Turn on Fox News and much of the coverage is focused on stories that are unflattering to the White House. Far more than any other network, it chronicles daily developments in the scandal over Operation Fast and Furious, which involves a botched federal gun-tracking operation that has become a cause célèbre among conservatives. A Congressional investigation into the matter — another news event that has received careful attention on Fox — resulted in a contempt vote in the House of Representatives against Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Fox News was the only cable news network early on to carry proceedings from the contempt hearings live.

The details of the bankruptcy of Solyndra, an alternative energy company that received $528 million in federal loan guarantees after heavily lobbying the White House, are well known to regular Fox viewers. So far this week, the story dominating Fox newscasts has been the conservative furor over a recent remark by the president that business owners owed much of their success to government investment.

Fox News tends to benefit when it covers Mr. Obama and the Democrats aggressively. Indeed, during the height of the 2009 spat between Fox News and the White House, the channel’s ratings grew 8 percent over all. And while many of its commentators and on-air guests may be rooting for a Mitt Romney victory, privately Fox executives say that a second Obama term could be the best thing that ever happened to their network.

Conversely, Mr. Obama has enjoyed hitting the Fox News punching bag now and again. During his 2008 campaign, just mentioning the network in a stump speech would rile up the crowd. A typical dig at Fox News would go something like this:

Mr. Obama would remark how engaged voters seemed to be. They were watching the debates, CNN and C-Span, he said. Then he would pause dramatically. “And Fox News,” he added, to a chorus of sonorous boos.

Political experts said Mr. Obama’s swipes at Fox News then and now seem to be in keeping with a strategy to discredit his opponents, a tactic the campaign has deployed rather effectively.

“Whoever it is who may be a source of strength for Romney, they’re out there trying to discredit them in some fashion,” said David Gergen, an adviser to Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. “It’s an old tactic, and it often works.”