Channel is twisting American politics in an unprecedented way, and too many members of the press still aren't getting it.

The White House has exposed Fox News for what it is: not a news organization, but a partisan political entity that is waging a war aimed at destroying the Obama administration and its progressive agenda. Fox's Glenn Beck said so himself last Friday, predicting that he would soon "take the administration down."

Despite such unambiguous proclamations and the truths about Fox that they reveal, many mainstream reporters and commentators, and even some progressive ones, have spent their time effectively circling the wagons around Fox by focusing their attention not on the network, but on the Administration's comments about it. The entire matter has largely been treated as a political game -- should the White House have so bluntly criticized the press, or will the tactic backfire?

"The Obama administration’s war on Fox News is dumb on multiple levels," wrote Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post . "The Obama administration really needs to get over itself," added John Nichols of The Nation . "[T]he motivations of the White House are clear," wrote Politico 's Josh Gerstein and Mike Allen. "Fire up a liberal base disillusioned with Obama by attacking the hated Fox. Try to keep a critical news outlet off-balance." That same article quoted Project for Excellence in Journalism director Tom Rosenstiel: “You should beware of politicians playing press critic."

All of this completely misses the point. The issue is not whether it was a good idea politically for the White House to say that the emperor has no clothes. The issue is that the emperor actually has no clothes . In other words, the administration's comments about Fox ...

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-e-burns/fox-news-is-the-story-wit_b_330102.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-e-burns/fox-news-is-the-story-wit_b_330102.html