Now that the White House has stated the obvious and called Fox News a wing of the Republican Party rather than a real news organization (and Fox has responded by essentially verifying the claim), I am renewing a suggestion I made a couple of years ago:
At the 2012 Democratic Convention, deny Fox News a skybox and make them sit with the bloggers.
I think that Bill Kristol and the Great Orange Satan might have an interesting conversation, don’t you?
Wouldn’t consistency suggest instead denying them a place at the convention altogether? If they’re a propaganda outlet of the GOP (which they are) and not a news organization, there’s no reason for them to be invited to the convention at all.
So, you’re fine then with the GOP banning MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, the Washington Post, the NY Times, and NPR from all future GOP events, pressers, and so forth, as those “news” outlets are every bit as much a part of the Democrat party propaganda machine as the White House claims FOX News is of the Republican party?
Robbie wrote, “So, you’re fine then with the GOP banning MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, the Washington Post, the NY Times, and NPR from … as those “news” outlets are every bit as much a part of the Democrat party propaganda machine…”
Except that they’re not.
To take just one example, the NYT _broke_ the Whitewater “story.” NYT “reporter” Judith Miller and others provided cover for the Bush administration’s WMD-in-Iraq claims.
Anyone who thinks that Fred Hiatt’s Washington Post has the remotest twinges of affection for the Democratic party just hasn’t been paying attention. Of all the outlets Robbie listed, only one is particularly partisan for the Dems, and that’s MSNBC, and only their evening line-up; their morning show is still controlled and hosted by a moderate Republican former congressman.
And Robbie: You might want to take more care to refer to the “Democratic party”, not the “Democrat party”, especially when in the same sentence you refer to the “Republican party” and not to the “Republic party”.
Zasloff’s suggestion would accomplish what? Convince independents that the Democratic Party is the party of pettiness? Show Fox as the network of the vox populi, as opposed to those “Skybox networks”? Given that political junkies seem to be the only ones watching conventions these days, “punishing” Fox would probably become a bigger story than the convention itself.
Regarding media bias, if Warren has any doubts regarding the NYT’s leanings, I suggest he note (i) its editorial columnists, who, with the death of William Safire, range from slightly left of center to very left of center; and (ii) the last Republican presidential candidate endorsed by the NYT was Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The NYT’s columnists are:
3 moderate libs (Krugman, Rich, Herbert)
2 glib conservatives (Douthat, Brooks)
3 inconsistent incoherent narcissists (Dowd, Friedman, Cohen)
1 apolitical globalist (Kristof)
In any case, opinionators aren’t the point. The Fox problem isn’t that Hannity is rabidly partisan, or that Beck is insane. It’s that their NEWS coverage is full of lies. No other network is similar.