Washington Post reporter Jim VandeHei provoked quite a discussion yesterday by “officially complaining” that the White House TVs are always tuned to Fox News:

During a briefing led by White House spokesman Scott McClellan as President Bush was traveling to New Orleans, Louisiana, the Washington Post’s Jim VandeHei asked why the White House televisions always seemed to be tuned to Fox News and if it was possible to have them tuned instead to CNN.
“It’s come to my attention that there’s been requests — this is a serious question — to turn these TVs onto a station other than Fox, and that those have been denied,” VandeHei told McClellan, who is soon to be replaced by former Fox anchor and self-described conservative Tony Snow.
“My question would be, is there a White House policy that all government TVs have to be tuned to Fox?” VandeHei asked.
“Never heard of any such thing,” McClellan responded. “My TVs are on four different channels at all times.”
VandeHei noted that McClellan has four televisions in his office, and clarified that he was referring to the ones that reporters can see.
“They’re always turned to Fox, which a lot of people consider a Republican-leaning network.”
VandeHei noted that the televisions are paid for with taxpayer dollars.
“And my understanding is that you guys have to watch Fox on Air Force One. Is that true?”
McClellan said it was the first he had heard such a claim, and that it was not true.
“In fact, I’ve watched other channels on here,” he said.
“I’ve never known anyone that’s raised a complaint about a request from back here to watch a different channel,” McClellan added.
VandeHei replied, “I’m officially raising it, and officially complaining about it.”
McClellan then asked whether VandeHei had tried to have the change made.
“I was told — the quote was, ‘No,’ when I asked for CNN,” the reporter said.

A few quick points: First, if White House officials watch Fox News instead of its cable competitors, that just makes them like everyone else in this country. Second, “a lot of people” consider CNN to be a Democrat-leaning network and wouldn’t be suprised to learn that it’s the channel that White House reporters prefer. Third, Jim VandeHei is a frequent MSNBC contributor, but he would still rather watch CNN.

I wonder if that will come up next time he’s on Hardball.

* CORRECTION: Via Romenesko, the guy who wanted to change the channel to CNN was AFP photographer Tim Sloan, not VandeHei. VandeHei was the reporter who raised the issue with McClellan.