Whose Idea Was It To Go After Fox News?

The all-out concerted effort by the Obama administration to discredit the Fox News Network was a very bad idea, but that's not just my opinion. A former senior adviser to President Carter, Patrick Caddell, appeared on Mike Huckabee's show on Fox last Saturday. He appeared with a former White House counsel for the Clinton administration, Lanny Davis. Both men are strong supporters of President Obama, yet both agreed that going after a news network was unwise, which prompts the question: Exactly whose idea was it to do the unthinkable?

Was it Mr. Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel? He said, when asked by CNN's John King about the administration's beef with Fox: "No, it's not so much a conflict with Fox News. But, unlike I suppose the way to look at it, and the way we, the president looks at it, we look at it is it's not a news organization so much as it has a perspective. And that's a different take. And more importantly is not have the CNN's and the others in the world basically be led and following Fox as if that what they're trying to do is a legitimate news organization in the sense of both sides' sense of a valued opinion."

Huh? Did the president really share Mr. Emanuel's opinion that Fox is not a news organization because it has a perspective? How does he explain MSNBC and its rabid host, Keith Olbermann, who savages all things Republican?

When pressed by an NBC interviewer as to why several White House advisers have gone on other channels to criticize Fox News coverage, Mr. Obama answered: "I think that what our advisers simply said is, is that we are going to take media as it comes, and if media is operating, basically, as a talk radio format, then that's one thing. And if it's operating as a news outlet than that's another."

Clearly, the analogy of the talk show format filtered down to his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, who said that White House officials "render opinion based on some coverage and the fairness of that coverage." So how was Fox different from other news organizations? Mr. Gibbs mentioned Fox's 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. shows, alluding to Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity respectively.

I'm a little confused by this administration's thought process. We've been told over and over that we now have an intelligent president in the White House. Last week, Gore Vidal even told Joy Behar on her new CNN talk show that he thought Mr. Obama was "too intelligent for the job." Oh, really?

If he's that super intelligent, then he must have awfully dumb advisers because none of them seems to know the difference between news reporting and opinion.

I've been writing an opinion editorial column for 11 years but at times I've also written straight news stories while covering NYPD press conferences about local tragedies. That's when I answer the "who, what, where, when, and how" specifics of Journalism 101 and leave my opinion aside.

Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Mike Huckabee all have opinion programs. Mr. O'Reilly claims that he's an independent, but the others are clearly right of center, so those who tune in to watch their shows do not expect hard-core news but rather their opinions on current news events. So what has rattled the cages of the White House?

These popular Fox opinion shows broadcasted legitimate news stories that the mainstream media neglected to cover and all of them were an embarrassment to the Obama administration. If Mr. Hannity hadn't shown the undercover Acorn tapes on his program, would that organization still have advisers helping to set up brothels for underage illegal sex workers? If Mr. Beck hadn't exposed the communist "Truther" background of Anthony ("Van") Jones, would he still be our energy czar?

If Fox hadn't covered the specifics about what Obamacare will really cost taxpayers, and covered the growing anti-government tea parties, and the September 12th march on Washington, would the health care reform bill have already passed both houses of Congress without anybody actually reading it? Isn't that why Democrat-controlled committees in Congress are now hiding behind closed doors and not letting in Republicans or the press?

What exactly is a network supposed to report in this age of 24/7 nonstop news? I recall when local news would be programmed at 6 p.m. and the network national and international news at 7 p.m. There was no such thing as an all-day cable news station before CNN, and then came the upstart Fox News network, which now outguns all others. Why?

If there's legitimate news breaking, Fox will interrupt any program to report it so viewers never miss important stories. This past Sunday, for example, a news alert broke into the regular Fox program to show a disastrous terror bombing in Iraq that has so far claimed more than 150 lives. On-site reporters showed film of the double car bombings and were already conducting live interviews. I switched to CNN and found the "State of the Union" show, with John King discussing with residents of Nebraska how unemployment was affecting their town. Breaking news? Nope.

That recent balloon hoax story was covered on Fox as well as on the other stations, so why is the Obama administration trying so hard to discredit Fox as a news organization? It tipped its hand so badly when it tried to exclude Fox reporters from the pool of White House correspondents interviewing pay czar Kenneth Feinberg that even the mainstream media protested.

Fox News seems fair and balanced because it always presents both sides of an issue so that viewers can decide for themselves which side is more valid. Ellen Ratner is a regular on Fox's "News Watch" program and is a committed liberal who presents her viewpoint succinctly and with candor. She definitely is not what conservatives would call a Kool-Aid drinker, nor are Mr. Caddell and Mr. Davis. CNN, on the other hand, tends to have token Republicans who are neither telegenic nor as quick-witted as the Democrats on Fox News.

Americans are flocking to Fox News because they want the whole story not sycophantic partisan reporting as Mr. Obama is falsely accusing Fox of doing. That's my opinion, which I'll change when CNN has panelists of the caliber of Charles Krauthammer and Mark Steyn as regulars. In addition, there's nothing as entertaining on CNN as Fox's "Red Eye."

The Obama administration's boo-boo may have inadvertently increased the ratings of Fox News, and if it ever becomes the channel of choice in airports and bars, it may be bad for the White House but ultimately good for journalism.

Alicia Colon lives in New York City and can be reached at aliciav.colon@gmail.com and at www.aliciacolon.com.