Each of the Sunday morning news shows devoted time to the war on Fox News by the Obama administration. The discussion was predictable. Picking a fight with Fox News clearly drew the ire of national pundits seeking to protect their own. Or, better yet, protect their seat in the pecking order or the punditocracy. Who knows when a lucrative job at Fox might open up just ask Greta Van Susteren.
It got me to thinking. What is Obama’s motivation for going after Fox? While the Sunday morning pundits surmised that the President is seeking to curry favor with progressives, I have a different theory.
The problem with Fox News isn’t their reporting. It’s clearly slanted, and often a carbon of Daily Show news feeds without the satire. My belief is the administration is not attacking Fox, but by proxy attacking the other media outlets that pick up Fox "news" stories carte blanche.
It seems the bigger problem with the cable news medium is not what they report, it’s how their stories get reported by "credible" news outlets. Isn’t President Obama just putting the rest of the media world on notice that it’s no longer ok to pick up Fox News’ stories without even a hint of their relevance or bias?
There attacks might result in a slight increase in ratings a Fox, but who cares. 2.9 million people can watch Glenn Beck every night, but 69 million people voted for Barack Obama in the last election.
Isn’t it the same strategy in reverse that Republicans, Fox News and conservatives have used against news outlets like CNN and the New York Times that their coverage was so liberally slanted that the content can’t be trusted. Is Obama marginalizing the slanted conservative media? Finally.