It no longer matters what they think

October 15, 2009 at 6:47 am (Max Dunbar, media)

The Obama administration has adopted an aggressive policy towards the increasingly deranged Fox News, with spokesperson Anita Dunn describing the channel as ‘the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican party’.

She went on to say this:

If we went back a year ago to the fall of 2008, to the campaign, that was a time this country was in two wars that we had a financial collapse probably more significant than any financial collapse since the Great Depression. If you were a Fox News viewer in the fall election what you would have seen were that the biggest stories and the biggest threats facing America were a guy named Bill Ayers and a something called ACORN.

Guardian US correspondent Michael Tomasky explains why this was the right decision.

Fox will make a crusade out of this, in the way that McGreal describes Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly as doing. But who cares what Beck and O’Reilly say, beyond the universe of people who are already proven to care what they say? Nobody. They have their 2 or 3 million viewers. Fine. Bully for them. The other 307 million Americans are busy doing other things.

News junkies constantly overestimate cable television’s reach and influence. Always remember: If Fox were that powerful, we’d be watching President McCain calling the shots.

Exactly. Compromise with the rightwing media never works because you can never compromise enough. Nothing will ever satisfy these people.

The UK also has a reactionary media with massive delusions of relevance. If Labour had taken Obama’s attitude in ’97, imagine what a great country we could be living in today.

(Image via 44Diaries)