DNC Smears Fox News to Raise Money
In a fundraising e-mail sent out two weeks ago, Organizing for America executive director Mitch Stewart appealed for donations to the By the People Fund by attacking the Fox News Channel, calling Fox News a “supposed news organization.”
“Fox News’ parent company, News Corp., just handed over a seven-figure check to Republicans to help beat Democrats across the country this fall,” Stewart said in the e-mail. “When a supposed news organization jumps into the 2010 elections with a huge donation like this, I take it as a direct challenge to this movement.”
“These conservative special interests seem to think they can buy their way into power,” says Stewart.
Organizing for America, the successor of Obama for America, is an organizing and fundraising project of the Democratic National Committee.
According to the Organizing for America website, BarrackObama.com, the By the People Fund was set up to combat the high-powered special interests with millions of citizen donations.
“Conservative special-interest groups are plotting to spend more than $200 million on the elections this fall,” says a description of the appeal. “This movement has never relied on PACs or corporate cash to fund our campaigns — and we never will. We made a choice to take on these special interests in Washington — and now these groups are vowing payback this November.”
I contacted Organizing for America about the e-mail, and a representative confirmed that the “supposed news organization” comment was targeted directly at Fox News, not News Corp., saying Fox News’ claim to be fair and balanced was “ridiculous.”
News Corporation, which owns Fox News Channel, wholly owns or owns large shares in news stations and newspapers around the world including Sky News Channel and The Times in the United Kingdom, the New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal.
Bloomberg first reported that News Corp. gave the Republican Governors Association $1 million in June of this year.
In an e-mail sent to Politico, News Corp. Spokesman Jack Horner said, “News Corporation believes in the power of free markets, and the RGA’s pro-business agenda supports our priorities at this most critical time for our economy.”
In October of 2009, senior White House personnel claimed that Fox News was not a real news organization.
Then White House communications director Anita Dunn said on CNN’s Reliable Sources that Fox News operates “almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.”
“When (President Obama) goes on Fox he understands he is not going on it as a news network at this point,” Dunn said. “He is going on it to debate the opposition.”
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, appearing on CNN’s State of the Union with John King in October of 2009, said, “I suppose the way to look at (Fox News), and the way we, the President looks at it, we look at it is it’s not a news organization so much as it has a perspective. And that’s a different take.”
“And more importantly is not have the CNN’s and the others in the world basically be led and following Fox as if that what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization in the sense of both sides’ sense of a valued opinion,” said Emanuel.
When asked about Anita Dunn’s comments about Fox News, David Axelrod, a senior advisor to President Obama, told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in October of 2009, “I understand that (Fox News’) programming is geared toward making money.”
“All — the only argument Anita was making is that they’re not really a news station, if you watch — even — it’s not just their commentators, but a lot of their news programming, it’s really not news. It’s pushing a point of view,” Axelrod said. “And 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,” said Axelrod.
In response to the attacks from the Obama administration at the time, Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente said, “Surprisingly, the White House continues to declare war on a news organization instead of focusing on the critical issues that Americans are concerned about like jobs, health care and two wars. The door remains open and we welcome a discussion about the facts behind the issues.”
(Research for this article was conducted while I was a news correspondent for CNSNews.com. CNSNews.com made an editorial decision not to run this piece. Printed with permission.)
