Obama's decision to not appear on Fox News was the beneficial decision to his presidency.

Obama's reasoning for not appearing on Fox news is as follows: "I've got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration... That's a pretty big megaphone. You'd be hard pressed if you watched the entire day to find a positive story about me on that front," Obama said. There's no doubt about it -- Fox News is an incredibly biased, right-wing network that devotes itself almost entirely to discrediting liberals. As such, they often misrepresent politicians (such as Obama), and make him appear more leftist than he actually is. The only way to combat that type of misrepresentation is to address it head-on, by agreeing to appear on said network and work to clear the air. By ignoring the network, Obama is only successful at accomplishing the following: 1) Making himself look too scared to own up to Conservative newscasters 2) Not refuting false claims made about him and his policies, thus implying a verification of their legitimacy Additionally, Obama is essentially pushing away millions of Americans who are devoted fans of the Fox network. Indeed Fox News has more viewers then the rest of the networks combined [1]. As such, his politics and point of view are not being heard by a majority of Americans who rely on these news networks to obtain information about politics and other characterizations. The reality is that President Obama represents ALL Americans, including those who watch Fox News. Most Fox viewers are loyal to the network because they represent a more Conservative ideology than is usually found in the media, and as such, Obama is essentially giving the message that he will only address those who are liberal or who support his leftist policies. A good politician would work toward bridging the gap of bipartisanship. Another argument against Obama in this regard is that whilst choosing not to appear on Fox News, the president DID agree to appear on a Spanish-language network called "Univision!" This again can be completely misconstrued as Obama favoring minorities over the bulk amount of Conservatives in this country. Moreover, Fox News would surely indicate (at least indirectly) that this was an attempt of Obama's to appeal to illegal immigrants. As ridiculous as this might seem, it's not completely out of the question for such a manipulative network such as Fox. Again, this is why Obama should have chosen to seem steadfast, strong and willing to challenge these accusations head-on. Now Fox is free to interpret his decision any way they see fit (beneficial to them and negative against him), which they have been more than happy to do in making claims such as this proving that they are the only Fair and Balanced network (lol) and calling Obama and his administration a bunch of cry babies [2]. Surely my beautiful and esteemed opponent will raise the issue that it's not Fox viewers who undermine the president, but rather Fox news themselves (they're known to take things out of context, and cut people's microphones when guests make them look silly). However, some guests on the Fox News network have been able to make the anchors themselves look absolutely foolish, such as Jeremy Glick who made Bill O'Reilly look like a giant douche upon being interviewed. As such, I maintain that Obama - who won the presidency largely in part due to his excellent speaking skills - could have easily held his own in a political debate, and made it clear to the audience that he was being manipulated if in fact that was the case. Moreover, if Fox had taken things out of context or continued to misrepresent the president, he could have easily made a public statement about it or let MSNBC do the talking for him in that regard. My point here is that it's not sufficient to say that Obama would have likely been manipulated; I maintain that he could have prepared accordingly to ensure a fair and as unbiased interview as possible. Also, regardless of whether or not Fox makes outlandish claims such as labeling Obama as a racist, the fact of the matter is that we have such a thing in this country called Free Speech, which Obama - and all presidents - should be trying to defend. If in fact some sort of libel or slander was issued against President Obama causing detrimental effects to his character or office, he could easily exercise his right to prosecute the accused, or at the very least make it publicly known that Fox has once again caused unnecessary damage to Obama's career. Instead, White House officials said this: "We're going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent... As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don't need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave." This makes it seem as if Obama is punishing the network for bad behavior, but really he's punishing the viewers (American voters) and his own reputation. Moreover, when Bush was president, various news networks absolutely slammed him for his low approval ratings, numerous faulty decisions, etc. However Bush didn't outright deny appearing on certain news organizations because of this exercise in free speech, thereby making Bush (and Republicans) look like more thick-skinned candidates. In fact, this is the very aim of Fox News: they go out of their way to make "latte sipping liberals" seem flakey and weak, while upholding the Conservative view-point as being strong and All-American. Finally, because Fox News is such an abomination to journalism, I posit that Obama's decision was wrong in the sense that it only strengthened the ratings and so-called credibility of the network very undeservingly. "Fox's senior vice president for programming, Bill Shine, says of the criticism from the White House, 'Every time they do it, our ratings go up. Mr. Obama's first year is on track to be the Fox News Channel's highest rated.' One Fox executive said that the jabs by the White House could solidify the network's audience base, and recalled that Mr. Ailes had remarked internally: Don't pick a fight with people who like to fight." [3] For all of these reasons, I affirm that denying to appear on Fox News not only discredited Obama's presidency, but his entire administration as well. It also provided a great disservice to the American people who rely on Fox (unfortunately) for their news and information, and made other networks subsequently look bad. These perhaps more leftist networks generally support (or at least more fairly represent Obama), and as such, they can play a big part if and when he applies for a second term as President. As a result, a devaluing of these channels also decreases the likelihood that Obama will be favorably or fairly represented by Fox - with its massive audience - in the future. References: [1] http://tvbythenumbers.com... [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com... [3] http://www.nytimes.com...