Fox News has been awarded a front row seat in the White House briefing room after the retirement of long-time UPI reporter Helen Thomas. Following a heated battle for the position, the White House Correspondents Association actually gave Thomas' position to the AP's Liz Sidoti — but Fox will take AP's old seat, giving it a berth in the front row for the first time. Liberal groups had championed NPR for the seat, with one claiming that Fox News was a "right-wing propaganda outlet." How did Fox prevail? (Watch a report about Fox News' seat)
It's tribute to Major Garrett: The WHCA's decision to give Fox the vacant front row seat was unanimous, notes Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. While that is recognition of its "reach and its audience," it's also tribute to "the respect [Fox News correspondent] Major Garrett has earned from his colleagues in the White House briefing room." It will be difficult for the White House to diminish Fox now.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Fox is being rewarded for shouting the loudest: It's hard not to see this as "reward for [Fox's] excellent achievements in propaganda," says John Cole at Balloon Juice. "This isn't about journalism," it's about who is best at glad-handing the Beltway boys who oversee the seating chart. I think it's "obscene to reward them," but "who cares about these people. It isn't like any news has ever been broken in the briefing room."
A victory for non-partisanship: After the White House's "ill-advised" battle with Fox News, this is good news, says David Zurawik at the Baltimore Sun. The liberal campaign to appoint NPR "oozed ideology," so it's good the WHCA made its decision "on the basis of non-ideological factors" such as longetivity and its commitment to covering the White House.
-
The dazzling coral gardens of Raja AmpatThe Week Recommends Region of Indonesia is home to perhaps the planet’s most photogenic archipelago.
-
‘Never more precarious’: the UN turns 80The Explainer It’s an unhappy birthday for the United Nations, which enters its ninth decade in crisis
-
Trump’s White House ballroom: a threat to the republic?Talking Point Trump be far from the first US president to leave his mark on the Executive Mansion, but to critics his remodel is yet more overreach
