A Howard University political science professor has spoken out in disagreement with the Obama administration’s declaration of discontent with the Fox News Network.
Political science and international relations professor John Davis said the controversy should be halted and believed it may be counterproductive.
“I disagree strongly with the way the Obama administration is handling this,” Professor Davis said.
After a tumultuous summer of heated debates, angry town halls, tea party protests and even aggressive outbursts against President Barack Obama’s proposed legislation, the White House is now taking the offensive against their conservative opponents.
The Obama administration has explicitly gone after Fox News, questioning the organization’s legitimacy as a news source and refusing to permit officials within the administration to appear in any interviews.
The situation began the evening of Sept. 9, when Fox did not cover President Obama’s speech about health care reform to a joint session of Congress and instead played episodes of “So You Think You Can Dance” and “Glee.”
When President Obama made an unprecedented health care push on Sept. 20 by conducting interviews with Sunday talk shows from CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC and Univision, he did not extend the offer to Fox. Later, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn told the media, “Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.”
As the controversy began to intensify, Glenn Beck, host of the nightly Glenn Beck Program on Fox News Channel, placed a red telephone on the set and invited Dunn to call at any time the program made errors or erroneous remarks. Last week, senior vice president of News at Fox, Michael Clemente also came out against the Obama administration, saying they should be focused more on the situation in Afghanistan and policy issues among other things.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and White House Chief Of Staff Rahm Emmanuel responded to Clemente on separate talk shows Sunday, with Emmanuel saying Fox “is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective.”
This week, Clemente continued to defend his network against Gibbs who has also continued to classify Fox News as opinion. For the first time, President Obama addressed the issue when he compared Fox News Channel to conservative talk radio in an interview with NBC News Wednesday.
President Obama also stressed that he and his advisors will take the media as it operates, but said the controversy is “not something I’m losing a lot of sleep over.”
Brandon Cooper, president of the Howard University College Republicans does not agree with the approach of President Obama and suggested other media outlets practice the same strategies.
“He talks about Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, but that is only three hours of the 24 hours Fox is on the air,” Cooper said. “CNN has Anderson Cooper and MSNBC has Keith Olbermann, two liberals who share the same view as the White House and are just as biased as the Fox News commentators.”
Cooper also said that the only difference is that those two share the same perspective as the Obama administration, but since the Fox News commentators are on the opposite side, he wants to marginalize and attack them.
He also believed Obama is using the issue as a distraction from the health care debate. Noting the divisions within the Democratic Party over reform, Cooper believed this is meant to distract the media while the president organizes his party.
Others on campus welcome the position of the Obama administration. Derrell Graham, a sophomore international business major, believes the president’s statements are accurate.
“Usually when you are looking for accurate news, you flip to either MSNBC or CNN, not Fox News,” Graham said. “As for him going after Fox, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but since he’s the president anything he says is going to be scrutinized.”
Davis knows that the attacks against Obama are nothing new, as they were a regular aspect of the campaigning process and have plagued other presidencies, such as those of former President George W. Bush and Democratic Presidents Clinton and Carter.
However, he views the Obama administration’s remarks as “nonsensical” because he knows plenty of Independents and some Democrats who watch Fox and said sometimes
Fox News Channel will cover stories that other news media organizations will not.
Davis also said the latest actions by the administration are an affront to their transparency efforts.
Rather than continue to alienate Fox News, Davis wants White House officials to appear on Fox programs to express their agenda and allow Fox to disagree. He also wants the Fox News Channel and the administration to completely discuss all potential false stories currently on-air or that will air, and if there are any, have Fox do so with honesty.
Davis said Fox’s evidence must be consistent with information that can be checked not only by the Obama administration and other media organizations, but the American people as well.
Moving forward, Davis said that if these progressive steps are taken, a more productive and less controversial atmosphere between the two entities may arise.
“Don’t worry about what they have to say,” he said. “You’re not there to try to change those views of the conservatives, but at least get out positions of the administration and that’s it.”
3 comments
To begin, for you to say that you use the term African-American loosely referring to Barack's ethnicity is an ignorant statement, his father was from Africa and his mother was from America; hence African-American. Secondly, the Presidency does not have a hands off sign stamped across it and the Obama Administration isn't going after Fox News because of racial issues. They are going after the "news" organization because some of their stories tend to mislead their viewers about the Administration's policy pursuits. Your logic is off when you insinuate that Obama is only in it for the money("collecting some large checks"); he is a Harvard Law School graduate who could have easily been making over six figures by now had he pursued a career with a private law firm or a corporation. The President has publicly stated that a strong debate arguing both sides is healthy, however when a medium reports something about his proposals that is misleading or is an outright lie then the President has the right to call them out...just like you had the right to say that you're not ridiculous for being a Black conservative. The bottom line is that if a report coming from the media is false then they are setting themselves up for a possible lawsuit because that's defamation and/or libel. Final word Ann, if by 2050 America is a Latino nation and your a Black conservative, WHAT WILL YOU DO THEN?
Will someone please tell me why the presidency now has a "hands off" sign stamped across it? I thought there was free speech, the right to dissent, the right to protest and have your views heard. Not so anymore.
Yes, you can be a black conservative, I am one. And I am not ridiculous. I don't make excuses for anyone, black or white.
In twenty years, all you self-righteous young, liberal Black Americans, look back and see the history that is now being written (which will be rewritten, I assure you) and at that time determine if it was what you thought it was.
President Obama will be collecting some large checks, and you will be, well, what will you be? Where will you be?
So I say ALL presidents are up for whatever the public, media, etc. has to toss their way. We need to stop this "they're only doing it because he's black" stuff and get on with life. After all, the commecial says that by 2050 this will be a Latino nation. What will you do then?