THE RISE and rise of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News has been enshrined in physical form with the award of a front-row seat in the White House briefing room to the caustic right-wing channel.
Fox News has joined the three main TV networks, ABC, CBS and NBS, as well as the cable station CNN and news agencies AP and Reuters, in the coveted front row of the room where daily press conferences are held. The seating arrangements are more than symbolic as they help determine who is called to ask questions.
It marks something of a coming of age for the channel, which was formed in 1996 and has succeeded in shaking up the world of television news with its mix of highly partisan right-wing commentary and often heavily editorialised news.
Opponents of Fox News drew comfort from the fact the channel did not gain its preferred position: the central front-row seat it had sought. That seat, previously occupied by veteran reporter Helen Thomas, went to the Associated Press.
Two prominent liberal grassroots campaigns, Credo Action and Moveon.org, had organised a petition against Fox News being given the central seat.
The group’s political director, Becky Bond, said: “We want people to understand that Fox News is not a real news operation but an important part of the rightwing noise machine in the US. It’s more a propaganda machine than a news channel.”
The decision about how to shuffle the chairs fell to the White House Correspondents’ Association, a self-policing organisation of reporters.
The board said the decision was very difficult but it had ultimately been persuaded by Fox’s “length of service and commitment to the White House television pool”.
– (Guardian service)