Fox and the White House

I really have to disagree with you Kevin, which is pretty rare. There is simply no reason the White House should be expected to subject themselves to questioning by people that have no interest in developing facts and stories reported on a straight basis, which Fox does not. You don't see administration officials being forced to sit down with Michelle Malkin or Hugh Hewitt (sp?) on a regular basis so why should you expect them to do the same with Fox? Fox has no God given right to an interview.

Who, exactly, has a right to press pool displays?

I don't think you can treat FOX like a normal news org when they promulgate misinformation and at times appear to promote violent revolution. They lie, they make things up - it's not merely bias. I think you need to sideline it. Fox is not a legitimite news organization and people know thaqt. Does National Inquirer get to be part of the pool?

Why should the Administration waste their time with a specific political activist group because that group calls itself a news organization?

You didn't see the Bush admin answering questions from Huffington Post - or the New York Times - and neither answers questions from Air America or Green Press or whatnot.

Kev, usually you're spot on, but I think your comment is way off. Of course Fox should be left out of the news conferences and interviews -- they're not a legitimate news organization. I think it's even more ridiculous that Jake Tapper called Fox a "sister" organization -- aren't these guys like Tapper supposed to be competing against Fox? Shouldn't Tapper feel a little relief that the competition is getting the shaft?

Didn't fox refuse to carry the Presidents address on Health Care, while all other news networks did carry the broadcast. Nuf said.

The WH is merely whacking the nose of the puppy who has pooed on the carpet one too many times. Fox will be let back in the house, but on a short leash soon enough.

A nose whacking way overdue, BTW.

Bush cut funding for NPR cause it was a liberal new outfit. Elections have consequences.

And Fox, such a ficking drama queen, the entire GOP in fact. Find a legit candidate and start playing the game instead of whining all the time.

" how did we, feel about Republicans pulling the same shit?"

Hey dim wit, the Republicans spent 8 years doing it, for example, refusing 9 years worth of interview request from the NY Times and suggesting repeatedly that they would retaliate against media outlets they did not like.

The White House is handling this perfectly.

And the difference is, when the Bush admin did it to MSNBC/NBC
Dan Froomkin reacted. Ruth Marcus only mentioned this because she had already said ( wrongly, of course) that if the Bush admin had done such a thing the press would be in conniptions. Her only evidence of conniptions
was Dan Froomkin.- Not exactly the big press.

While in this case,
the NYT and Joe Klein and Jake Tapper and Kevin Rudin of NPR
and Ruth Marcus are reacting. A whole hell of a lot more like the big press.

I think Kevin has a valid point, and also that many commenters have a valid point that FN is in no way anything but a propaganda outlet.

I think a better solution, rather than the WH trying to kick right-wing propaganda channels out of the pool, is to organize some sort of 3rd-party panel that can vet who gets to be in the pool. That way it's harder to invoke 1st amendment issues on an emotional level.

Biggest problem is that if "old news" did the vetting, they would systematically favor Fox-like trash over quality news blogs and the like. That's a problem too, but less problematic than having the WH decide who gets pool access.

I'm with Kevin on this one. It shouldn't be a major newsflash, even to those partisans so hot to point out lies and distortions promulgated by Fox News, that all news agencies are prone to lies and distortion -- CBS, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, etc., to take just a few notable recent examples. And the fiction that the journalistic universe is somehow divided into responsible, "objective" organizations and politically biased (and, as implied, "irresponsible") ones deserves to be pounded into the ground and left for dead. ALL news organizations suffer from a systemic bias. It would be nice if, a la the English system, these biases were simply acknowledged, and the rest of us could evaluate what any given medium produces accordingly.