The Obama administration on Thursday failed in its attempt to
manipulate other news networks into isolating and excluding Fox News,
as Republicans on Capitol Hill stepped up their criticism of the
hardball tactics employed by the White House.
The Treasury Department on Thursday tried to make "pay czar" Kenneth
Feinberg available for interviews to every member of the White House
pool except Fox News. The pool is the five-network rotation that for
decades has shared the costs and duties of daily coverage of the
presidency.
But the Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV networks consulted and
decided that none of their reporters would interview Feinberg unless
Fox News was included. The network pool informed Treasury that Fox
News, as part of the rotation, could not be excluded from such
interviews under the rules of the pool.
The administration relented, making Feinberg available for all five
pool members and Bloomberg TV.
The pushback came after White House senior adviser David Axelrod told
ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday that Fox News is not a real news
organization and other news networks "ought not to treat them that
way."
Media analysts cheered the decision to boycott the Feinberg interview
unless Fox News was included, saying the administration's gambit was
taking its feud with Fox News too far. President Obama has already
declined to go on "Fox News Sunday," even while appearing on the other
Sunday shows.
"I'm really cheered by the other members saying "No, if Fox can't be
part of it, we won't be part of it,'" said Baltimore Sun TV critic
David Zurawik, calling the move to limit Feinberg's availability
"outrageous."
"What it's really about to me is the Executive Branch of the
government trying to tell the press how it should behave. I mean, this
democracy -- we know this -- only works with a free and unfettered
press to provide information," he said.
Several top White House advisers have appeared on other news channels
to criticize Fox News' coverage of the administration, dismiss the
network as the mouthpiece of the Republican Party and urge other news
organizations not to treat Fox News as a legitimate news network.
On Wednesday, Obama, speaking publicly for the first time about his
administration's portrayal of Fox News as illegitimate, said he's not
"losing sleep" over the controversy.
"I think that what our advisers simply said is, is that we are going
to take media as it comes," Obama said when asked about his advisers
targeting the network openly. "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, then that's another. But it's not something I'm
losing a lot of sleep over."
Obama's comments also came after he met Monday with political
commentators Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC; Eugene
Robinson and E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post; Ron Brownstein of the
National Journal; John Dickerson of Slate; Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd
and Bob Herbert of the New York Times; Jerry Seib of the Wall Street
Journal, Gloria Borger of CNN and U.S. News and World Report, and Gwen
Ifill of PBS.
House Republican leaders rushed to the defense of conservative
commentators Thursday after the president's comments.
Rep. Mike Pence, chairman of the House Republican Conference, said
conservative commentators speak more for Americans than the national
media outlets that have targeted them for criticism.
"Goaded on by a White House increasingly intolerant of criticism,
lately the national media has taken aim at conservative commentators
in radio and television," the Indiana Republican said on the House
floor. "Suggesting that they only speak for a small group of activists
and even suggesting in one report today that Republicans in Washington
are 'worried about their electoral effect.' Well, that's hogwash."
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