Bret Baier

Fox News Hosts Candidate Debates After Giving $1 Million To GOP

Posted by on September 11, 2010 at 1:26 pm. 1 Comments :

This is precisely why the News Corp donation of a million dollars to the Republican Governor’s Association was such a violation of ethical standards in media and politics.

Fox News Channel Reporters To Moderate Debates For Governor And U.S. Senator

How can we expect any semblance of objectivity from Carl Cameron as he moderates the debate between the Republican and Democratic candidates for governor of Connecticut? We already know that the company that employs him is bankrolling the Republican candidate. It wouldn’t even matter if Cameron were completely above reproach and capable of being a fair moderator. The perception of bias invalidates his participation and that of his employer.

For the record, Cameron is not above reproach. His bias during the presidential campaign of 2004 was plainly apparent. His wife worked for the Bush campaign, which he never disclosed when covering it.

Similarly, Bret Baier cannot be considered an impartial moderator for the senate debate. He has repeatedly reported on the brush with controversy over statements made regarding service in Vietnam of Richard Blumenthal, the Democratic candidate. But Baier has virtually ignored the controversial financing and the association with drug use of former employees of the Republican candidate, Linda McMahon.

During the 2008 election Democrats refused to participate in any primary debates sponsored by Fox News. That would be a good policy to reinstate with regard to this year’s general election.

Fox News (Lack Of) Journalistic Standards In Practice

Posted by on April 27, 2010 at 1:02 pm. 2 Comments :

This morning on Fox News a report was broadcast revealing new revelations about the costs of the recently passed health care bill. Anchor Megyn Kelly introduced the story with obvious shock and disdain for what she characterized as an attempt to keep information secret from Congress and the public.

The thrust of this alleged scoop was that the Department of Health and Human Services had authored a report that showed the costs of health care rising as a result of the new legislation. But the shocking part was the allegation that the report was suppressed by HHS and/or the White House prior to the vote in Congress.

Kelly spent almost seven minutes discussing this would-be scandal with Fox’s chief news anchor, Bret Baier, not some opinion show host like Sean Hannity. That’s seven minutes of valuable airtime devoted to a story that was picked up from the uber-conservative American Spectator, authored by someone who calls himself “the Prowler,” and backed up by a single anonymous source. And all of this was discussed after conceding that the story was unconfirmed.

Well, half an hour later, Kelly brings Baier back for a followup and guess what? The story was completely false. The HHS denied it and provided a timeline to document the course of events.

This perfectly illustrates the inner workings of Fox News and their standards for journalism. They will not hesitate to disseminate suspect information that is not backed up in the way that a responsible press operation would consider routine. Once their dubious report is released into the media atmosphere it is almost impossible to retrieve. There will have been numerous regurgitations on blogs and other Internet news sites. Emails will have started bouncing around the web even before Kelly finished the first bogus report. And by the time the truth is revealed, the lies are a part of the common knowledge in Wingnutia.

Rather than wait until a story has been checked out and confirmed, Fox News just lets it fly and crosses their fingers. Then when the facts become apparent they laugh it off or even portray it as an asset. This is what Kelly did after Baier crushed the HHS story. She proudly told her audience that “you saw it all unfold live, right here.” Indeed we did. We saw the poorly sourced, untrue accusations of a right-wing muckraker broadcast to millions over the air as if it were news. Then, if we were still tuned in, we saw the retraction of a story that was never fit to be aired in the first place.

Nice work Fox.

Bret Baier: The Same Old Fox News Nonsense

Posted by on January 6, 2009 at 3:22 pm. 1 Comments :

The Washington Managing Editor for Fox News, and anchor of Special Report, Brit Hume, has now officially moved from the anchor chair to the rocking chair. In his place is Bret Baier, who was interviewed today by Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post.

Baier considers himself an independent (so does Bill O’Reilly), but his remarks in this interview reveal a somewhat more partisan stance. For instance, he commented on the presidential campaing saying…

“…this campaign has at times been an easy ride for the Obama team. If that were to continue, people would be disappointed.

That would be true if what he means by an “easy time” is having the press continually harangue the candidate as a radical, Socialist, Muslim-raised, inexperienced, unpatriotic, elitist, who palled around with terrorists. Sure, it was a breeze. And I think that the people Baier asserts would be disappointed are Republicans and Fox viewers. But the next comment by Baier may well disappoint those viewers:

“Fox doesn’t have to be in a mode of attack…”

No, it doesn’t “have to be.” That’s just the way they like it. But the newsmaking moment of the interview came when Baier said:

“I hope the media will cover the Obama administration with as much aggressiveness as they covered the Bush administration.”

Really? So Baier wants the media to sit back and let Obama get away with things like lying to initiate an illegal war; with usurping power by presidential fiat; with rolling back Constitutional rights; with demonstrating ignorance and arrogance as he drives the nation into a death spiral? Does Baier want the press to attend parties with Obama and dispatch lobbyists seeking favor for their corporate enterprises? All of that would have to happen for the media to cover Obama as they did Bush.

In this era of change, the only thing changing at Fox News is the scowling old visage of Brit Hume for a younger, smiling version of the same thing.