I have disagreed with Joe Gandelman on occasion; more often we agree on a lot of points. In this case, I'm going with the disagree. Joe points out that he thinks General David Petraeus is making a Public Relations mistake by granting an exclusive interview to Fox News after his testimony to Congress tomorrow.
So much for a p.r. campaign that will extend beyond pulling out all stops to try and shore up more than just the Republican Party’s base.
The reality is even though Fox News does have some excellent journalists, it has the reputation of being essentially the administration’s favorite media outlet (along with appearances on Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity). Rightfully or wrongfully, it has the reputation of going easier on administration officials than newspeople of other networks do.
If the administration and Pentagon had political smarts, they would let the General talk to Fox and at least one other news network immediately after his talk.
But now they will be open to charges — rightfully or wrongfully — that they went on a network widely seen as “friendly,” a network skewed to Republicans once again indicating that the administration runs a government of the base, by the base and for the base.
That may be unfair, but just watch the reaction. By giving an exclusive interview to Fox, journalists from other outlets including the print media are going to conclude that the administration has some things to hide because they didn’t have the guts to send their key people out to talk to reporters who might ask tougher and more hostile questions and confront the toughest questions, challenges and even hostile attitudes head-on.
Here's the thing. The major media – absent Fox News - today is going nuts trying to undermine Petraeus. Here's some headlines:
Democrats Already Discrediting Upcoming Petraeus Report
Yeah, the left is already foaming at the mouth about this interview. Yeah, maybe I would have played it a bit differently if I was calling the shots. But I can also see where there is some need to get some word out that is not being filtered through media that has already telegraphed it's "anti-message" bias so thoroughly. Sure, Petraeus and the administration are going to get hammered for this. But they are already getting hammered anyway. At some point you have to refuse a rigged game or just give up. Maybe this wasn't the best time for it, maybe its a brilliant move. Petraeus has much, much, much higher favorable ratings with the American public than Congress or even Bush. This might be a more surprisingly favorable move than Joe or other critics foresee.
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Not to mention that a lot more people will see it. Foxnews and NPR are the top two media outfits that have the most integrity according to viewers.
Just because the democrats are afraid to debate on fox is no reason to not reach the largest audience possible.
He could go on ABC/NBC/CBS..but they aren’t interested in pre-empting CSI or whatever is playing to host this.
I agree. Brit Hume is perhaps the best anchor in Cable-TV since its inception and, aside from perhaps Charlie Rose, is the smartest and most knowledgeable anchor on Iraq.
The problem lies in the frequent tendency of network anchors to conform to the predisposition of their peers [other than Fox] that the war in Iraq has already been lost and that the “surge” is some sort of Hail Mary pass or Potemkin Village PR stunt.
That predisposition leads to lines of questioning like “MANY OBSERVERS BELIEVE” and other lead-ins which produce a debating situation rather than an exposition of the latest situation ON THE GROUND as his judgments concerning facts on the ground are what Petraeus wants to convey. Far too often, the networks and CNN act as mere extensions of the Senate/House Committee politicized atmospherics—with tendentious and even condescending questions inadvertantly revealing the anchor’s own biases.
That said, Anderson Cooper or Charlie Rose would have been good choices that would have avoided the appearance of Petraeus doing PR. However, the MSM has already discounted everything he & Crocker are going to say as PR, so why should they be given a forum to do their smirking and “winks & nods” on air?
I believe the electronic & print media, including blogs & on-line sources, have been hyperventilating and hysterical for so long and yelling about bad faith & dishonesty without revealing anything more than the normal wartime slip-ups that the MSM has disgraced itself.
Why give an irresponsible media outlet an opportunity to limit or distort what Petraeus and Crocker want to say?
Fox won’t, and Brit Hume is a good enough journalist to ask probing questions without being tendentious.
You’d have a point if you were talking about an interview with a print source. In such a case, the writers could twist and distort Petraeus’ words however he or she wished. But a television interview is different. If, say, a CNN interview or even a rabidly anti-Administration interviewer like Keith Olbermann were to sit down one-on-one with Petraeus for an hour, the viewer would be able to see through the biases immediately. If the questions were patently unfair, or if the questioner were blatantly editorializing, Petreaus would turn it back on the interviewer’s face and the viewer would pick up on that. Americans aren’t stupid. But they are bitterly divided and they choose their news outlets based on their own ideological proclivities.
