I'm with Nico

Nico Pitney, who led the new journalism charge during the Iran uprising earlier this year, publishing tweets and smuggled info, often through Iranians in the U.S. with family still over there, schools the always frustrating Howie Kurtz and others including a flack from the rightwing Washington Times who keeps intentionally mistaking FNC for a journalistic rather than propagandistic operation, in just why the Obama Administration was dead right to go after Faux News:



Key is the 80% anti-Obama slant during the "news" portions of their daily broadcast (I'm assuming the 20% was more neutral than positive), as they pretend to differentiate from the opinion, which is often actually dangerous to the physical survival of our fairly elected President.

What's interesting to me is how the Washington Times person starts off talking like a concern troll that the Admin has made a bad move, that it's backfiring, rather than engaging with the substance of the charge, and continues that tack most of the rest of the piece. Interestingly enough, Jane Hall who left Fox may not appear to agree with everything Pitney says, but her reasons for quitting back him up completely.

And please, no more false equivalencies with MSNBC. Sure, Maddow and Olbermann lean left, but they back it up with real facts, not innuendo and smears, often using the GOP politicos' own words, while at the same time MSNBC gives the entire morning to Joe Scarborough, former GOP Congressman. And they actually practice reasonably objective journalism, the traditional kind, during their news coverage. FNC is actually run by the most successful Republican campaign strategist of the past thirty years, for an avowedly conservative mogul from Australia who's key holdings includes the coarse muckraking rag, The New York Post and the conservative (editorial) Wall Street Journal. Oh, and they called the 2000 election for George Bush before the Florida results were final, influencing the election finish -- that was George's cousin John Ellis who made the call -- talking to George five times that night.

My take: the Obama Administration is right to call out FNC for being different than the others and give them the asterisk. It rallies the true believers and forces a lot of others to spend time defending FNC, which only creates a smoke/fire perception and opportunities for guys like Pitney to go on the air and point out the FNC bias.

Since Obama always thinks long strategy rather than short news cycle, those decrying the wasted time and effort by the Admin now don't see how the set up is long-haul. The tarnish on FNC isn't going to go away after a week. It's just defining it now and forever. Or at least until Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch buy the farm, and new owners move in.

But anyone would be foolish to lose that loyal 2-3 million viewer audience that keeps paying the bills. The business model works for FNC. It just doesn't work for America.