Jonah Goldberg catches an “amazing” moment from Anita Dunn, the Mao-loving lame duck Obama White House communications director:
The other day I listened to some of an interview with Anita Dunn. I loved this bit of Q&A from the audience:
QUESTION: Hi. Yes, I’m Mark Kaiser, and I work for the Freedom Forum here. I just had a question about – back to the FOX issue. I think it’s pretty safe to say that there’s, you know, opinions, strong opinions on both sides at the networks.
My specific question would be if it was helpful to the overall discussion to say that FOX was not a legitimate news organization. Granted, they’re in opposition to a lot of Obama’s policies, and there’s a lot to be said about that, but, I mean, was it helpful to identify them so strongly?
DUNN: You know, it’s - I recommend everybody, if you get a chance to go on YouTube, Jon Stewart actually did one of the most amazing pieces of journalism last week or a couple of weeks ago in which he actually looked at the way FOX, on their opinion shows, raises some, you know, some – some issue that then gets reported on by their news division as, quote, “a controversy,” and then they go find someone to comment.
It wasn’t the only time she plugged the Daily Show’s journalistic genius. I don’t object to criticism of Fox from the left any more than I object to criticism of MSNBC from the right (even if I might disagree on the substance of the criticism). But when the communications director wants to justify an effort to delegitimize a major news organization simply because it is critical of the president, she might want to avoid holding up a comedy show as an exemplar of legitimate journalism.
At least Ron Ziegler knew that…even if Ron Nesson didn’t.
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5 Comments
1. What Obama calls *real* journalism. | Billoblog ®:[...] [...]
Nov 15, 2009 - 1:23 pm 2. "Real" Journalism | America Watches Obama:[...] 0 Comments Anita Dunn, architect of the administration’s “Fox isn’t a real news network” strategy, has singled out one person who does “amazing…journalism.” Who is that? Comedian Jon Stewart. [...]
Nov 15, 2009 - 4:03 pm 3. my:Anita Dunn is not only a Mao groupie but she gets her news from Jon Stewart?
Nov 15, 2009 - 4:11 pm 4. t.johnson:Hey, Driscoll: I’m on your side, generally, and Dunn should have been done a long time ago, and her and Obama’s attack on FOX should be attacked.
Nov 15, 2009 - 4:30 pm 5. Dave:But your dismissal of her comment on Stewart, in this case, is fairly callow: I saw the piece and it was a persuasive compilation of the way the talking heads on FOX can raise an issue which then is covered as “news” by the news reporters and anchors who quote their own talking heads.
Now, I can’t answer for the entire fairness and accuracy of Stewart’s little bit. But it was very persuasive and on point and a creative way to take on the issue at hand: does FOX create news by juicing the synergy between the opiniators and the news side?
I assume a similar case could be made about PMSNBC.
While Stewart often is on the wrong side of most major issues, often unfair and smarmy in his bootlicking of leftist icons; he also is really smart and funny and often deft at skewering pretentions and platitudes on all sides. So speak to the bit Dunn cited, don’t just say Stewart’s a clown so you don’t have to…
As if this whole process wasn’t PERFECTED by the CBS/CNN/NBC/ABC guys and dolls decades ago…
they take a poll… skew the questions to get the poll to say a certain thing.. then the anchors go on the air and report on the poll in order to repeat over and over again what their ‘poll’ was destined to say from the beginning.
This is standard mainstream media style, and the white house knows it because people like them invented it.
so they’re upset now that Fox might occasionally get their reporters working on a news item that first came up on an opinion show.. She doesn’t say, of course, whether the ‘item’ is in fact news or not.. and most of the time it IS… but even so, it’s more honest than the old ‘poll dance’ that the MSM has subjected us to for decades.
Nov 16, 2009 - 3:56 am