Eric Boehlert: Flashback: When D.C. media attacked Obama for calling out Fox News

[babylonsister]

Flashback: When D.C. media attacked Obama for calling out Fox News
Choosing sides
Eric Boehlert
9 hr ago

snip//

The standoff, and missed opportunity, began in 2009 as the new Obama administration announced it had had enough with a network devoted to destroying the Democratic president, all while masquerading as a news outlet and enjoying the institutional perks of being one.

“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent,” senior White House advisor Anita Dunn told the New York Times in October, 2009. “As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”

It’s hard to describe, 12 years removed, just how on the mark Dunn was with her analysis, as well as with the White House strategy to knock Fox News down a peg; to begin to de-legitimize the outlet in the eyes of mainstream America. The Obama White House clearly understood not only the danger Fox News posed to the administration, with its 24/7 cycle of lies, but understood the dangers an irresponsible propaganda outlet posed to the country.

Its hardball strategy was the right approach to take. And of course, Fox News shrieked in response. They’re “the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington,” complained Chris Wallace. But that was to be expected. In terms of the larger debate, it didn’t really matter that they objected to the White House freezing out Fox News. What changed the dynamic was when high-profile Beltway journalists raced to defend Fox News, despite its rampant record of aggressive dishonesty.

Instead of finding fault with Murdoch’s serial mendacity, the press gleefully chided the Obama team, portraying it as thin skinned.

"It makes the White House look childish and petty at best, and it has a distinct Nixonian feel,” the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus scolded. “By brazenly declaring war on a member of the Fourth Estate, the Obama administration is making a first-rate error in judgment,” the San Diego Times-Union announced, adding it was for better for Obama, “to just ignore whatever bothers you.” Yahoo News claimed that calling out Fox News was a “loser strategy,” because it generated unsightly “public barbs.”

Keep in mind that by 2009, the cable channel had clearly morphed into the Opposition Party in America, having long ago left the realm of journalism. But the Beltway press looked away.

more...

https://pressrun.media/p/flashback-when-dc-media-attacked

[themaguffin]

1. I remember that well.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

2. Am I allowed to call Fox a bunch of panty-wastes?

If so, that's what they are.

[dpibel]

3. That is a truly beautiful mondegreen nft

[Hugh_Lebowski]

6. Wait, so after all these years I've used this phrase, I had the spelling wrong?

Learn somethin' new everyday!

[dpibel]

12. Truth be told...

your version is far better and, certainly, more meaningful for the modern audience.

[rickyhall]

4. But TFG could attack CNN and other constantly and get no criticism. Fake news my ass.

[Docreed2003]

5. And yet that same Beltway news group

Barely blinked when Trump and associates regularly attacked and referred to the media and news organizations as "fake"

[czarjak]

7. "Enemy of the people"?

[Docreed2003]

11. Yes! Exactly

[TheRealNorth]

10. The MSM couldn't drop to their knees fast enough....

To cover the clown-car show that was the WH press conferences under TFG.

[Mr. Ected]

8. The mainstream media has more in common with FOX News than the mainstream American

Let's face it, they're an opaque image of FOX, fighting the same battles but using enough smoke and mirrors to cloud it for most viewers.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

9. Yes. If mass media wasn't a paler version of Fox, news front and center every day

would include Sedition Day updates, climate change, infrastructure wants and needs, how the republican party has become fascist, TFGs continued attempts at undermining a democracy we all love etc.…we do all love democracy, right?