Don't be surprised the media elite sided with Fox

Washington reporters know that Democrats complain, but Republicans get even

By Gene Lyons

Oct. 29, 2009

Nobody should be surprised to see the nation's esteemed celebrity news media align with Fox News against the White House, although even a cynical observer like me found the unanimity mildly shocking. Don't they remember what journalism is supposed to be?

Supposedly, the press regulates its own behavior; in reality, that's been a joke for two decades. "Claiming the moral authority of a code of professional ethics it idealizes in the abstract but repudiates in practice," I wrote in 2003, "today's Washington press corps has grown as decadent and self-protective as any politician or interest group whose behavior it purports to monitor."

Today, even the fig leaf has been removed. A "journalist," so-called, is anybody paid by a media organization to enact the role on television.

Otherwise, anything goes.

The Obama administration's basic charge against Fox News is undeniably true: The network functions as the propaganda wing of the Republican Party. Fox openly organizes and promotes partisan political events such as April's "Fox News Tea Party." Its coverage of congressional "Town Hall" meetings reflected not a single individual supporting healthcare reform, as documented by Media Matters for America. Not one. Fox portrays every perceived setback for the Obama White House as a "victory" for "Fox Nation."

As necessary, Fox resorts to sheer fiction: Reporting that Glenn Beck's ballyhooed October Tea Party event drew upward of 2 million protesters to Washington. In reality, considerably more fans (102,941) attended the Auburn-Tennessee football game. (Political tip: If you hope to draw big crowds of Southern white men, avoid Saturdays in October.)

The point's neither complex nor subtle. In this country, journalists don't sponsor or participate in partisan political events. Maybe in Venezuela or China, but in the United States, no. Explaining to the New York Times, deputy White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said, "We simply decided to stop abiding by the fiction, which is aided and abetted by the mainstream press, that Fox is a traditional news organization."

Yet neither the Times nor most "mainstream" pundits evaluated the claim on its merits. Most pretended not to grasp the White House's point, and then went straight to the aiding and abetting. Many invoked the ghost of Richard Nixon. Why, to criticize Fox, claimed the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus and Charles Krauthammer, was downright "Nixonian."

NPR's Ken Rudin recalled "what Nixon and Agnew did with their enemies list." So did CNN's Anderson Cooper. Rudin subsequently apologized for the "boneheaded" comparison; Cooper didn't.

Excuse me, but Nixon's enemies list was secret. Journalists and others got subjected to illegal FBI wiretaps, "black bag" break-ins and IRS audits. White House officials even discussed murdering columnist Jack Anderson.

Meanwhile, Nixon's Oval Office tapes are the gift that keeps giving to historians like "Nixonland's" Rick Perlstein. "Bob, PLEASE get me the names of the Jews, you know the big Jewish contributors of the Democrats," Nixon begged aide H.R. Haldeman. "Could we please investigate some of the (bleepbleepers)?"

Now that's what I call an enemies list.

Meanwhile, poor little Fox got criticized publicly. Oh, the horror!

Look, here's the deal. Where Democrats are concerned, journalism's vaunted ethical code quit functioning as anything but camouflage during President Clinton's first term. Out of scores of examples Joe Conason and I documented in "The Hunting of the President," the easiest to explain briefly may be a 1995 ABC "Nightline" broadcast in which a creatively edited video clip was used to insinuate that Hillary Clinton lied about "Whitewater" legal work.

After excising the words "I was what we called the billing attorney" from the first lady's remarks, ABC's Jeff Greenfield suggested that concealing that very fact explained "why the White House was so worried about what was in Vince Foster's office when he killed himself."

The phony quote then showed up everywhere: on CNN, in New York Times editorials, Maureen Dowd's column, etc. William Safire used it to predict Mrs. Clinton's indictment. After all, as Newsweek's Michael Isikoff wrote, "It is Foster's suicide that lends Whitewater its aura of menace."

Ancient history? Maybe so. But there was Jeff Greenfield on CBS News last week (he's worked for everybody), making the obligatory Nixon comparison and assuring Katie Couric that "if Fox is feeling any pain from the White House's stance, it's crying all the way to the bank."

