Report: 'Truce' reached in Fox News-White House war

Representatives of the Obama White House and Fox News met Wednesday and agreed to a truce in the war of words the administration and the news network have engaged in in recent weeks, says a report at media Web site Fishbowl DC.

Blogger Matt Dornic reports:

A very reliable source tells FishbowlDC that Fox News SVP Michael Clemente met with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs this morning and reached what some are calling a "truce."

Clemente then met with the FNC Washington bureau and encouraged staff to remain "fair and balanced."

Writing at the TVNewser blog, blogger Kevin Allocca reported he had confirmed the report that the meeting took place.

"No word whether the White House will backpedal on its pledge to keep Barack Obama from appearing on the News Corp. network until 2010," reports The Wrap.

The White House and Fox News have been engaged in a political war of words since last month, when the Fox broadcasting network failed to air President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress about health care.

In recent weeks, White House staffers have publicly accused Fox of being dishonest in its reporting. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said that Fox is "not really a news station," and communications director Anita Dunn called the network "an arm of the Republican Party."

That drew strong criticism from conservative circles, with some observers accusing the administration of drawing up a Nixon-style "enemies list."

This is reportedly not the first time that White House officials and Fox staffers have met during the course of the verbal war. Earlier this month, it was reported that Fox News President Roger Ailes met with senior White House adviser David Axelrod. As the New York Timesnoted, no details about that meeting have been made public.