I was wondering why the White House is making such a fuss over Fox News. I personally don’t watch the major news networks because I feel that the news they present is only what they want us to hear. At times reporting with validating any of the facts (remember Dan Rather and the National Guard story). Going on and on about items that aren’t news (Jon and Kate…who cares. Balloon boy family, enough already).

I looked at the ratings for news shows and it appears that Fox News has more than twice the viewers for the whole day and more than 3 times during prime time against CNN (other networks are further back). It would appear that more people turn to Fox News. So why would senior Obama officials go on the Sunday shows downplaying the significance of Fox News. White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN that President Obama doesn’t want “the CNNs and the others in the world to basically be led by following Fox”. If the Nielsen data is correct then it seems like the CNNs and others have no option but to follow Fox. Fox gets the viewers which means they will have significantly more ad revenue than the mainstream media outlets.

The war against Fox appears to have started in August when Chris Wallace, the host of Fox News Sunday, fact checked controversial comments made by Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.  Anita Dunn criticized Fox News Sunday for fact checking an administrations official.  But why shouldn’t they fact check her.  Because someone is an administration official doesn’t preclude them from having to tell the truth.  News outlets have the the moral obligation to check facts before running with a story. 

Look what happened when the mainstream news outlets ran with the Rush Limbaugh story attributing racist comments to him.  His critics were desperate to make racism charges stick that they resorted to demonstrable lies, statements the Limbaugh never made.  Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton had another minute or two of fame by lobbying the NFL to oppose Rush.  In the end Rush was dropped from the team trying to buy the Rams.   

In their own words, the White House “control” the news media.  We have to be careful when our government, any government, controls the news media.  When they control what you see, they control what you believe, control what you think.  This worked for Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung (one of Anita Dunn’s favorite political philosopher).  Which I guess gets me back to my original question, why the attack on Fox News.  Simply put, they will not be controlled by the White House.  They are checking facts before reporting.  They are not re-reporting what is delivered to them by theWhite House press corps.  If you can believe the ratings system then more people are wanting the product that Fox News delivers and controlling the other news outlets could be inconsequential.