Although Fox News President Jay Wallace said his network “supports CNN in its legal effort” to have reporter Jim Acosta’s White House press pass reinstated, the rest of the network seems to be doing its best to legitimize Trump’s outrageous behavior.
Yesterday, Wallace issued this statement:
Fox News supports CNN in its legal effort to regain its White House reporter’s press credential. We intend to file an amicus brief with the U.S. District Court. Secret Service passes for working White House journalists should never be weaponized. While we don’t condone the growing antagonistic tone by both the president and the press at recent media avails, we do support a free press, access and open exchanges for the American people.
That’s better than not supporting CNN but Wallace somehow forgot to mention that he has no problem with Fox News hosts and guests attacking both CNN and Acosta and suggesting that the White House retaliation against Acosta was justified.
As we’ve previously reported, “objective” anchor Chris Wallace openly criticized Acosta as shameful and as having “embarrassed himself” by refusing to give up a microphone and continuing to confront Trump at a press conference (which preceded the revoking of his pass). Wallace also spoke admiringly about Trump’s verbal attack on Acosta as “classic Trump" during which "you saw all the notes that he can play.”
Fox News faves “Diamond and Silk” went so far as to call Acosta “the enemy of the people,” on Fox Business Network – with the obvious approval of host Lou Dobbs.
Media Matters notes that Sean Hannity, contributor David Bossie and regular guest Matt Schlapp also supported the revocation of Acosta’s press credential.
But now that Fox officially supports CNN, Fox seems to be going out of its way to make sure viewers know Trump TV still hates CNN and so should its viewers. Even the FoxNews.com article announcing Fox’s legal support for CNN signaled solidarity with the White House:
The administration suspended Acosta’s “hard pass,” which provided expedited access to the White House grounds, after he broke protocol by refusing to surrender his microphone during a press conference last week.
Fox reporter Brian Flood went on to post a full paragraph quoting Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ “scathing statement” about Acosta in support of the suspension. Yet Flood did not report that the White House originally claimed it had revoked Acosta’s press for “placing his hands on a young woman” (the aide who tried to grab the microphone away from him) nor that Huckabee Sanders had previously released a doctored video to justify the action. In fact, the undoctored video does not show Acosta placing his hands on the woman.
Yesterday, Fox’s Your World show hosted former NBC chairman Bob Wright. Wright made it clear he doesn’t agree with the revoking of Acosta’s press credentials but spent most of his time on the air attacking CNN:
WRIGHT: I do resent the fact that CNN spends 40% of its time attacking the president in one form or another. There’s nothing he can do that’s any good, and anything he does that’s good, it doesn’t get really a lot of coverage, so it’s a shame.”
[…]
I thought it was an unfortunate performance on [Acosta’s] part too. He was standing up, he wouldn’t relinquish the microphone. He was asked to do it three or four times, and that was inappropriate. And he could’ve been asked to sit down and not answer any more questions. There’s other ways to deal with it.
Watch how Fox supports CNN above, from the November 14, 2018 Your World.
Crossposted at Newshounds.us
Newshound Brian contributed to this report.
