As research for my musing, I’m a regular watcher of news programs: NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. A few Sundays ago I caught David Axelrod, Senior White House Advisor, telling George Stephanopoulos of ABC’s This Week, that Fox News is not really a news organization because they have a “perspective”. Mr. Axelrod said that the White House doesn’t recognize Fox as a legitimate news organization, and he didn’t think that reputable organizations should recognize Fox either.

What?

I agree that Fox, for the most part, has a conservative bent, and I would go as far as to say that a couple of their stars are more interested in bashing Obama than preserving conservatism. However, they also have news anchor, Shepard Smith and congressional correspondent, Major Garret, both of whom appear to be professional and unbiased.

Is it news agencies having a perspective that the White House has a problem with? Or, is it only a problem when the perspective is different than President Obama’s?

Chris Wallace, Fox News’ Sunday morning anchor, appears to be right of center, but certainly no more so than MSNBC’s Chris Matthews is left of center. Why then, would the White House refuse to give Mr. Wallace a place in the line-up of a round-robin set of interviews that Mr. Obama did for Sunday morning news shows while Mr. Matthews was included.

Fox News is certainly not the only news agency to have an opinion. I would contend that Fox and MSNBC are running neck-in-neck in their efforts to please their niche audiences.

Sean Hannity of Fox News goes after Mr. Obama to the point of ludicrous–MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann goes after Fox News to the point of ridiculous. Mr. Hannity’s questions to his guest are generally rhetorical, and Mr. Olbermann’s commentary is often delivered in a mocking voice that is derisive of his subject (and the subject is more often than not, a Fox News personality). Both shows are meant to appeal to an emotional audience–not an audience looking for real, unbiased information.

Glen Beck at Fox is hugely entertaining, albeit a bit hysterical in his efforts. He is criticized for playing loosely with his facts: stating recently that Major Garret had not been called on at a White House press conference when in fact, he had. Mr. Beck’s critics, however, are even more miffed when he’s right. Acorn, the nation’s largest community organizer of low- and moderate-income families was recently denied funding by the Senate after Mr. Beck exposed Acorn workers in several cities giving advice on how to set-up brothels to avoid taxes. No other news agencies seemed interested in the story and the New York Times later admitted that they had been negligent in not covering the story. Mr. Beck also broke the Van Jones story. Mr. Jones, President Obama’s Green Czar, is an admitted communist, and after 9/11 suggested that high-level Bush officials might have deliberately allowed the September 11 attacks to occur. Mr. Jones resigned his post amid the controversy.

Bill O’Reilly of Fox News touts his program as fair and balanced and I believe that he makes an effort to be just that. Nevertheless, his conservative social views seep through. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does put him at odds with White House views occasionally.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is a bright and astute interviewer. I was surprised when one of her lead stories last week was an interview with a woman who had organized a motivational seminar with George W. Bush as key speaker, along with Colin Powell, Rudy Giullani, Zig Ziglar and others. It wasn’t quite clear what she was going after: Deriding Bush for speaking at a motivational seminar? Proving that the seminars were right-wing Christian events? With two wars, unemployment nearing 10%, housing foreclosures reaching record highs and the health-care debate, all-important topics, I found myself wondering why MSNBC was interested in George Bush speaking at a motivational seminar?

I prefer to listen to good debate, replete with facts and figures and delivered with passion, not calumny. However, while belligerent debate choked on sarcasm is not pleasant, I’ll take it over censorship any day.

Has the White House maligned and marginalized Fox News?

Recently, the New York Times, reported: “Fox’s television news competitors refused to go along with a Treasury Department effort on Tuesday to exclude Fox from a round of interviews”.

Competitive news organizations don’t mind the White House censuring Fox News, but when it comes to censoring news–well, that’s another story.

Who wins and who loses in the battle between the White House and Fox News?

Free Speech won when the other news organizations refused to be complicit in the censorship of Fox. The White House lost for trying to “control” the news. And, the grand-champion in the battle: Fox News–their ratings are through the roof.

There’s been a lot of talk of civility in the past few weeks. Congressman Joe Wilson called President Obama a liar during a joint session of congress. Rapper Kanye West jumped onstage and ripped the microphone from singer Taylor Swift as she was giving an acceptance speech at the MTV awards. And from town hall meetings to ostensibly respectable members of the press, partisan bickering is nastier than ever.

Joe Wilson, the congressman from South Carolina, said that his comment during Mr. Obama’s health-care speech was extemporaneous, and I have no reason to doubt him, but a slip of the tongue stills calls for an apology. The good news is that Mr. Wilson called the president’s office and offered up a mea culpa; the bad news is that he refused to apologize to congress in the hallowed room where his outburst occurred. If the custodians in which we have entrusted these offices don’t respect them, then how are we regular citizens supposed to respect the offices, or the people that represent them?

Kanye West is known for his bad behavior in an industry where bad behavior is often celebrated. When he sullied Ms. Swift’s first win by taking her microphone and announcing, in essence, that Beyonce should have won the award, the reaction was fast and furious—Mr. West was booed off of the stage and continued to be booed the rest of the evening whenever his name was called. Beyonce repudiated Mr. West’s behavior when she won a later award by graciously inviting Ms. Swift back to the stage to finish her acceptance speech. Many artists tweeted or posted notes on their websites condemning Mr. West’s behavior. I found this encouraging given that Ms. Swift is more country than rock n’ roll. The people that responded immediately were not her “people”. If Toby Keith had been in the audience that night Mr. West would have probably suffered more than boos. However, despite the public reaction, Mr. West still had a hard time actually apologizing to Ms. Swift: In an appearance on a late-night talk show the following evening, Mr. West talked about how upset he had been regarding his mother’s recent death. He sounded more interested in excusing his behavior than taking responsibility for it. Like Congressman Wilson, Mr. West had a hard time going more than halfway to correct his bad behavior.

Even the press has jumped on the incivility juggernaut. On a daily basis, certain MSNBC and Fox News personalities exhibit an enmity for each other and their ideological opposites that rivals that of the Israelis’ and the Palestinians’. Even the respectable Charlie Gibson interviewed Sarah Palin with a contemptuous tone and literally, looking down his nose at her. By the time Mr. Gibson interviewed Ms. Palin, many of us were aware of her “lack of knowledge”. We were, however, surprised and disappointed by Mr. Gibson’s lack of professionalism and, civility.

What happened to civility and what can we do to get it back? How do we teach our kids to be civil?

Listening to the news on the car radio a few years ago, a reporter was relaying the story of how the Texas band, Dixie Chicks, playing a concert in London, told their audience that they were embarrassed that George Bush was from Texas and that he was stupid. I turned the radio off and pulled the car over! I told my kids–not that they ever listen to me–that you could disagree with someone without calling them stupid. I told them that the Dixie Chicks could have said that they disagreed with Mr. Bush’s tax policy or with his invasion of Iraq, but to call him stupid made them look stupid.

We have to learn to disagree without calling names, yanking microphones out of hands, or looking down our noses at those we disagree with. Like I told my children that day in the car: You have to articulate your differences without contempt, and you have to be respectful of others opinions. It feels like we are losing the battle against incivility. That day in the car my kids responded to me, “We understand completely mom, can you please just turn the radio back on!”