The Final Nail in the Coffin of American Journalism

Fox News gets front row White House seat

The White House Correspondents Association agreed to move the Associated Press to the front row, center seat, which had been held by Helen Thomas, who retired in June at age 89 after coming under fire for controversial remarks about Israel.

The new arrangement allowed the conservative Fox News to snag the front row seat previously occupied by AP. National Public Radio got the second row seat previously held by Fox, next to Bloomberg News.

"It was a very difficult decision," said the association, which is a self-governing body of the correspondents assigned to the White House.

Really? Was it a difficult decision, White House Correspondents Association? Really? Really agonized over this one, did ya? Really put a lot of thought into this? And you came up with this? Really? FOX moves to the front row? You decided to replace Helen Thomas with what, Hannity? Doocey? Beck? Really? Your decision was to piss on the grave of Helen Thomas's distinguished career before her chair is even cold?

Because I would think that the difficult decision would be whether to allow FOX to have a press credential at all, seeing as how they're not even close to a legitimate news organization. You couldn't have moved NPR up to the front? Mara Liasson is not worthy of the front row, but Greta Van Sustren is?

I mean, I would have liked to see Amy Goodman up front, or Greg Palast, but I wouldn't expect you to have big enough balls for that. But FOX? How do you look at yourselves in the mirror?