Eyes On Fox News Network

“When we announced that you [President Clinton] were going to be interviewed on Fox News Sunday, I got a lot of email from viewers. And I’ve got to say I was surprised. Most of them wanted me to ask you this question. Why didn’t you do more to put Al Qaeda and bin Laden out of business when you were president?” – Chris Wallace

Why the surprise, Chris? What else do you expect Fox News’ conservative audience to ask?

So, was it a fair and balanced interview? Balanced? Hardly. Fair? Sure. Good journalism? No, pretty much crap. More Fox News infotainment.

If the purpose of journalism is to inform, this interview largely failed. Take Clinton’s Global Iniative, the reason he agreed to this interview. What do we learn about it? Some budget figures. Not much else. What do we learn about Bill Clinton, the man? Absolutely nothing because none of the personal questions typical of this sort of interview even get asked. And after allowing War on Terror politics to overwhelm the interview to the point of being pretty much out of control, Chris dives right back in using Clinton’s published opinions on Karl Rove’s campaign strategy as a segue.

As a partisan tool it’s invaluable. Conservative Fox News all weekend has been highlighting the titillating excerpts of Bill Clinton exploding as a foil to ridicule the president. I can’t wait until Bill O’Reilly, Neil Cavuto, Sean Hannity, John Gibson, etc. get a hold of it this coming week. It’ll be one of their favorite political chew toys.

Which leads to the issue of balance. A rhetorical question for you: Would any host on Fox News dare treat President Bush this way in an interview? Would Chris Wallace, for example, poll liberal viewers for a list of questions he should ask President Bush? Would he continually interrupt the president? Would all of his questions be from a Democratic perspective? Would he fail to toss out some softballs such as inquiring about Laura?

So how can I call the interview fair? President Clinton’s performance on the hunt for bin Laden and global terrorism is a perfectly fair question to ask. In fact, it’s an important question to address. So, I don’t blame President Clinton’s detonation on Wallace’s question. A president shouldn’t be thin-skinned. Not Clinton. Not Bush. The fact that Bill Clinton was put in a position that Fox News would never place George Bush is irrelevant in my opinion.

To sum things up, Fox News’ bend-over-backward deference to President Bush in interviews is too saccharine; their interview of President Clinton here too much the cynical partisan pit bull. Somewhere between the two extremes is a happy balance that conservative Fox News apparently is incapable of managing. And if Chris Wallace, one of their better media personalities, can’t pull it off there’s little hope for the network.

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Part 2:

September 24th, 2006
Categories: Fox News Sunday . Author: sknabt

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