Jake Tapper can't figure out how Fox News is different from ABC News?
October 21, 2009 7:44 am ET by Eric Boehlert
At Tuesday's White House briefing Tapper seemed completely baffled, and quite insulted, by the White House's claim that Fox News is not a real news organization. Tapper demanded WH spokesman Robert Gibbs back up the claim [emphasis added]:
Tapper: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one –
(Crosstalk)
Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.
Tapper: But that’s a pretty sweeping declaration that they are “not a news organization.” How are they any different from, say –
Gibbs: ABC -
Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?
Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock tonight. Or 5 o’clock this afternoon.
Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news organization” -- why is that appropriate for the White House to say?
Gibbs: That’s our opinion.
Oh my, Tapper has no idea how Fox News is different than ABC News, and he works there. Tapper can't tell what Fox News does differently that his own network. And Tapper was clearly irked that the White House had offered up an opinion that one of the Village's "sister organizations" wasn't professional. "Why is that appropriate for the White House to say?" Tapper demanded to know. (Hint: As a Beltway rule, Democratic White Houses are forbidden from calling out the press by name.)
In response to the WashPost's Ruth Marcus who on Tuesday obediently typed up what virtually every Beltway journalist has said about the White House and Fox News (i.e. it's the White House that's way out of bounds; Fox News is fine), I offered up some examples of how Fox News isn't quite like the others. My hunch was that Marcus doesn't really watch Fox News, even though she pretended to be an expert in the dispute involving the White House.
So for the benefit of Tapper I'll reproduce the cheat sheet, and yes, many of the examples below involve the supposedly serious "news" side at Fox.
For instance, here's an example of how the Fox News family isn't quite like ABC. Here's another another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another.
My guess is if ABC News (inadvertently) broadcast just three or four of those kinds of obvious falsehood during an entire calender year, executives would be quite embarrassed. At Fox News though, they flow like a runny faucet and nobody there takes responsibility for the falsehoods, or even pretends there's anything wrong with them.
But Tapper is stumped. He can't figure out how Fox News is different from ABC News. (Psst Jake, I wouldn't say that too loudly around David Westin.)
UPDATED: How is Fox News different from ABC? Fox News has proudly co-sponsored partisan political rallies this year. Maybe I missed it, but did ABC News market anti-war rallies in 2002 and 2003? Still, Jake Tapper can't figure out how Fox News is different from ABC.
UPDATED: How is Fox News different from ABC? Fox News recently purchased a full-page ad in the Washington Post and lied about its TV news competitors, including ABC News.
Fox News claimed that the other cable and network news outlets had "miss[ed]" the Sept. 12, anti-Obama rally in Washington, D.C., when in fact TV news orgs, like ABC, covered the protest extensively. So, Fox News publicly smeared Tapper's employer, but Tapper can't figure out how Fox News is different from ABC.
UPDATED: At least Tapper's performance earned him the warm embrace of the Fox News family.
UPDATED: Gawker has a question for Tapper:
Does Tapper understand that despite the fact that he is very good, personal friends with [Fox News'] Major Garrett, Garrett's employer is actually a research and communications arm of the conservative movement? In a much, much, much more direct and partisan fashion than almost any liberal "equivalent" news source?
Media Matters: On the brink of Glenn Beck's salvation
Media Matters: Incendiary rant exposes Dr. Laura (again)
Media Matters: Glenn Beck, Holy Warrior
Jake's contract coming up at ABC, and he's looking to get hired over at Fox Noise?
And so should you be, rwmacdonald2091.
After all, as Robert Gibbs said, "It's just our opinion".
Fox told me about those things and since they're a completely unbiased news organization it must me true.
Or that the New York Times isn't a responsible newspaper.
Or Media Matters isn't a responsible blog.
This is one where you guys should be duly concerned, but none of you can think that far ahead.
You never can.
Your slippery slope fantasy is about as slippery as sandpaper.
On the other hand, NO ONE can say any other channel besides Fox is a 24/7 political crusade.
Claiming that the next WH will do the same thing is silly because it doesn't work on REAL journalists. It probably won't work on Fox either because fear-mongering idiots, like yourself, desperately need Fox to tell them who to be afraid of.
You could go back in the archives at this site alone, trelan, and see the folly of what you just printed, if you want to.
No anti-Bush blog in existence had ever shied away from demonizing not only Chris Matthews, but several commentators and news anchors at MSNBC for fawning over Bush.
If you'd like to go back and restate that, fine, but I can't respond to a thesis as flawed as how you began yours.
