Howie Kurtz makes a point about the legitimization of Fox News:
President Obama is going on Fox News.
He must really want to pass that health-care bill.
No, he's not going to get emotional with Glenn Beck. But Obama will sit down with anchor Bret Baier for an interview that will air Wednesday on the 6 p.m. newscast "Special Report."
This would be unremarkable -- the president is constantly on TV -- except for last year's White House campaign attacking Fox News as an arm of the Republican Party. Fox executives insisted there is an important distinction between its news operation and opinionated hosts such as Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. In sitting down with Baier, Obama -- who cordially greeted Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes at a White House Christmas party -- seems to be accepting that distinction.
Jed Lewison doesn't think Obama is accepting that distinction, but I think what misses the point there is that there is no distinction between the programming when it comes to the overall Fox empire. Good content, be it an exclusive interview with Obama or Democratic Strategist arguing with someone, drives viewers. Few people drive viewers more than the President of the United States. Viewers drive ratings, ratings drive ad revenue. It's not hard to understand. Whether Obama goes on with Baier or Hannity or Wallace, it all drives (a) legitimization of Fox as a credible news outlet since, after all, the President is appearing on it (b) ratings (c) ad revenue. Thus, in which Obama, as well as all other progressives/Democrats, financially contribute to Fox News when they go on.
To me, that's the underlying point that's always being missed.
The other thing is that this is a validation of what I called the "send Fox to their room" theory of media control:
Like I wrote back when this first started, this is akin to spanking FOX, sending them to their room, and expecting things to change. They are, and always will be, either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party (and those aren't even mine, those are Dunn's words, speaking for the White House!). They were before Obama came. They will be after Obama leaves. This is a long-term issue, which doesn't justify the White House's "FOX is being mean to us so we spanked them and they'll do better" mindset.
The reason I say that is because we've seen this game before. Flashback to 2008:
Barack Obama is going where his campaign has never gone before: Fox News, where he'll be interviewed by Chris Wallace this weekend on Fox News Sunday.
The Obama camp has more or less shut out Fox ever since they ran with the fake story about him supposedly being educated in a madrassah, so this is a big break from the standard practice. Even before that, Obama didn't have much time for Fox -- by the channel's count, the time between his last sit-down interview with them and this upcoming one will have been 772 days.
Obama already shut out Fox once before- the 2008 campaign- before going on for an interview. Then they did so again last year before giving in again this year. It is funny to me how the Obama team gets mad at Fox, shuts them out, then kisses and makes up after a cooling-off period. All this happens while Fox uses his appearances to go even higher in ratings and rakes in revenue to pay Glenn Beck an estimated $2 million per year, launch new initiatives like Fox Business Channel, push smears like the madrassa story and Barack Hussein Obama, continue punching ACORN, SEIU, Alan Grayson and others, and lie on the issues.
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