White House advisers pledged on Sunday to book administration officials on Fox News despite claims by the president’s inner circle that the cable television network is a Republican mouthpiece whose programming “is geared toward making money.”
Last week, White House communications director Anita Dunn said Fox News operates “almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.”
On Sunday, US President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said: “It is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective.”
In response to the criticism, Fox News executive Michael Clemente on Sunday accused the White House of continuing to “declare war on a news organization” rather than focusing on issues such as jobs and healthcare.
“The door remains open and we welcome a discussion about the facts behind the issues,” Clemente, senior vice president of news, said in a written statement.
Fox News commentators Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly are strong Obama critics.
Obama avoided Fox News Sunday when he visited five Sunday morning news shows last month; three aides carried the administration’s message on Afghanistan, healthcare and the economy this Sunday to ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC, but not Fox; and a recent White House blog post accused Beck of lying. Beck has called Obama a racist.
Karl Rove, a Fox News contributor and former White House adviser to president George W. Bush, said the Obama administration is trying to demonize Fox News for asking questions officials do not like.
He compared Obama’s approach to that of late president Richard Nixon, who included journalists on an “enemies list.”
“This is a White House engaging in its own version of the media enemies list,” Rove said. “And it’s unhelpful for the country and undignified for the president of the United States to so do.”
Appearing on ABC television’s This Week, senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said Fox News shouldn’t be treated as a news organization.
“And the bigger thing is that other news organizations, like yours, ought not to treat them that way, and we’re not going to treat them that way,” he said.
Still, Axelrod said administration officials would appear on the channel.
He shrugged off News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch’s remark to shareholders last Friday that since the White House began criticizing Fox News commentators, their ratings had risen.
“You know, I’m not concerned. Mr Murdoch has a talent for making money and I understand that their programming is geared toward making money,” Axelrod said. “The only argument Anita was making is that they’re not really a news station.”
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Sri Lanka’s fragile economic recovery could be hampered by threatened trade union strikes over reduced benefits for government employees in this year’s budget, the IMF said yesterday. Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s maiden budget raised public sector salaries, but also made deep cuts to longstanding perks in a continuing effort to repair the island nation’s tattered finances. Sri Lanka’s main doctors’ union is considering a strike from today to protest against cuts to their allowances, while teachers are also considering stoppages. IMF senior mission chief for Sri Lanka Peter Breuer said the budget was the “last big push” for the country’s austerity
RSS