White House Has Beef with Fox News, But Loves FNC Reporter Major Garrett
It was a sign that things were bad: David Axelrod, senior adviser to President Obama, sat down with Fox News founder and chairman Roger Ailes for coffee while the whole White House crew was in New York City two weeks ago for the United Nations General Assembly.
The White House was annoyed by the way that FNC has been covering the current administration, and also upset that other mainstream outlets have not been especially diligent when fact-checking Fox.
Time‘s Michael Scherer has been following the White House’s attempts to manage the cable news network and others in the mainstream media. In this week’s magazine, he writes about how the Obama administration has gradually grown tired of slanted coverage and criticism. The plan is to “call ’em out.”
White House officials offer no apologies. “The best analogy is probably baseball,” says [White House Press Secretary Robert] Gibbs. “The only way to get somebody to stop crowding the plate is to throw a fastball at them. They move.”
But in his reporting, Scherer found out that the White House doesn’t think that Fox is all bad. Actually, Anita Dunn, the field marshall of the Call ‘Em Out Patrol, thinks Fox’s Major Garrett is pretty legit. Major Garrett, eh? Well at least somebody can be considered a real journalist, because this was pretty harsh:
“They are the paid political programming for a party, and occasionally a couple of news stories break out in the midst of 23 hours and 45 minutes of political rantings and opinion,” said one senior administration official. “Everything about it is one-sided political opinion directed at a base. Period.”
Ouch.
Related:
The White House And Glenn Beck Agree! Mainstream Media Is Failing At Its Job [Mediaite]
Ailes Meets Axelrod: What’s A Cup Of Coffee Between Friends [Mediaite]
Roger Ailes Is The Most Powerful Political Figure In America [Mediaite]
FNC’s Major Garrett Reflects On Pissing Off Robert Gibbs Today [Mediaite]
Major Garrett’s Power Grid Profile [Mediate]
Read What Even The White House Respects About Fox News [Time]
