White House Communications Director Anita Dunn slammed Fox News in an interview on CNN with Howie Kurtz this morning, saying that Fox News “is more a wing of the Republican Party” than an objective news organization.
“The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party,” Dunn said.
This follows up on Dunn’s comment to Time earlier this week that Fox News is “opinion journalism masquerading as news.” And as we’ve reported before, the White House and Fox News don’t have the warmest relationship to start with.
But this morning, Dunn seems to have taken the White House’s criticism of Fox News to the next level. For instance, she said that when President Obama talks to Fox News, he approaches it differently than other cable networks.
When he goes on Fox, he understands he’s not going on it really as a news network at this point, he’s going on to debate the opposition.
“Let’s not pretend they’re a news network the way CNN is,” Dunn said.
And this: “They’re widely viewed as part of the Republican Party. Take their talking points, put ’em on the air.”
As an example, Dunn pointed to last fall, when the United States was grappling with a financial crisis, two wars and a historic election.
“If you were a Fox News viewer in the fall election, what you would have seen would have been that the biggest stories and the biggest threats facing America were a guy named Bill Ayers and something called ACORN.”
We’ll be watching for Fox News’ response.
Late Update: Here’s the video.