There's no evidence whatsoever that FOX is trying to take down Obama's presidency. Nope--none at all.
I'm an old school believer who wants the press to act as a watchdog. To ask probing questions, to listen to the answers with a healthy dose of skepticism, and to review what our public officials tells us with the utmost scrutiny. Fox is not doing that. They're manufacturing news, creating false controversy, and wrapping in all in a big, bright, fear covered package that William Randolph Hearst could have only dreamed about.
Media Matters has shown that time and time again using actual clips and quote in context--seems like they're acting pretty responsibly to me.
Robert Gibbs' only response was, 'That's our opinion'.
My point stands. The next administration would have no problem compiling one-sided hit lists like what is done at Media Matters for any enemy that they choose, and say it is 'Their opinion' that that media outlet engages in yellow jounalism, too.
Yet if the "one sided hit lists" consist of evidence of lies and smears and examples of irresponsible journalism, how is that harmful?
Any administration who attacks a media outlet is engaging in risky behavior that could easily backfire. It helps when the "one-sided hit lists"
is composed of factual rebuttals to unprofessional biases and easily refuted to attacks.
The real issue here is that attack media, while not banned or censured, should be held accountable for what is false. Also charging media with bias is done all through the political spectrum. When it is backed up with evidence how is that harmful?
Tapper is right, it's not the job of the White House to do what they're doing. It's not their place to delegitimize a news organization by 'opining' that they are not a news organization and making it an all-out frontal assault.
Especially when they have much more important things to do. If this is more important to them than two wars and the health care bill, then they must be afraid that Fox is going to hurt their progress in those two areas, and that is just pathetic.
Show me one positive story FOX has done on the President since he took office, hoosier. Bush II was the worst president in 100 years, and even he got something right once in a while. In the eyes of FOX, the administration not only hasn't done anything right, they're being blamed for things they haven't even done.
FOX has chosen to act foolishly in public, and now they're all upset that the grownups are pointing and laughing. Who's fault is that, exactly?
I've expressed an opinion as well--one that been formed by doing a healthy amount of research into a number of sources, left, right, and center, and not one that comes from cherry picked data, cropped quotes, or surgically edited clips--you know, the basic equipment you'll find in the Fox News Tool Box.
The McNabb quote, where do you read of what was going on at the time, where Philly fans were none too happy with his performance. With the NFL sorely behind the times racially with respect to blacks in the two key positions with respect to mental acuity, QB and head coaching? When do you see a full accounting of the times and an objective analyis of just what he was trying to convey, which was a knock on the media, and not any more of a knock on McNabb than any other sports fan or columnist was saying with respect to his performance. He screwed up in how he said it, but when do you see a fully-vetted analysis here or anyone else who doesn't like him.
Same with the Bloods vs. Cripps comment. When do you see the context of the times he made the comment given, when the NFL was investigating gang signs made by the players, cutting down on the types of celebrations going on that looked like gang bravado, or the throat slasher gesture, or the do-rags?
You haven't made an opinion backed by any sort of healthy amount of research other than what is backed up by your preconceived notions; everyone thinks they do, though. That's exactly why it's wrong for the Obama White House should be doing what they're doing and then declaring "That's our opinion."
But, I wasn't talking about Limbaugh. I was talking about Fox News. And you still haven't made any points. You've expressed opinions.
And, by the by, hoosier, I make no claims of being an Alpha Wonk, but I'd be willing to put the amounts of reading I do and the sources I turn to up against almost anyone. You might want to take that into consideration before posting any preconceived notions you may have about me or anyone else who posts here.
(P.S. All signs point to "yes")
Really?
What Gibbs says gives the impression they shouldn't be challenged, or at least they seem to be heading that way.
Are you not concerned about where they may stop?
Tapper is, and you shouldn't blame him. You should be joining him instead of your knee-jerk reaction of agreeing simply because you hate Fox and want to see them smacked down.
It should be either the market or the people smacking them down and watchdog sites like this, not the White House.
By the way, I laughed at the Bush Administration when I learned that it gave press credentials to that escort dude so he could ask softball questions of the President. I can only imagine how concerned you must have been.
Right. And they are more than welcome to try it. What has you so concerned is that you realize that the average American dismissed Fox News as a news source years go. Fox has been appealing to only their rabid, partisan, niche market for some time now in order to improve their ratings. They gave up on journalism a long time ago.
An administration can attempt to dismiss any source of news they choose, such as the last administration attempted to do with NBC and the New York Times. The difference is that the people did not but that crap. They absolutely agree with Obama that Fox News is nothing close to journalism. Your gripe is with the American people.
