Fox Will Not Cover Obama News Conference

It was bound to happen sooner or later. And with President Obama requesting time in prime-time for the third month in a row, for little to no newsworthy reason, the Fox Broadcasting Company has become the first network to forgo covering an Obama new conference. In a statement released today, Fox said that it would air regularly scheduled programming instead.

"The Fox Broadcasting Company will not air the Presidential News Conference on Wednesday, April 29 at 8:00 PM. Fox's sister networks, Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network will air the press conference in its entirety. Fox will be alerting viewers with an on-screen graphic at the top of the 8:00 PM (ET) hour that the press conference is available on Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network."

Broadcast networks and news networks are not required to cover presidential events. They decide to do so based on the inherent news value in the event and weigh that against their business interest in airing commercial programming. Doubtless, however, some will see Fox's decision as politically motivated. But that argument is belied by the fact that Fox News will be covering the event. And there is very recent precedent for networks declining a presidential request. The networks collectively decided not to honor a request for prime-time coverage by President Bush, for a speech on the very important topic of Iraq War strategy.

President Obama's political and media strategy is to try to capitalize on his personal popularity to push through as much of his agenda as possible before the polls come back down to Earth. The risk is that the president will become overexposed to the media, and his appearances will start to lose their buzz. Fox has apparently decided that President Obama has already become old hat. If he keeps up the pace of one prime-time news conference every month, it will not be long before more networks follow suit.