"DNC Shuts Out Fox"

Ben Smith:

Fox News may have landed a Democratic debate, but the Democratic Party is refusing to give its formal stamp of approval to the September event, which will be co-sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus Institute.

“The DNC sanctioned debates will not include Fox," says DNC Communications Director Karen Finney in an email.

The Democratic National Committee announced today that it would sanction six debates, starting in July. In 2005, DNC Chairman Howard Dean called Fox "a propaganda outlet of the Republican Party," but has occasionally since then struck slightly more conciliatory notes.

The refusal of the party to consider sanctioning the Detroit debate, however, is a mark of an increasingly unified Democratic effort to marginalize the network.

A Fox spokesman, Michael Murphy, had no immediate comment on the DNC's plan.