And it was Bush who praised FoxNews for their support. It was Bush who hired a non-journalist to lob softball questions their way. It was Bush who paid journalists to publish stories that praised them. It's the right who behaves in inappropriate ways. Not MSNBC or Obama.
Meantime, Barack Obama is meeting in closed conference with Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.
Please enlighten me more, rms, while you're on a roll.
I have heard nothing about this, and can find no evidence to support this assertion. You just left-handing this, or what? Hyperbole to make a point is one thing. Outright lying is... well, right out of the FOX Propaganda playbook.
Maybe you have a credible source?
And there you go. See, I knew it would only take a few posts to reveal you. You are a Fox News sycophant. So, of course, your only concern is that Fox News does not continue to lose their legitimacy. They are your source of "news" and you buy the crap they are selling.
How freakin' uniformed are you?
Can you prove this? Cause I can prove W had a "closed conference" with Mike Gallagher, Neal Boortz, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Michael Medved.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/us/politics/17radio.html?ex=1318737600&en=a961ba66ef087429&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
This today at mediabistro.com
"On Monday, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow were among several people who attended an off-the-record briefing with Pres. Obama at the White House. Sources tell us other attendees at the two-and-a-half hour chat included Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Gwen Ifill of PBS and Gloria Borger of CNN. Perhaps not surprisingly, no one from Fox News was in the room."
Just a reminder that Obama did the same thing in January. The night following a meeting with Conservative pundits,
"Obama held a meeting with several columnists and liberal commentators this morning, following up on last night's dinner with conservative writers.
The group included the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne and Eugene Robinson, the Wall Street Journal's Gerry Seib, National Journal's Ron Brownstein, the New York Times Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd, The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, CNN's Roland Martin, The Boston Globe's Derrick Z. Jackson, and USA Today's DeWayne Wickham.
Some of the writers there today are clearly on the liberal side, while others more moderate. Regardless, it's still quite a contrast from yesterday's dinner companions: George Will, Bill Kristol, David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, Peggy Noonan, and Paul Gigot."
Is it possible for everyone on both sides to hold the freakouts to minimum? Every commentator named have criticisms of Obama, including Olbermann and Maddow.
Seriously, YOU need to do your own research!!!
On Monday, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow were among several people who attended an off-the-record briefing with Pres. Obama at the White House. Sources tell us other attendees at the two-and-a-half hour chat included Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Gwen Ifill of PBS and Gloria Borger of CNN. Perhaps not surprisingly, no one from Fox News was in the room.
And I'm sure YOU were just as upset when:
Bush hosts right-wing radio talk show hosts at White House - Sep 18th, 2006 at 11:29 am Bush hosts right-wing radio talk show hosts at White House.
The guest list included Sean Hannity, Neal Boortz, Michael Medved, Laura Ingraham, and Mike Gallagher. (Rush Limbaugh was unable to attend.)
Friday’s off-the-record talk, set for 30 minutes, ended up lasting 90 minutes, where Bush told his guests that the war on terror has to be about right versus wrong, “because if it’s about Christianity versus Islam, we’ll lose.” He also showed them the pistol Saddam Hussein had when he was captured.
If they were, Rahm and Axelrod would have been 'locked and loaded' with video clips [as MM has posted here] exhibiting the NONSENSE faux reports as 'BREAKING NEWS'
And, WE, the American people will just all 'get on the Obama bus' as we all got on the 'bush WMD bus'- IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN . .
Obama lost his bid for Olympics, is it all DOWNHILL from THIS president from here? Equating volunteerism to communism instead of quoting President Kennedy 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country' . .
Has Hannity [think now} ever uttered one positive comment about Mr. Obama?
I mean, if you had mentioned shock troops shutting down the FoxNews offices, then you would at least have a viable paranoid conspiracy theory. But you're worried that the administration might continue to *say bad things* about Fox? Heaven forbid!
They're not. They're merely pointing out the yellow journalists in the room. Something the rest of the press should've been doing since FOX Propaganda began broadcasting.
Maybe you are the one unable to think ahead.
Moron.
I like it when FOX tries to delegitimize Obama, but I don't like it when it's the other way around.
I think you were trying to be insulting, but it was so laughable that I, well, laughed.
It doesn't matter when you tune in Fox, within 5 minutes they will "report" something untrue about the democrats. They have basically admitted they are the "Alamo" of the right wing.
Well I got news for you, us lefties are coming after the lies and distortions that Fox makes up. You can't wrap yourself in the flag and yell anymore you people are unpatriotic anymore.
