If Kerry is president he should teach Fox News a lesson

[bluestateguy]

This is what I would do. Collect all press passes from Fox News reporters and evict them from the Press Briefing Room. Order all Administration officials to shun Fox News, and encourage congresional Democrats to do the same (though some won't). When Fox complains tell Murdoch that Fox can get their passes back if the network will air a series of puff piece stories on President Kerry ("Coming up at 6, did God choose John Kerry for the presidency?"; "Next on Hannity and Colmes, how does President Kerry handle the unfair criticism he receives from his critics?"; "Up next, is it OK to criticize President Kerry? Should Republicans just shut their mouths?") These stories will be necessary to make up for four years of propping up George W. "Baby" Bush. There are those who will call this censorship. They are wrong. Censorship is the governmental act of forbidding speech and imposing criminal penalties upon forbidden speech. On the other hand, there is no constitutional right to a White House press pass or to get access to Administration officials. They can talk to whoever they want to.

[KissMyAsscroft]

1. Ignore them...

Shun them, no access. Laugh in their faces. Call them a propaganda organization when they complain. Cut any tax break they might recieve.

Whatever it takes. They don't deserve to exist.

[pinto]

2. respectfully disagree completely. Access is the "stick" the WH uses

to keep the press in line. I support open access to all press.

[tomreedtoon]

3. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

I know you're upset, bluestateguy, but the whole point of a Kerry administration would be that he WOULDN'T act just like Bush.

There would be a much simpler and subtler way of handling the problem of Faux News. That would be to give them long interviews with the many staff members Kerry would bring in. (I'm fully expecting him to provide some kind of positions, even if only spokesperson appointments, to some of his former Democratic rivals. Faux will be expecting them to backstab Kerry...and they won't.)

Bush impressed the media with his backdrops and photo-ops. Have these administration reps literally snow these shows over with their own media goodies. Web sites with complete position papers. Props like signs, video displays and computer demos (done on Macintosh or Linux machines...no reason to give Bill Gates any more money).

They don't have to be unfriendly with the right-wingers...but they could be very friendly with the journalists that give them time to explain their views.

And the best thing a Kerry Administration could do - bust up the media monopolies! Set the TV and radio station ownership back to 1975 levels, bust up Clear Channel into a few dozen independent companies, forbid cross-media ownership like TV stations and newspapers, and end the cartels that currently dominate our news. (Heck, that might even make more entertaining TV shows, let alone what it would do to news.)

[Zhade]

4. Should he do that before, or after, he cashes the check from News Corp?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-kerrymoney1feb01,1,7328941.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

[quinnox]

5. Watch Fox news start to gush over President Kerry

Whoever is in power I think Fox news will serve.

[nwstrn]

10. Right, just like when Clinton was President

and Faux ran 24 hour anti-Clinton coverage.

[Jeebo]

6. Revenge is sweet, but ...

... I hope and believe that the next president will be above that kind of pettiness. What I do think President Kerry should do is re-instate the fairness doctrine and start breaking up the media monopolies.

Ron

[jfxgillis]

7. Yup.

I wouldn't go that far, but I wrote to the Gore people four years ago recommending a similar course of action.

Kerry should PULL, say, the "Washington Times's" credentials when they publish an item that reflects badly on Kerry which is also false, deceptive or misleading. He should say "Front page retraction or no passes." Case closed.

[gristy]

8. As tomreedtoon says, the best and most important thing Kerry

can do w.r.t. the media is to break up the media monopolies. He's got to get Congress to act and break them up into small, small, small entities. The owners of these monopolies are going to scream bloody murder, using their very media outlets to broadcast their protests. But it MUST be done.

The other action that must be taken is to clean up the voting machine problem. If Kerry can win the election in spite of the fraud that we are being set up for, he's GOT to fix this problem, as I think we are only going to get one election-cycle to do it. Without a change in direction, in four more years the machines are going to be entrenched beyond any attempt at removal.

[cheezus]

9. No, he should break up media monopolies

that'll take care of it just fine

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. The technique that the Reagan people used

was to become "unavailable" to any reporter who wrote or broadcast a negative story.

I heard that from a former NPR reporter who spoke at the University of Michigan in the summer of 1988 (and I can't remember her name). I commented about an incident in which Judy Woodruff had given Eliot Abrams (boo! hisss!) a free pass in a softball interview, and she said that the Reaganites refused to speak to reporters who criticized them and in formats where a genuine 180 degree opponent (instead of a fake liberal) was provided.