'Wolfson seeks refuge at Fox news...'
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Faced with questions he didn't like from members of the
Television Critics Association, Fox News anchorman Chris Wallace reverted to
Fox News form — he went on the attack.
It's classic Fox News Channel behavior. This is, after all, a cable network
that has kept a blacklist of journalists whose questions it refuses to answer
(and whose phone calls it refuses to return) because of coverage it considers
unflattering.
(Fox News chairman Roger Ailes once denied this in another TCA press
conference, but it is irrefutable fact.)
Wallace, analysts Karl Rove and Howard Wolfson and Fox News executive vice
president John Moody appeared before members of the TCA recently to discuss
their political coverage. And questions were raised about both analysts.
Wolfson is Sen. Hillary Clinton's former communications director; Rove is
President Bush's former political guru. So it was not out of line to ask them
both if they were offering analysis or campaigning for votes for their
respective political parties.
The fact is, both of them are clearly identified by their political positions
on the air, but it was nonetheless a legitimate question.
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As were questions about having Rove comment on the news when he's still part of
the news. He is, after all, in jeopardy of being cited for contempt of
Congress.
And yet Wallace chose to interpret perfectly legitimate questions as attacks,
and he launched counterattacks at the questioners.
"I'm struck by what I think is a double standard in the questions that
particularly Karl is being asked here," he said. "I don't understand. Maybe
somebody can explain to me why it is that if Congress and the White House are
having a fight (over) executive power, that that should in any way constrain an
independent news organization's decision as to who it's going to have on its
payroll and who it's going to talk to."
That's absolutely disingenuous. First, asking the question allowed Rove to
explain his position, which he did quite capably: He said he is simply caught
in the middle of a fight over executive privilege. And it allowed Fox News to
explain its rationale for hiring him. Which Moody did quite capably, calling
him "a certified authority on the electoral process (and) on politics; his
track record speaks for itself."
Wallace, however, immediately drew the conclusion that Fox News was somehow
being treated unfairly.
"I question (if) it were a conservative Congress that had subpoenaed James
Carville, let's say, who was in a fight with Congress about testifying and he
were under subpoena, whether you'd be asking CNN why they're trafficking with
James Carville," Wallace said.
Having attended TCA press tours since 1990, I feel comfortable telling you that
the answer to Wallace's hypothetical question is that, yes, it absolutely would
have been asked. Just days earlier, CNN staffers had been subjected to
questioning they didn't particularly like.
(Yours truly has written two rather negative columns about CNN in recent weeks,
including one that ran yesterday.)
Yet Wallace wouldn't accept that.
"You would? I wonder," he said — essentially calling a room full of journalists
liars at the same time he was taking umbrage over questions about his own
organization.
Wallace went on to question whether MSNBC would get any tough questions.
"I think sometimes there's a double standard here," Wallace reiterated. "I
think that MSNBC and its coverage of this campaign went so far over the line in
terms of being in the tank to Barack Obama that it lost a lot of credibility."
Specifically, he complained that MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, "who was delivering
10-minute screeds against President Bush, telling him to shut the hell up,
telling Hillary Clinton to get out of the campaign," was then anchoring
political coverage.
A perfectly legitimate question. One that I asked myself when MSNBC made its
presentation.
(And the TV column that will run in Friday's paper is critical of MSNBC.)
As for Wallace, his behavior certainly didn't help make the case that FNC is
"fair and balanced." Maybe he's been in the Fox News bunker so long that he's
lost perspective.
(Yours truly has written two rather negative columns about CNN in recent weeks,
including one that ran yesterday.)
Yet Wallace wouldn't accept that.
"You would? I wonder," he said — essentially calling a room full of journalists
liars at the same time he was taking umbrage over questions about his own
organization.
Wallace went on to question whether MSNBC would get any tough questions.
"I think sometimes there's a double standard here," Wallace reiterated. "I
think that MSNBC and its coverage of this campaign went so far over the line in
terms of being in the tank to Barack Obama that it lost a lot of credibility."
Specifically, he complained that MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, "who was delivering
10-minute screeds against President Bush, telling him to shut the hell up,
telling Hillary Clinton to get out of the campaign," was then anchoring
political coverage.
A perfectly legitimate question. One that I asked myself when MSNBC made its
presentation.
(And the TV column that will run in Friday's paper is critical of MSNBC.)
As for Wallace, his behavior certainly didn't help make the case that FNC is
"fair and balanced." Maybe he's been in the Fox News bunker so long that he's
lost perspective.
-Scott D. Pierce
