Top Line
Fox Corporation said Friday that its pre-Super Bowl interview with President Joe Biden is going forward, but the interview will be conducted by a streaming service rather than conservative network Fox News, as both the White House and Fox indicated earlier in the day. Had given. Traditional sit-downs were being called and fingers were being pointed as to who was to blame.
Speaking at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Winter… [+] Meeting in Philadelphia on February 3, 2023.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
important facts
Fox Corp—the parent company of both Fox News and the Fox Broadcast Network, which is airing the Super Bowl—said in a statement that “Fox Soul looks forward to interviewing the president for Super Bowl Sunday.”
The decision indicates that Fox accepted a White House offer for Biden to sit alongside Fox Soul, a streaming service tailored to African American audiences, instead of a Fox News anchor.
Diversity Friday was the first to report that the White House backed off from an interview with one of Fox News’ non-opinion anchors, which an executive said would have “no conditions attached,” but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre Tweeted Minutes later that Fox Corp. had called off an interview with the president.
Jean-Pierre said Biden was planning an interview with Fox Soul to “discuss the Super Bowl, the State of the Union and important issues affecting the everyday lives of black Americans”, which the White House reportedly called But carried forward as a work. Biden is not required to sit down with the Fox News anchor, given that top Fox News personalities are often fiercely critical of Biden.
The most recent presidential pre-Super Bowl interview was canceled in 2018, when former President Donald Trump refused to sit down with NBC amid network coverage of his administration and ongoing feud with the NFL to allow players To be allowed to kneel during the national. Anthem to protest police violence against black Americans.
The White House press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. forbes,
amazing facts
Biden has not sat down for an interview with Fox since taking office in January 2021. The network and the administration have regularly feuded, with Fox News’ conservative opinion host Biden exasperated, while Fox News’ White House reporter Peter Dokey frequently talks with Jean-Pierre. Press briefing.
main background
The sports interview with former presidents is a fairly new tradition, started by former President George W. Bush in 2004 with CBS’s Jim Nantz and has been happening since former President Barack Obama took office in 2009. Interview formats have varied over the years. , with some live and some pre-recorded, though they are generally cordial and include questions about pressing political issues, as well as softer questions about the Super Bowl. Both CBS and NBC have relied on a mix of nightly news anchors and morning show hosts to conduct presidential Super Bowl interviews, while Fox—which rotates broadcast duties with the other two networks—has expanded its lineup of highly partisan conservative cable shows. pulled from. host, which has created tension at times. Obama twice sat down with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly for an interview—once in 2011 and again in 2014—that were mostly innocuous but not without their controversial moments. Perhaps the most memorable exchange occurred at a 2014 sit-down, when Obama told O’Reilly that he was misleading the audience by suggesting that the White House had not been transparent about the 2012 Benghazi attack, which involved the killing of civilians in Libya. The American ambassador was killed.
what we don’t know
It was unclear who Fox was planning to choose to interview Biden.
big number
21.6 million, That’s how many viewers tuned into the pre-game show the last time the Super Bowl aired on Fox. The Super Bowl is by far the most watched telecast in the United States.
Further reading
White House ends Super Bowl interview with Fox News (Miscellaneous)
White House says Biden’s Super Bowl interview with Fox is closed (CNN)