The problem is not that Brit Hume is a biased journalist – I’ve already made the point that it doesn’t matter (as long as he asks reasonably tough questions) – but that non-Republican American viewers see Fox News as a GOP propaganda outlet. Non-Republicans simply won’t watch him. And Petraeus knows that. Have him go to NPR and give an interview with somebody whom Americans see as a Democratic propaganda outlet and then we can all get our fill across the spectrum. But I think Joe is right and this is a big PR mistake. There’s simply no reason to grant Fox News an exclusive interview at this hyper-sensitive juncture unless you are ONLY interested in shoring up the GOP base.
Ah, but wouldn’t it have been a coup for Fox to have invited Andereson Cooper to co-chair, minor damage to the brand (we call in people to show we are fair), major long-term (we can call in people because we are fair) benefits.
That being said; Hume is, quite simply, the best on TV. His commentary on Fox News Sunday may tend conservative, but his reporting* never does.
*Refuse to use the term “reportage” as it is both patronizing and hints at some mystical-journalistic-gnostic system of entitlement and overweening, yet permissable, arrogance. This, despite the prima facia evidence that many, if not most, report-eurs are easily gulled or outrightly mendacious.
Gandleman has become more of ass as time goes by. In his light Petraeus should go onto the various alphabets and be demeaned, his message deliberately misrepresented and so on… as we know the alphabets will… all in the name of “fairness”.
IOW: Petraeus should be demeaned and abused in the name of some sort of PR acquiescence to the left’s assertion that Fox is a biased player so his report plays well to a crowd that won’t believe it in the first place. Hunh?
When Gandleman can say, with all sincerity, that the alphabets are a moderate voice only reporting the facts then I might agree with him. Otherwise he should shut up.
Really.
Elrod,
A couple of points here. First I rather suspect that only the more rabid elements of the left think Fox is hopelessly right-wing. But that really isn’t the problem here. The broadcast networks would be very unlikely to give Petraeus a full hour – right? Seriously. Think about that. But people who really are curious to hear what Petraeus has to say will tune in regardless of where it is broadcast. And they will see through it if Hume softballs it – and will also see it if Hume does a good job as a journalist – without regard to ideology. This could be a real blow to the broadcast networks in the long run, I suspect. (I also suspect that Petraeus will be making the rounds on the alphabet networks – but they will give him minutes – not an hour.)
Uncle Pinky,
You’re quite right. If Fox brought in Cooper to co-chair they would pull off a coup of potentially biblical proportions. (If they bring in Olberman, MSNBC would be off the air in a week or so!)
This is what Petraeus wrote ALMOST 3 YEARS AGO:
Battling for Iraq
By David H. Petraeus
Sunday, September 26, 2004; Page B07
Washington Post
BAGHDAD — Helping organize, train and equip nearly a quarter-million of Iraq’s security forces is a daunting task. … Now, however, 18 months after entering Iraq, I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up. … The institutions that oversee them are being reestablished from the top down. And Iraqi leaders are stepping forward,
Equipment is being delivered. Training is on track and increasing in capacity. Infrastructure is being repaired. Command and control structures and institutions are being reestablished.
Iraq’s security forces are, however, developing steadily and they are in the fight. Momentum has gathered in recent months.
WHY BELIEVE HIM NOW?
Why believe him now? First, here’s a link to the article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49283-2004Sep25.html
When you read it you realize that General Petraeus is responding to allegations that the new Iraqi Forces weren’t being trained up. There was much uproar, particularly among Democrats, that we had erred (and _I_ think we did too)in disbanding the Iraqi Army.
What we came to find in the following two years was that things weren’t working by having US forces sweep through and then leave things in the hands of the follow-on Iraqi forces. COIN experts have always disagreed with that approach.
What The Surge is intended to do is send US forces into an area, sweep it, and then stay there to build communities and relationships between those communities and the Local Forces..
I don’t know Steve J
I live in NYC, Bloomberg’s ‘capital of the world’, a city drowning in wealth, security and ‘really smart liberals’ YET Iraq is being rebuilt faster that the WTC.
It has been seven years since we were attacked and all that still remains is a massive hole in the ground.
Compare rebuilding an entire nation as opposed to two buildings and Iraq comes out the winner. And, they are doing it after some three decades of totalitarin tyranny.
What’s Bloomberg’s excuse?
There should be no olive branch to any of the MSM they have decided that this war is lost and their nightly newscasts lead from that assumption. I think it is great that a balanced program would interview this General as he need not be questioned in a manner in which he is made to answer whether he is a “liar” or not. 68% of Americans believe the military to tell the truth. The General will be believed and Reid and Durbin and Pelosi need to take their traiterous spineless asses back from the hellhole in which they crawled out of.
Jaded… Couldn’t have said it any better!!! I don’t think the dems have any idea how many of us believe in and support our troops and their leaders. You only get the respect that you earn and you can see by the approval ratings where congress stands at this point!