Politics

Study: Fox News shunned at Obama press conferences, 9th among news outlets

Jeff Poor Media Reporter
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It’s no secret that the White House carefully scripts its press conferences, and a new study from the University of Minnesota has quantified just how much President Barack Obama plays favorites in the press briefing room.

The analysis, published on Wednesday by the Smart Politics group at the university’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, took a look at all of the president’s press conferences in his first term, and determined ABC, CBS, the Associated Press and NBC were favorites of Obama.

“Over the course of the president’s first term, he has generally maintained the tiered approach as to which outlets ask the questions (with the Big 3 and Associated Press usually getting the green light), although the president has departed from tradition on occasion – famously calling on a digital-only media outlet’s reporter (Huffington Post’s Sam Stein) during his first news conference in February 2009,” Eric Ostermeier, a research associate at the Humphrey School’s Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, wrote.

But left out is Fox News, an organization that despite having by far the highest-rated cable news channel and more than 200 affiliates on the broadcast end, ranked ninth among news organization called upon at Obama press conferences. Fox was not only behind the aforementioned ABC, CBS, AP and NBC, but also Bloomberg, Reuters, CNN and The New York Times as well.

Results as follows:

Rank Outlet

#

1 ABC

29

2 CBS

28

3 Associated Press

27

4 NBC

26

5 Bloomberg

20

6 Reuters

17

7 CNN

16

7 New York Times

16

9 FOX

14

10 Washington Post

11

11 USA Today

9

12 Wall Street Journal

8

13 American Urban Radio

5

13 McClatchy Newspapers

5

13 National Public Radio

5

16 Agence France-Presse

4

17 Hearst Newspapers

3

17 Huffington Post

3

17 Telemundo

3

20 Chicago Sun-Times

2

20 Chicago Tribune

2

20 EFE (Spain)

2

20 National Journal

2

20 POLITICO

2

20 Univision

2

26 BET

1

26 Cleveland Plain Dealer

1

26 Detroit News

1

26 Ebony

1

26 Financial Times

1

26 The Hill

1

26 KDKA-TV

1

26 La Opinion

1

26 PBS

1

26 Stars and Stripes

1

26 Time

1

26 Washington Times

1

Other foreign outlets

12

 

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