Last week Ken Feinberg of the Treasury Department, the so-called “Pay Czar,” held a round-robin interview with several networks. Fox News, playing the victim, complained that it was a White House “ban,” even though the interview was handled by the Treasury Department and not the White House.
On Thursday night, Fox News ran a shocking report that the “Obama administration” had “contacted the White House pool” and made executive pay czar Kenneth Feinberg available for round-robin interviews, “but specified that all members of the pool were welcome except Fox News.” They billed it as the Obama administration’s “first concrete step” in the direction of treating Fox News Channel like it’s not a real news organization.
Mediaite also addressed the idea that all the networks joined together in a show of solidarity to force Fox News to be included, stating that, in actuality, it appears that it was on the basis of their mutual pool arrangement.
Talking Points Memo has provided a somewhat different story, discrediting Fox News’ version of the events. Additionally, a Treasury spokesperson stated, “There was no plot to exclude Fox News, and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing.”
Feinberg did a pen and pad with reporters to brief them on cutting executive compensation. TV correspondents, as they do with everything, asked to get the comments on camera. Treasury officials agreed and made a list of the networks who asked (Fox was not among them).
But logistically, all of the cameras could not get set up in time or with ease for the Feinberg interview, so they opted for a round robin where the networks use one pool camera. Treasury called the White House pool crew and gave them the list of the networks who’d asked for the interview.
The network pool crew noticed Fox wasn’t on the list, was told that they hadn’t asked and the crew said they needed to be included. Treasury called the White House and asked top Obama adviser Anita Dunn. Dunn said yes and Fox’s Major Garrett was among the correspondents to interview Feinberg last night.
Simple as that, we’re told, and the networks don’t want to be seen as heroes for Fox.
Experiencing the situation firsthand was FNC’s Major Garrett, who confirmed that a mistake had been made, possibly by both sides, but FNC was not purposefully excluded as initially reported by Fox News.
Garrett finally explained his side of the supposed FNC snub, saying “the Treasury Department did not receive on that day a specific request from Fox to interview Feinberg,” but he has a “standing request from me as senior White House correspondent on Fox to interview any newsmaker at the Treasury at any given time news is being made.”
Keep in mind that over the past year, Major Garrett has been involved with some misquotes and false claims. However, if his account is true, it doesn’t excuse the innaccurate initial reports from Fox News.
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3 Responses to “Fox News Falsehood on Feinberg Interview ‘Ban’”
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With all of the “he said she said” surrounding this story… please explain why the pool members’ news heads had to get together and issue the ultimatum that if Fox was not to be included, then none of them would do the interview. I’m interested in knowing why that wasn’t addressed in your article.
Ben, I did and I linked to Mediaite who goes into it further.
Of course, TPM included the following, which I also left out:
Awww boohoo, poor fox. I don’t seem to be able to dredge up any sympathy, funnily enough. Fox News have brought this on themselves because they continue to show themselves to be untrustworthy with the news and back the kind of people who are purely trying to incite hate for Obama.