Obama: Fox News 'destructive,' MSNBC 'invaluable'

• 9/28, "White House spokesman praises MSNBC hosts after Obama's Fox swipe," Michael Calderone, Yahoo

"Just hours after President Obama's swipe at Fox News made its way around the blogosphere, Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton

• praised a couple of commentators on MSNBC --

the cable news rival presenting itself as a liberal alternative to Fox in prime time.

Burton, holding a press gaggle with reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday, was asked whether Obama feels

• "that too many Americans don't appreciate or recognize these things that you guys have accomplished."

"No, I don't think that that's his point," Burton said....

However, Burton added that Obama does want to make sure that people on the left and right know that the administration's "done a lot" and that "we've got a lot more to do."

• He then lauded the efforts of MSNBC's top liberal hosts.

"And if you're on the left, if you're somebody like Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow or one of the folks who helps to keep our government honest and pushes and prods to make sure that folks are true to progressive values," Burton continued, "then he thinks that

• those folks provide an invaluable service." ...
  

Since January 2009,

• Obama has invited Maddow to a few small discussions with left-leaning and moderate columnists and pundits."
• ####
  

If he thinks MSNBC is 'invaluable,' he probably also likes CBS, NBC, ABC, NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, the AP, McClatchy, Time, Newsweek, ABC Radio Network, the White House correspondents, the entire public school system and most universities.

• He has just about everything and pretty much has Fox News too in that staff was ordered to give Obama the soft touch:
  

  11/7/08, "Fox News boss Roger Ailes doesn't want to spoil Barack Obama's political honeymoon, we hear. A source says Ailes has told prime-time hosts Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren to lay off the President-elect - at least for a while. "We're not going to have any personal attacks on Obama," a network insider says. "The public has spoken - we must treat him with respect."" NY Daily News, Rush and Molloy.
  

• The word is said to have come from Murdoch himself, per RadioEqualizer.
  

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