As with every other White House – and most public officials, for the matter – the Obama White House has a problem with the media. Or, to be more specific, certain segments of the media – especially Fox News – that are sharply critical of the White House.

And as with every other, those in charge of communications in the current White House one have a choice to make: ignore these outlets’ steady barrage of criticism or take them on.

As we’ve seen especially in the 10 days or so, it’s a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t scenario – one that many organizations and corporations face, though surely not with the sort of intensity a White House does. It’s tough, on the one hand, to allow a critic to assail you with harsh and often misleading characterizations without a fight; on the other hand, taking on the critics subjects you to charges of being “thin-skinned” (or as my Fleishman-Hillard Washington colleague Bill Garber put it, “When you’re in the big house, people expect you to be tough enough to weather the criticism and continue with your agenda.”). Others will claim “censorship!” And still others will say that the White House is playing politics, trying to build its base by alienating its opponents.

The Obama White House chose Option A: to fight back – or at least to put its media critics in a context that disarms them and those who rely on their reporting

“They’re not really a news station,” White House senior political strategist David Axelrod said recently of Fox News on ABC’s “This Week” program. “It’s not just their commentators, but a lot of their news programming if you watch, it’s really not news….The bigger thing is that other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way, and we’re not going to treat them that way. We’re going to appear on their shows. We’re going to participate, but understanding that they represent a point of view.” (Here’s a video of Axelrod saying this.)

On the same Sunday morning, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program: “It’s not a news organization, so much as it has a perspective. More importantly, is to not have the CNNs and the others in the world basically be led in following Fox, as if what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization.” (Here’s the video.)

Contrary to what many critics have said in all the chatter on this, they did not call for an all-out boycott of Fox News. As Axelrod said, White House representatives will appear on Fox. And the White House is not engaging in censorship. Fox is of course free to carry on just as it always has.

For us the communications field, it’s an experiment worth watching, raising the questions: Will it work? Is it good p.r.? I put these questions to public affairs professionals working around the Fleishman-Hillard network, and, for the most part, they express skepticism that this strategy will help the White House. As a number of them summed up their views citing the famous aphorism, “Don’t pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.”

Blake Johnson of Fleishman-Hillard Ottawa begs to differ. “I actually think it is a smart strategy…. Traditionally we would counsel clients to use 3rd party influencers to discredit unfair critics using facts-based arguments. But it isn’t like the Democratic forces and small-l liberals in the U.S. haven’t already had that conversation with the American public. This tactic is a necessary escalation aimed at preventing Fox from influencing the popular narrative amongst centrist voters who decided the last election. By attempting to stigmatize Fox news, the administration is really trying to prevent an invasion of portions of their own base. Will it work? I think it will.”

Chris Tennyson of FH New York disagrees: “So far, the White House’s awkward campaign to marginalize Fox News has strengthened the network’s ratings and weakened President Obama’s laudable campaign promise to operate above partisan bickering…. The President’s communications advisors should focus more of their attention on developing a clear and compelling case for healthcare reform than pushing new viewers to Fox News. As we counsel our clients, whining rarely leads to winning.”

John Fitzpatrick of FH sister firm Stratacom echoes Tennyson when he writes: “In a word: Whiney. In two: Helps FOX…. Lots of distracting downsides to picking this fight. Not much upside, except for FOX’s ratings.”

FH Chicago’s Bill Utter isn’t sure it will work,but doesn’t think this tactic is doomed either. “It feels like [the White House is] targeting other reporters to pause before jumping on a Fox story…. may not work, but does put mud in the water.”

To FH Washington’s George Thompson, this tactic could tarnish the White House’s reputation. “The current White House looks insecure and unwilling to face a debate,” Thompson says, “preferring to lash out at Fox (as though people don’t know that they are the bastion of conservative media).”

On the other hand, “A public cut-off is unnecessary,” says Ted Wagnon of FH sister firm Vox Global. “Probably every past Administration had favored and disfavored news gatherers, and controlled their access to that President. Such decisions usually are not disclosed, allowing the President to make himself available again if a least-favored journalist becomes useful. Going public makes a President look huffy and marginally reduces his perceived power.”

“Until very recent years, there was no particular partisanship label applied to media outlets,” says FH Washington’s Donna Rohrer, though I will point out to her that, actually, until the 1960s, there was a long and widely accepted tradition of “Republican” papers and “Democratic” ones, which readers and politicians expected to cover the news from their respective ideological vantage points. That traditional pretty much went away by the end of the ‘60s, with a few exceptions. But I’m being pedantic.

“Yes,” Donna says, “there were conservative and liberal columnists and editorial pages of all stripes, and plenty of accusations of ‘they are against us’ applied by presidential administrations of both parties. Clinton got no more quarter from the press than Bush. Both were rather roundly critiqued and found wanting in some important ways…. Now we find ourselves in a fragmented media world in which consumers can find ‘news’ filtered to suit their worldview tastes, beliefs, and even prejudices. At this early stage, in this brave new world, all we can say for certain is that the Obama administration is embarked on a high-risk strategy.”

“The White House would obviously have been better served by standing above the fray and not getting themselves ensnared in a discussion where they can be accused of blaming the messenger,” says Michael von Herff from FH Ottawa, adding that it’s unrealistic to change the thinking of hardcore Fox followers. “…The White House now will have to ride this one out and demonstrate the courage of their convictions by sticking to their guns. That must stop short of actively provoking more confrontation, just let this thing become the ‘new normal.’ And, if they do, you can expect to see Fox howl and yowl for a long time, but ultimately be worse off for not having access to the President in the ways that the other media outlets benefit from.”

William Palen of FH Dallas says, “If the Administration truly believes in its policies, then it should embrace every opportunity to defend them on Fox News.”

To be sure, nothing the White House has said or done (that I’m aware of) precludes this possibility. Indeed, it’s not like the White House has steered completely clear of Fox. As this June 2009 clip of Carol Browner, the White House advisor on environmental initiatives, shows, there are ways of dealing with hostile interviewers and still winning. Fox News interviews tried diligently to get Browner to say that the cap-and-trade bill was essentially a disguised tax on the American people; she stood her ground and called it an important engine of economic development. People in our business should watch it and marvel at a great example of an interviewee taking control of an interview.

But, in a way, one has to wonder what the fuss is about. There’s nothing new about political offices or even corporations taking special steps to deal gingerly with a difficult media outlet or reporter. I’ll finish with another word from Michael von Herff, who writes: “The fact that this is news indicates just how derivative the political discourse has become. We have gone from talking about actual events to talking about how people talk about actual events to, now, talking about how the White House is talking about how people talk about actual events. With all of the trouble in the world this is the best we can do?”

November 1st, 2009 by Jeff Weintraub | No Comments