I would also like to point out, I really don't care if Fox stays on the air. I just want to see that people see it for what it is, a mouthpiece for the far right wing of the republican party.
If your so damned proud of being a part of the far right wing, then you should be proud that you have a whole cable network devoted to your ideology.
Back then, the 'liberal MSM', as our wingnut friends like to call it, was busy helping sell GW Bush's war on Iraq.
ABC, like the rest of the corporate media, had no interest in covering a bunch of hippies who weren't down with the program...let alone helping promote such events.
~
You guys can stop whining any time now. You think your pet "news" network can do your dirty work and be immune from criticism? You got away with it while Puddinhead George was in office, but that pig just can't get off the ground any more.
What, by disagreeing????????? Responding to smears and lies????
It the white house supposed to muzzle itself to all criticism, especially when it is of the nature of death panels and socialist takeover plots...? Birthers....? Tea Bagger promos disquised as news....?
How on earth does Fox getting "called out" become a quarantine???
Fox/conservatives/pundits can dish it out but they can't take it, pure and simple. Crybaby wimps!!!! Where is the evidence that Fox is being quarantined by government sensorship???
The interesting thing is that they attacked, got hit back and want to play the victim and of course, the evil bad government oppressor fits the narrative. Unfortunately the narrative doesn't fit the reality.
And please don't tell me that conservative politicians and presidents have never lashed out at media critics!!!!!!
Jones gone, ACORN busted and defunded, and Anita Dunn looking like the dunce she is.
Who else is getting the word out on this Administration with regard to these three things? Things that as Americans we all have a right and a responsibility to know all about.
Obama has been 'criticizing' Fox since he started running for office. This isn't criticism. This is an assault being done as a all-out political strategy on all the major networks. If it doesn't send chills down your spine you're not thinking it through enough. You're not even thinking it through the next election, any one of which could point back this embarrassingly sad episode and justify whatever they thought they could get away with.
Her accusers, people making the false accusation, look like dunces that can't understand a complex sentence.
She said that she used Mao to make one simple point. That's all.
Van Jones and ACORN have been falsely accused and convicted without any evidence.
For any fair minded person (like the audience who laughed at her comment, for example) her juxaposition of Mao and Mother Teresa was a clue. Her comment that those two people are "not often coupled with each together" was another clue that anyone not permanently clueless (hint - like you) would gather and use.
Then, on top of that, she said that she was being facetious.
So, you have contemporaneous evidence and her later comment, yet you still can't figure it out.
The person failing here is you, not Anita Dunn.
That's outrageous!
Except I believe Dunn said the WH wanted to control their message--and not "the media".
No, it isn't the same thing. Every politician wants to and tries to control their message. "Controlling the media" clearly implies something sinister and dictatorial-and I'm sure that wasn't your intent, was it.
As for ACORN, it's laughably obvious that the one and only reason ACORN was targeted by FOX Propaganda was because of their unfortunate tendency to register poor and minority voters. Wealthy white conservatives really really hate that.
What if the same smear campaign had been launched by Beck, claiming that Van Jones was left-handed? It would have just as much merit as pointing at him and yelling 'Commie!', but would we still be having this discussion?
As for ACORN, a couple of low level employees giving bad advice that was clearly not the corporate policy of ACORN itself is hardly news. That they have a (tenuous at best) connection to the White House does not make it any more newsworthy. What it does make for is really really good Propaganda, the currently specialite d' maison at FOX.
That's what small-minded people say when they can't come up with an answer to the question: "Explain what was damaging about Van Jones--what was he guilty of?"
My panties were not in a wad about it, Mr. Beck's were. Perhaps your question would be better directed at the fool who started this whole tempest in a teapot. Don't expect a straight answer though, because Beck gets paid to lie by an organization that won the right to present lies as news to the American public. Rightly and truly are they called FOX Propaganda.
What about that debunked talking point do you NOT understand?
The same sources that gave people the info that he had been a communist (or had communist leanings, actually) tell us that he discarded those leanings as impractical and not something he wanted to continue just a couple of years after his first embrace of communism!
Darn people who aren't educated who want to try to educate us, and come here with ridiculous ideas and debunked talking points! Why NOT look up the info and keep silent instead of challenging me and having your ignorance publicly proven?
He says he tried to be a revolutionary. He wasn't very successful. He likely wasn't ever really a communist even - just a rebel who hated the establishment.
Sources aren't always people.
It's not my fault you misinterpreted what I said to imply that sources are always people.
It has!
It was really hard. It was right here on http://mediamattersaction.org/smears/200909170026, as a matter of fact, but you didn't know it, KY?