As do they all.

See, while Fox News acolytes remain convinced of "liberal media bias," the reality is that celebrity journalists rarely, if ever, get hurt for abusing Democrats. Mistreat a name-brand Republican, however, and ...

Well, remember "60 Minutes'" Dan Rather?

Democrats complain; Republicans get even.

Hence "mainstream" political journalists, who cower like beaten dogs for fear of ending up on Fox boss (and Nixon alumnus) Roger Ailes' own enemies list, haven't had to fear the Obama White House. Last week's collective cringe makes it abundantly clear how badly they'd like to keep it that way.

© 2009 by Gene Lyons. Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

-- By Gene Lyons

Bias in Debate Moderators? How About Tom Brokaw?

FROM MEDIA MATTERS, Sept. 30, 2008

On Sunday's Meet the Press, NBC's Tom Brokaw allowed McCain strategist Steve Schmidt to falsely claim that John McCain had called for Don Rumsfeld to be fired. That's an old lie that the McCain campaign had abandoned long ago -- but Brokaw let Schmidt get away with bringing it back.

Even worse, Brokaw ended the segment by announcing -- "in fairness to everybody here" -- that the "latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll" found that John McCain "continues" to lead Barack Obama on the question of who is "best-equipped to be commander in chief."

Yesterday, Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars pointed out that the numbers Brokaw read did not, in fact, appear in the "latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll."

Now MoveOn says they contacted NBC -- and "it turns out Brokaw was referring to a poll taken weeks ago--right after the Republican convention and well before Friday's big national security debate. And in each of NBC's last two polls, Americans chose Obama over McCain."

MoveOn thinks Brokaw should apologize.

That's a good first step. He might also want to figure out a way to reassure the public that he'll do a better -- and more fair -- job when he moderates the October 7 presidential debate.

He probably won't spend much time doing that, though -- his days are apparently pretty full acting as NBC's liaison to the McCain campaign. In that role, Brokaw works to assure the McCain camp that "Mr. McCain could still get a fair shake from NBC News."

After Brokaw's performance on Sunday, NBC should be scrambling to assure the Obama campaign of the same thing.

Tom Brokaw Acting as Liason With McCain Campaign

From Huffington Post

Tuesday's New York Times features a profile of Tom Brokaw ahead of the October 7 presidential debate being hosted by the veteran NBC newsman. The Times reveals that Brokaw has "played a pivotal role out of public view, both within NBC and in its dealings with the campaign of John McCain in particular."

Mr. Brokaw said that over the summer he had "advocated" within the executive suite of NBC News to modify the anchor duties of the MSNBC hosts Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews on election night and on nights when there were presidential debates. Their expressions of strong political opinions from the MSNBC anchor desk has run counter to the more traditional role Mr. Brokaw played on "NBC Nightly News" for more than two decades. NBC said earlier this month that the two hosts would mostly relinquish their anchor duties to Mr. Gregory, while being present as analysts.

"Keith is an articulate guy who writes well and doesn't make his arguments in a 'So's your old mother' kind of way," Mr. Brokaw said. "The mistake was to think he could fill both roles. The other mistake was to think he wouldn't be tempted to use the anchor position to engage in commentary. That's who he is."
Brokaw said he has also conducted some "shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks" between NBC and the McCain campaign.

His mission, he said, was to assure the candidate's aides that -- despite some negative on-air commentary by Mr. Olbermann in particular -- Mr. McCain could still get a fair shake from NBC News. Mr. Brokaw said he had been told by a senior McCain aide, whom he did not name, that the campaign had been reluctant to accept an NBC representative as one of the moderators of the three presidential debates -- until his name was invoked.

"One of the things I was told by this person was that they were so irritated, they said, 'If it's an NBC moderator, for any of these debates, we won't go,' " Mr. Brokaw said. "My name came up, and they said, 'Oh, hell, we have to do it, because it's going to be Brokaw.' "