Rolling Stone: What do you think of Fox News? Do you think it’s a good institution for America and for democracy?<\/strong><\/p>\nObama:<\/strong> [Laughs] Look, as president, I swore to uphold the Constitution, and part of that Constitution is a free press. We’ve got a tradition in this country of a press that oftentimes is opinionated. The golden age of an objective press was a pretty narrow span of time in our history. Before that, you had folks like Hearst who used their newspapers very intentionally to promote their viewpoints. I think Fox is part of that tradition \u2014 it is part of the tradition that has a very clear, undeniable point of view. It’s a point of view that I disagree with. It’s a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world.<\/strong> But as an economic enterprise, it’s been wildly successful. And I suspect that if you ask Mr. Murdoch what his number-one concern is, it’s that Fox is very successful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThat’s still somewhat more forgiving than I would have been. Fox is not guilty of merely expressing “a point of view.”<\/em> They shamelessly traffic in lies and personal insults. They have called him a racist, a socialist, and by virtue of their false assertions of him being a Muslim, they imply that he is either a terrorist, or a terrorist sympathizer.<\/p>\nThese are the sort of allegations that used to be the exclusive domain of lunatic fringe groups. But Fox has promoted them to the mainstream. They have made it possible for establishment politicians and pundits to parrot the most preposterous rhetoric. And they have provided a platform on television, radio, print, and the Internet, to peddle their invective.<\/p>\n
So while Obama continues to be more conciliatory than perhaps he should be, at least he recognizes the basic truth that the Fox model of news can only be harmful to the country in the long-term. I would suggest that it is also harmful in the short-term, and any term in between.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Obama has not been shy in the past expressing his views of Fox News. It is always encouraging to hear him or his spokespersons articulate clear-eyed perspectives of the network that has made it their mission to destroy his administration and elevate hostility to unprecedented levels. Even before he was elected he knew: Obama: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[183,33],"class_list":["post-2833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-barack-obama","tag-fox-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-JH","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7113,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=7113","url_meta":{"origin":2833,"position":0},"title":"Obama Surging Ahead Of Romney In Fox News Poll That Fox News Ignores","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/17\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"For additional evidence that Fox News is the PR agency for the Republican Party, note the feverishly excited treatment that Fox News gives to polling when the results favor Mitt Romney: In the past two months Fox Nation has posted at least seven articles on election polling and every single\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24443,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=24443","url_meta":{"origin":2833,"position":1},"title":"SCANDALOUS: Fox News Is Appalled That Obama Didn’t Jet To Paris For Unity Rally","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/11\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"While more than a million people took to the streets to pay tribute to the victims of the terrorist attack on the satirical newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, the miscreants at Fox News were concocting new ways to exploit the tragedy to demean President Obama. A rapidly forming theme at Fox is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox Nation","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnation-obama-paris-rally.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnation-obama-paris-rally.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnation-obama-paris-rally.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1519,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1519","url_meta":{"origin":2833,"position":2},"title":"Fox Nation Wonders What Obama Is Avoiding","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/12\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The folks at Fox Nation featured a story today about the lack of recent press conferences by President Obama. They headlined the piece, \"What's Obama Avoiding? Six Months Since Pres Held Press Conf.\" That immediately struck me as funny because previously the Fox Nationalists made such a big deal about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20081,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=20081","url_meta":{"origin":2833,"position":3},"title":"Fox Nation vs. Reality: On Abandoning Israel – Who Says Obama Has Been “Terrific”","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/3\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"OK, first of all this is not an article about the tragic conflict in the Middle East that has been raging for decades. There will be no taking of sides or opinionating on blame. This is about how Fox News purposefully contorts their coverage to make President Obama look bad.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox Nation","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnation-reality-netanyahu.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnation-reality-netanyahu.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnation-reality-netanyahu.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1583,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1583","url_meta":{"origin":2833,"position":4},"title":"The Fox Nation Wants President Obama Dead","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/8\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Fox Nation is at it again. Today they featured a story about President Obama's determination to see health care reform implemented. But in their inimitable way, they twisted the message to reflect negatively on the President. Even worse, they aroused the natural inclinations of their readers to bask in a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6061,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=6061","url_meta":{"origin":2833,"position":5},"title":"Fox Nation’s Extra Special Stupidest Lies About Obama In 2011","author":"Mark NC","date":"12\/28\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In compiling another retrospective of the soon to be completed year, I thought I would present a list of all of the lies featured by the folks at Fox News for 2011. Turns out that there isn't enough bandwidth on the Internet for that. So I sought to narrow down\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2833"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2837,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833\/revisions\/2837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}