You'd think that someone as slick and slippery as you would know how to look up stuff on this site.
And Politifact says he's not currently a communist either, so if you didn't want to use MMFA, you could have gone there and seen if they had anything about it. But you wanted to stay ignorant. Even after you'd been told that it'd been debunked - you refused to accept it. Like we have a history of lying about stuff like that. NOT.
What a tool.
Until you can find a statement from Jones that he no longer has communist views, this hasn't been adequately debunked. If he wasn't a communist, why hasn't he come forward, specifically at the time he was forced to resign, to say he wasn't a communist? Me thinks you are the dum dum.
The one thing right-wingers do well is to play The Persecuted Victim.
It's just a theory, but I really don't expect much spine from the News Media which let George W. Bush lie us into Iraq without so much as a peep of protest.
I say bring it on. It would show them for the sniveling little wimps they truly are.
The sad thing is that despite the fact that he just doesn't get it, he has a fairly prominent place on a nightly news program.
But, I do agree with what I think he was getting at: The White House really does itself a huge disservice by even entering into this kind of debate. I have noticed an odd tone-deafness at times with this admin., whether it be flying AF1 over lower Manhattan, or going full force on the Olympics in the middle of a Health care debate, to now getting into a scrap with Fox News. What is it they hope to gain? Are folks like Anita Dunn going rogue, are they just off message, or is no-one reining in the big mouths? In my opinion the WH should be talking about 2 things only right now, domestically Health Care/economy (okay 3 things) and Internationally Afghanistan. Anything else is an unwelcome diversion from the issues that matter most to me and I think the American people (as if I can speak for the American people). Who cares about Fox News really? You don't like them, don't go on their air! Geez... get on message WH.
Conservative missinformation in the media is big problem. Time spent calling it out is time well spent.
Afganistan is our number three problem? Sounds like a NeoCon Chickenhawk position. How do you support this position?
Also, I'm not saying Obama had anything to do with the AF1 thing, I only said somebody made a dumb, dumb decision to allow it to happen.
I would argue that time spent by the WH calling it out is wasted time.
But how was this any reflection on the Obama Administration?
We see through your denials. Too bad, so sad. And really sad that you think that a President's Administration can't give attention to important things as well as things of lesser importance at the same time. I mean, don't we all know that Obama does it all without any help from the thousands of employees that support the executive branch of government? How can we possibly expect them to pay attention to more than just a few things at any one time?
End sarcasm! Omigod, some of you posters are EEEEEE-Z.
Your inflection "odd tone deafness", associating a dumb decision with the man who is in the end responsible, but of course your not sayin, your just sayin.
Been waiting twenty odd years for some voices to take it back to any part of the republican noise machine. Obama's administration joins a small population of those doing so. But by all means present an argument that doing so is a bad thing.
What happened to telling the TRUTH to viewers?? How many times will fox be allowed to lie about Jennings aiding sexual abuse of a minor, knowing full well this LIE has been debunked continuously by all media.
Repeating lies and obfuscating doesn't make whatever garbage spewed from their hypocritical mouths true, you know that.
Why hasn't fox showed the driver's license on air of the individual in the Jennings matter? We all know why fox hasn't done this, don't we . .
He dated Monica Lewinsky and wrote about it. That's how he first became "famous."
Did any of you clowns actually read this article and check out the links provided as "examples" of FOX NEWS's bias?
The first 8 are from Beck, Hannity & O'Reilly, clearly part of the OPINION section of the Fox line up. I stopped clicking on the links after that...
This isn't a very convincing article, though I'm sure there are plenty of examples from the "Fox & Friends" show alone...
Get off your soapboxes and actually read what Eric wrote. It doesn't add up.
Yeah, we don't know what we are talking about, but you do.
NOT.
Like for Bush's war....
Or US wars in general
Here
HereHere
.
It is'nt as if there is widespread disapproval of Obama's policies...
Here
Here
Oh, but Gallup is bias....
Not when Bush was doing poorly, of course.
Dear Jake,
Your sister is a leprous and chancre-ridden whore, and your love for her blinds you to her repulsive and tragic infirmities. The rest of us can plainly see the awful truth.
Hmmm... Now that I think of it, Shakey Jakie may be right in this case. ABC is really not that much different from its rotting sister.
WTF is he talking about? He's the one who seemed to suggest he couldn't tell the difference between Fox News and his own employer, but he sure doesn't like anyone pointing out the obvious, does he?
These Beltway Journalists all have quite the reputation of being arrogant pr!cks so I could care less what they say or do anymore!