The Obama administration has done more than point out that Fox is biased; they have, as reported by other news organizations' people, tried to get all the other news outfits to exclude them, to shut them out.
That's an assault on freedom of the press, no matter how you look at it -- and the other organizations know it, which is why they're not cooperating with Obama on excluding Fox.
If Obama keeps pushing, they should all get together and air Fox footage for the news one night, and nothing of their own, and see what he says.
In essence, the President has declared war against the First Amendment. I'll give him credit that he didn't follow the Nixon path and keep everything secret. But if he keeps this up, it would serve him right if the press all around the country decided together to give him nothing but negative coverage for a week.
Many of the rights protected in the Bill of Rights are meant to keep government in check. The Second Amendment is for the extreme situations; it's the task of the ones named in the First to do it every day, attentively. When a president tries to pull a clone of the Alien and Sedition Acts out of his hat by bullying news organizations, it's those organizations' job to stand up and call him on it.
Different news organizations will have biases for different candidates or politicians -- there's no way to avoid that. But it's unforgivable for any politician, at whatever level, to take any action, however slight, against such an organization. Every elected official is expected to remember that if you can do it to them, they can do it to you -- and that often the ante gets upped. If Obama is allowed to get away with dismissing Fox news and locking them out of reporting, what's to say that some future Republican, angry at that, won't find ways to actually shut down MSNBC and CNN?
Censorship doesn't have to be done through law: it can be done by intimidation as well, and that's exactly what this is -- the administration was trying to intimidate the rest of the media into treating Fox like a leper. To the media's credit, they haven't cooperated -- and if Obama keeps it up, they should give him a big "Fuck you!"
All news organizations use editorial judgment in deciding what will be aired. That's why we end up getting propaganda on all sorts of topics -- one of my favorite beefs, as some of you will know, is that the MSM almost always report stories about guns in ways that conform to an anti-gun agenda, even to the point of lying. But it's done also with abortion, health care, and any other topic some editor thinks is important. And other editors react by giving stories prominence which "balance" the other guy....
But it isn't the job of anyone in government to step in and try to change the game. Freedom of the press means just that: total freedom. Any interference, verbal or otherwise, whether stating that a certain organization isn't a news organization, to leaning on landlords to pull leases, or whatever, is flat wrong. It's no different than if the president's press secretary were to announce one day that a gathering for religious leaders was being held to get their views on American life, but that Hindus were not considered a real religion.
Obama should be grilled as Senator Weiner was; every reporter allowed to ask him questions should go in one day soon with only hostile questions to ask. Maybe he'd get the point -- the question is whether he's like Aladdin, and "can be taught".
