New York (CNN Business)The Fox News presidency has taken a dangerous turn.
As the coronavirus crisis deepens all across the United States, the Trump administration is favoring Fox and turning down almost all other networks' interview requests. It's the politicization of a pandemic.
Fox News anchors fail to challenge Trump as he misleads during coronavirus town hall
The result: Key administration officials are not being subjected to much-needed scrutiny. And doctors are being drawn into a petty political game.
Fox, the television home of the Trump administration, has been stocked with Trump aides and officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci, who appeared on "The Ingraham Angle" Tuesday night and said President Trump's insistence on a return to normalcy "by Easter" is just an "aspirational goal."
By showing up on Fox and shunning other networks, top officials may be trying to get through to Trump -- or doing what they perceive he wants.
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White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham appeared on "Fox & Friends" Wednesday morning and criticized the press. She said some unnamed "members of the media are using a really important time in our country to try and divide people on the task force." Grisham is a regular on Fox, but almost never agrees to interviews on broadcast networks, which draw more viewers."
Clashes within the White House's communications team have exacerbated the problems.
"There are some people on the task force who actually want to do TV but can't get any straight answers from the White House or the Vice President's communications shop, so interviews are falling through the cracks left and right," a television producer with knowledge of the matter said. The coronavirus task force was formed in late January as a response team to the outbreak in the US and it is composed of White House officials and doctors, including Dr. Fauci, Surgeon General Jerome Adams and Dr. Deborah Birx.
Dr. Fauci has appeared on CNN's weekly global coronavirus town hall for the past three weeks, but the administration has declined to make him available for this week's town hall, according to a CNN representative.
No government officials appeared on Wednesday's TV morning newscasts, either. But Surgeon General Adams made time for Sean Hannity's talk show on Tuesday night. According to Hannity, he will be interviewing Trump later this week.
These are all signs of a shoring-up-the-base strategy by the White House -- which is incongruent while the entire country is fighting a virus that has no political party.
Fox programs have soft-pedaled the government's shortcomings and promoted an imminent rollback of social distancing restrictions. Public health experts say such a change could be catastrophic because it would cause a surge in new coronavirus infections.
As coronavirus suspends life in America, Fox changes its tone
But Trump was barely challenged on that point when Fox anchors interviewed him on Tuesday.
The interview was billed as a "virtual town hall" live from the Rose Garden. It took place in the early afternoon, typically one of the lowest-rated times of day on Fox News, instead of prime time. (Ratings have been elevated across the board due to the national emergency.)
"I doubt this would ever happen, but Trump should hold a town hall with another network in the very near future," Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones wrote Wednesday.
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