The White House’s extraordinary assault on the Fox News Channel will end in tears – and not for Rupert Murdoch, Fox’s owner. The Obama administration has embarked on a high-risk strategy of shooting the messenger, in effect blaming its plummeting poll ratings on alleged political bias at the number one 24-hour cable news network. As Anita Dunn, the Mao-quoting White House communications director put it in an interview with The New York Times:

 

“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent. As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”

 

As Dunn’s statement illustrates, this is an overtly political campaign – and one that is doomed to failure, as it will ensure that even more Americans end up tuning in to Fox shows. The United States is a nation built around the principles of free speech, limited government, and free enterprise, and it is highly unusual for a US administration to launch an authoritarian vendetta against an individual news station. It smacks of mean-spiritedness as well as desperation, and is an approach that is already backfiring, with Fox’s ratings receiving an added boost from the huge publicity.

 

Fox News is succeeding in America precisely because it is not afraid to challenge the status quo, and to take on the power of big government. It is unique in broadcast media in going against the grain of the dominant liberal networks, NBC, CBS and ABC, by providing an alternative perspective in a nation where conservatives are still the largest ideological group according to Gallup. Television news in America has for decades been dominated by a left-of-centre oligopoly that has not reflected public opinion. That smug arrangement was shattered when Fox opened for business in the mid-1990s.

Fox News has succeeded spectacularly in racing ahead of its rivals in the cable news market, notably CNN and MSNBC. Its evening shows – such as the O’Reilly Factor, Glenn Beck and Hannity – pull in several million viewers compared to just hundreds of thousands on Fox’s competitors. Fox offers a highly opinionated, fast-paced and entertaining brand of political debate that includes all sides of the political aisle. The top hosts may be largely conservative (though not necessarily Republican), but the guests frequently are not, creating an adversarial and combative arena that until recently was a rarity in American news coverage.

Fox also benefits from an extraordinary level of professional management that sets the gold standard for cable news organizations. It is a remarkably well-run operation that also projects the American dream, with its proud emphasis on entrepreneurialism, patriotism, and a strong sense of national identity. Fox is unashamedly pro-American, a breath of fresh air in an age when US foreign policy is increasingly weak, muddled and confused. 

The success of Fox News is not driven by any political agenda, as its Administration critics claim. It is simply doing its job as a news organization by questioning the positions and policies of the elected government and officials of the United States, whoever is in the White House. That is the proper role of the media in a free society, and any attempt by the government to muzzle Fox is a threat to the freedom of all American news outlets, including liberal juggernauts such as The New York Times, NBC and CNN.