Obama Call To Change 'How Media Reports' Raises Concerns

President Obama is taking heat for calling for changes in "how the media reports," during an anti-poverty event where he also took a swipe at Fox News.

At the Georgetown University discussion on Tuesday, Obama lamented how, sometimes, the poor are cast as "sponges" who don't want to work.

Obama went on to call for a change in not only how GOP leaders in Congress "think" -- but how the news media cover these issues:

"We're going to have to change how our body politic thinks, which means we're going to have to change how the media reports on these issues and how people's impressions of what it's like to struggle in this economy looks like, and how budgets connect to that. And that's a hard process because that requires a much broader conversation than typically we have on the nightly news."

The remark, while perhaps an off-the-cuff moment, only revived concerns about the federal government taking an uncomfortable interest in how the media reports.

"No matter what bias you feel exists in any news outlet, the president, nor any other elected official should feel they have the right or ability to censor the media," said Joseph Desilets, Republican strategist and managing partner at the D.C.-based political consulting firm 21st & Main.

Only a year ago, the Federal Communications Commission scrapped plans to pursue a controversial study of American newsrooms.

"Unless Obama really thinks the media isn't giving the people what he wants ... good luck to him with trying to change the business model." said Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

She also said the larger issue is that government programs to help the poor are not working and suggested Obama has tried to put some the blame on a news outlet rather than confronting the issue.