Obama to appear on Fox News; Heath reform will be high on his topic list

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Mar 17 2010

New York Times: President Obama is scheduled to give an interview with Bret Baier of Fox News Wednesday evening. The interview comes "at the height of a week in which Democrats, including Mr. Obama, are pressing allies and lawmakers to push ahead to get the health care bill passed in the House despite solid Republican opposition and the lessening of public support for the legislation." The interview comes after Obama administration aides last year criticized Fox News for its political coverage and commentary (3/16).

The Seattle Times: The appearance will be only Obama's second on Fox. "Obama skipped News Corp.'s Fox broadcast network in September when he appeared on five Sunday news programs. He did grant an interview to the network Nov. 18 during a presidential trip to Asia, and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has appeared on the network program 'Fox News Sunday,' most recently on Sunday" (AP/Bloomberg, 3/16).

The New York Times Caucus Blog reports on the "tough sell" Obama will most likely be facing by appearing on the network. "Among respondents in the nationwide [New York Times/CBS News] poll who said Fox News was the network they watched most for information about politics and current events, 79 percent said they disapproved of how the president is handling his job over all, and 86 percent said they disapproved of how he is handling health care specifically. Further, 72 percent of Fox viewers said that Mr. Obama is spending too much time on changing the country's health care system and 69 percent said the United States cannot afford to fix its health care system right now. Most viewers, 59 percent, described themselves as political conservatives" (Sussman, 3/17).

This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.