Jonathan Alter: MSM Tool in the War Against Ailes & Fox News
As the Obama administration goes down, the Fox News Channel goes up.
This equation is unacceptable, of course, to the Main Stream Media. And so one veteran MSM-er, Jonathan Alter–who now writes for Bloomberg View, the billionaire-funded game preserve of old liberal pundits–has stepped forward with a new book, The Center Holds: Obama and his Enemies, which is designed to readjust the balance back in favor of Barack Obama. It’s a double-barreled volume, simultaneously boosting Obama–note the planted assumption that Obama is a centrist–and also smearing Obama’s critics.
We’re witnessing the eclipse of the Obama presidency, as “hope and change” turns into “scandal and coverup.” Everyone knows it, and yet reporters who have staked their credibility on Obama-as-messiah can’t be expected to admit it.
Meanwhile, Fox News continues its eleven-year streak as the #1 cable news channel. Indeed, in 2013, as Fox sets the national agenda on the investigations into Benghazi, the IRS, Obamacare, and Eric Holder, even its enemies have to concede that Fox is, in fact, “the most powerful name in news.”
So what to do about this troublesome Fox? How shall the MSM react to the continued success of the upstart news channel? The marketing of the Alter book tells us that MSM-ers think they can gain more traction by trashing Fox rather than by praising Obama. It’s the old truism: When you run out of positive things to say, go negative–at least maybe you’ll stir things up.
And what is there positive to say about Obama anymore? Not much, really. In his book, Alter, himself an NBC News analyst, does his best to re-inflate Obama and his political victories, describing the 2012 election as “the most consequential” in recent times, as a “hinge in history,” involving a “titanic ideological struggle.” In other words, Alter left no cliché behind in his effort to lionize his hero.
Read more: Breitbart.com