UPDATE AT BOTTOM
I have long been arguing that while I am not for censorship, I am very much for calling things by their proper names. If a society is to have any kind of success in flourishing, people need a common language, where words have actual meaning, not a simulacrum of reality, fashioned by big business, big media, big PR firms, and so forth.
As I noted here, Fox News is not a legitimate journalism outlet. Calling it a "news" outlet is not an accurate definition. Anyone arguing that it is has clearly confused opinion with news and confused a political platform with fact-based reporting. Fox is a TV version of the New York Post - also owned by the Murdoch propaganda machine - both are tabloid, corporate meme farms and extensions of the RNC.
I vehemently believe this as any ethical journalist should see and understand. It is a matter of the most basic principles of journalism. All of that said, I will vehemently defend Fox News' right to access as I would vehemently defend the KKK's right to demonstrate. It is a Constitutional question, a question of a free press. Even a perverted, corporate and political propaganda mill like Fox has the right to information, to access, to interviews, etc.
That is why the White House has lost me with this latest move:
"The White House attempted to block Fox News from a round of interviews with "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg Thursday, but the Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV networks included in the White House pool refused to interview Feinberg unless Fox News was included.
Fox News says that the White House "failed in its attempt to manipulate other news networks into isolating and excluding Fox News."'
I have fully criticized the Fox war against the White House and their attempts to play victim when the obvious is pointed out: they are not a legitimate news source. I have defended the White House for stating this very obvious fact because, as I noted above, journalism is dying a slow death precisely because hate speech, fact-free opinion, and political talking points have replaced fact and objectivity (See Flatland Journalism and Propaganda News)
But I cannot and will not defend the White House' latest move, which is a slap in the face of a free press and a breech of public trust. This also gives Fox exactly what they have wanted, the status of legitimate victim of a Nixonian White House, when in fact, they are a Nixonian news outlet with its own crop of plumbers and criminals.
Yet even Fox's unethical, dishonest behavior, political and corporate propaganda, and questionable business practices, it is still entitled to have access to a government official. Just as the twisted, inbred, racist world-view of the KKK must still be allowed expression.
Blocking access to a government official is absolutely crossing a line, even when Fox News crosses the line daily. We expect Fox News to be unethical. We expect the leadership of this nation, however, to be ethical, responsible, and open.
My suggestion to the White House is to let Fox News in and let them do what they do. By all means call them what they are, a propaganda outlet. By all means criticize their lack of ethics, honesty, even decency. But give them access. Legitimate criticism is fine. Not allowing access, is however, a serious Constitutional issue that no one should stand for.
UPDATE
According to Mediaite, Fox News may have actually planted this story and their corespondent Major Garrett seems to have in fact interviewed Feinberg. If that is the case, then Fox News just shot itself in the head (emphasis mine):
We reported earlier that when Fox News was banned from a round-robin interview with Obama administration “Pay Czar” Kenneth Feinberg, the bureau chiefs of the other major networks banded together to thwart the White House. Now, Mediaite has learned exclusively that the Treasury Department, who set up the interviews, denies the story.
<snip>
Reporting on the story has been sketchy thus far, with Fox News being the only network to report it so far. In their report, they also fail to make it clear that it was the Treasury Department, not the White House, who was responsible for setting up the interviews.
In other words, if it is true that in fact Fox did interview Feinberg and that Fox did in fact plant this story to continue its war on the White House, it has proved exactly why the WH has called them a partisan outlet. I would go father and call them liars. I am eagerly waiting for either the apology from Fox or proof that they were actually excluded. Keep you posted.
