Fox News' media critic said Fox News committed a "journalistic breach" over their scripted interviews with Scott Pruitt and that behavior "should be absolutely out of bounds."
December 3, 2018

On Sunday, Fox News' media critic blasted his own network for setting up scripted interviews with Trump's former EPA chief, Scott Pruitt.

After The Daily Beast broke the news, many pundits on Fox News have ignored this story completely. Fox's top executives are supposedly handling the matter "internally." Are they really?

Towards the end of his broadcast on Media Buzz, Howard Kurtz took some time during his Buzz Briefs segment to highlight their journalistic offense.

Kurtz said, "During some appearances on Fox & Friends, former EPA chief Scott Pruitt was given the questions in advance, and his team sometimes suggested the topics, according to emails provided to The Daily Beast. A producer asked for talking points on the three top EPA priorities that Pruitt would like to discuss and even provided the introductory script for approval."

Kurtz then provided video evidence of the scam.

"Fox News says it has disciplined the staffers involved but is not disclosing to what action was taken," he said.

Kurtz continued, "Look, it’s not unusual for television producers to respond to pitches, or to provide broad topic areas to make sure a guest is prepared to respond. But providing questions and scripts in advance is a journalistic breach, and should be absolutely out of bounds.”

The hosts of Fox and Friends should also be held accountable since they so willingly read off the prepared script.

And how do we know if this is the only person they scripted interviews with? Fox and Friends is the most Trump administration-friendly morning show and one that Trump watches voraciously. Many of their interviews come off as prepackaged propaganda segments.

Also, why did Kurtz end his scolding by praising Ed Henry's combative interview of Pruitt? It has nothing to do with Fox News' prior egregious behavior and is not a defense of it.

I believe their viewers deserve to know what actions they have taken "internally' to prevent this from happening again.

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