This month, The Rearguard and The Spectator debate the issue of the White House kicking out reporters from Fox “News.” Anthony argues that the issue has nothing to do with Fox being a conservative outlet but rather that Fox is a propaganda outlet for extremist political views (with evidence!).

Over the summer, President Obama made it clear to Fox “News” that they would no longer be welcome in his White House press pool. Understandably, this caused a firestorm of controversy amongst media watchdog groups and various news organizations. In response to this troublesome move, other media organizations (such as the Washington Post) informed President Obama that this move was dangerous and could have serious Constitutional ramifications for him if he persisted in keeping Fox from covering the White House. Many media voices (mostly on Fox and their supporters) have claimed that this is an unprecedented move that makes Obama look like a dictator. This move was neither unprecedented nor dictatorial—it was just clumsy.

Fox was booted out of the press pool because they are not a news outlet. News outlets don't engage in the behavior that Fox has in the past year, which includes showing spliced footage of Obama and Joe Biden from campaign rallies during the 2008 election, where they called out John McCain for claiming that the “fundamentals of the economy were strong.” Fox edited the video to make it look as if Obama and Biden said this in the present. This is not the behavior of a media outlet; instead, these actions are what you would expect from hyper-partisan talk radio—propaganda outlets.

Fox and others have claimed that the president is trying to silence conservative media criticism of his administration. That's not even the case. The Wall Street Journal, arguably a conservative news source, is represented at the White House by Jonathan Kaufman, while the Washington Times, a hard-right newspaper, is represented by Jon Ward in the press pool. The presence of Fox “News” would be akin to allowing Rush Limbaugh a presence in the press pool. Other media outlets should support this action because it does what is desperately needed: it ends the illusion that Fox is a news station.

Obama's mistake was how quickly he cut them out. It was clumsy, awkward, and looked authoritarian, which only serves to give ammunition to those who are waging a propaganda war against the Obama administration. What the president should have done is simply not call on the Fox representative at all, and place them in the back of the press pool. The White House has control over who is present in the press pool and where they sit. Eventually the White House could have simply removed the Fox representative without nearly the same level of outcry. In Fox's place the White House could have invited a representative of The American Spectator, one of the premier conservative news magazines in the country. Instead the administration acted without thinking of the consequences and has since been forced to allow the representatives of Fox back to the White House.

What Fox is guilty of is discrediting the voice of conservatism in the United States. Conservativatism has become synonymous with Fox, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and a plethora of other clowns who contribute nothing but hate to the political discourse. Fox has done this by legitimizing all of the nonsense surrounding claims about “death panels,” forced abortions in the health care bill, the claims of Obama being a secret Kenyan Muslim, and stories about Obama having various nefarious dealings with Maoists. This isn't news. It is a slap in the face to real journalism to even call Fox a news station. In the end it's probably better for free speech to allow Fox to return to covering the White House, even if they will simply edit press conference footage to create anything they want. The good news is that Fox's ratings are in the toilet, which may force Rupert Murdoch to fire Roger Ailes (the head of Fox “News”) and make their coverage actually conservative—and actually news, instead of just more radical noise.

References:
Media Matters for America. “Hannity video switch-up is only the tip of Fox News' video-doctoring iceberg.” November 11, 2009. http://mediamatters.org/research/200911110019