WE DID IT. WE BEAT FOX!

NOVANEWS

Dear Friend,

On Wednesday we asked: Should the White House Correspondents Association let FOX News have the best seat in the White House press briefing room and the legitimacy that it confers?

Your answer was a resounding “Hell no!”

In just four days, over 311,000 CREDO Action members and 180,000 MoveOn members — over 491,000 people — petitioned the board of the White House Correspondents Association and asked them not to give the best seat in the White House press briefing room to the rightwing noise machine’s key propaganda outlet.

Just hours ago the board of the White House Correspondents Association met and decided not to give the seat to FOX.

There was clearly strong internal bias towards giving the seat to FOX. CNN reporter and WHCA board member Ed Henry publicly pledged to cast his vote for FOX before our campaign launched. And after we delivered the first 150,000 petition signatures, board member Julie Mason complained to an insider DC blog that “the reporters, producers and photographers from Fox News assigned to the White House are some of the best and well respected in the business” and furthermore accused us of “smearing” her “colleagues.”1

While we’re disappointed that the seat did not go to NPR, we’re delighted the board found a way to avoid giving the coveted front row center seat to FOX. No doubt our pressure made a huge difference.

We need the country’s most influential reporters to put journalistic principles before any kind of loyalty they feel to fellow members of the elite club which is the White House press corps.

Your participation in this campaign helped expose that choice. Every member of the WHCA board received updates every day on the growing numbers who were joining our campaign. When they cast their votes today, they were well aware of how it would be perceived by the public — and by the nearly half million people who spoke out during our campaign — if they chose to legitimate FOX.

That’s exactly why we work to bring your voices and your pressure to bear on the decision makers at key moments. And today that outside pressure helped change the terms of the debate, and forced the White House Correspondents Association to confront the real issue: FOX News is a right-wing propaganda outlet not a legitimate news agency.

We don’t win if we don’t fight. You fought back and we won. By signing the petition, sharing the campaign on Facebook and email, and organizing your friends and family to join the fight, you made a difference. Thank you for making this campaign a success.

We realize this is a symbolic victory over who occupies a chair, but symbols matter. Fox plays to win — so must we. This is just one among many battles to lessen the massive power of Fox. We will celebrate briefly and then ask you to join together to fight again.

Becky Bond, Political Director
CREDO Action

1Group Raises Holy Hell Against Fox News Getting Helen’s Seat — They Prefer NPR to Fox News, MediaBistro.com, July 30, 2010.