Posted 5:32 PM by Scoobie Davis

Barack Obama and Fox News
The other day I learned that Barack Obama would be interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. Senator Obama has made it a point of his campaign to reach out to people who wouldn't ordinarily vote for a Democrat. No problem, so far.

However, I am concerned that an appearance on fox News will accord legitimacy to Fox News; Fox News deserves not one iota of legitimacy. That doesn't mean that Senator Obama simultaneously marginalize Fox News and reach out to Fox News viewers. In fact, I wrote about the subject a few months ago:

. . . The idea that by marginalizing Fox News and appealing to Fox News viewers are mutually exclusive is a prime example of a false dichotomy. Let me explain by first discussing the difference between loyal and casual Fox News viewers.

The Casual Fox News Viewer Versus the Loyal Fox News Viewer
Let's forget about appealing to the loyal Fox News viewer. As a group, they voted for George W. Bush over John Kerry by 88 percent to 7 percent. They are the "30-percenters" who think that George W. Bush is doing a good job. They are hopeless.

On the other hand, there are the casual Fox News viewers. These are people who are not particularly politically informed (that's not necessarily a bad thing). They get home from work and surf the channels for interesting shows, regardless of the channel. They watch Fox, but they also watch legitimate journalistic outlets. They don't pay enough attention to know about Fox News' agenda and lack of journalistic legitimacy.

I have a friend who is typical casual Fox News viewer. I told him about Fox News and he was shocked. He had previously thought of Fox as similar to CNN or MSNBC. He was outraged and vowed to take anything he saw on Fox with a grain of salt.

Reaching out to Casual Fox News Viewers by Marginalizing Fox News
By marginalizing Fox News, we can get the word out to the casual Fox News viewer that Fox is a pro-GOP political operation masquerading as a news outlet. This will turn many casual Fox News viewers into a non-Fox News viewers--leaving Fox News with a rump viewer demographic almost entirely composed of true believers, which will further marginalize Ailes and company.