It has been clear since at least November 8 of 2008 that the adoring press would be treated well by the Obama administration and the bad guys would be given short shrift, as we observed at the time. For almost a year, the MSM have been content to play along, even though it caused them some embarrassment when they missed some significant news stories by looking the other way. But apparently a breaking point of sorts has been reached, at least for a brief moment. The NYT reports on a story that has escalated considerably in recent days: “Behind the War Between White House and Fox “:

officials at the White House had decided…it was time to take the relationship to an even more confrontational level.

The spur: Executives at other news organizations, including The New York Times, had publicly said that their newsrooms had not been fast enough in following stories that Fox News, to the administration’s chagrin, had been heavily covering through the summer and early fall — namely, past statements and affiliations of the White House adviser Van Jones that ultimately led to his resignation and questions surrounding the community activist group Acorn.

Speaking privately at the White House on Monday with…Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann of MSNBC and Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich and Bob Herbert of The New York Times, Mr. Obama himself gave vent to sentiments about the network…in an interview with NBC News on Wednesday, the president went public. “What our advisers have simply said is that we are going to take media as it comes,” he said. “And if media is operating, basically, as a talk radio format, then that’s one thing. And if it’s operating as a news outlet, then that’s another.”…

In a sign of discomfort with the White House stance, Fox’s television news competitors refused to go along with a Treasury Department effort on Tuesday to exclude Fox from a round of interviews with the executive-pay czar Kenneth R. Feinberg that was to be conducted with a “pool” camera crew shared by all the networks. That followed a pointed question at a White House briefing this week by Jake Tapper, an ABC News correspondent, about the administration’s treatment of “one of our sister organizations.”…

James Taranto has much more on this very interesting story. We don’t expect this episode to have much of an effect on the coverage by the elite media, though it seems to suggest that they may be less willing than previously to give a pass to the administration when doing so means missing significant news stories in embarrassing ways.

It’s possible also that the senior editorial staffs some of these organizations may be getting uncomfortable at the evident incompetence of the administration. On issue after issue, the administration’s strategy and tactics appear at the moment to be backfiring. We imagine that some senior journalists who share the goals of the Obama administration are appalled at its inept performance to date, dislike the risk of professional embarrassment that comes from covering up for this crew, and want to see some personnel changes at the White House. We shall see what happens.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 24th, 2009 at 2:29 pm and is filed under Democrats, General, MSM, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.