By Media Matters' count, Fox News hyped at least 22 times a Daily Caller report that Senator Robert Menendez paid underage prostitutes for sex in the Dominican Republic. But yesterday, the Washington Post reported that a woman who appeared in a video accusing Menendez of paying her for sex was in reality paid to make that accusation and never actually met him. So why didn’t either Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly mention that update last night given that they spent plenty of time airing the allegations?
As I noted in my post when the woman first came forward, Bill O’Reilly very cagily hyped the news by making it a “question” about using anonymous sources. In his discussion with Bernard Goldberg about it, O’Reilly disparaged the practice but said, “The folks need to know” if it turns out to be true Menendez consorted with prostitutes. Well, Bill, what if it turns out you were right not to trust anonymous sources in this case? And on the same day that Bernie visits the Factor?
Hannity, on the other hand, was blatantly dishonest in his ridiculous comparison of the Menendez allegations to Sen. Larry Craig’s “toe tapping.” Conveniently forgetting, of course, that Craig’s behavior was described by an undercover policeman “as a signal used by persons (in a public men’s room) wishing to engage in lewd conduct.” Craig later pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. But while Hannity was holding Craig up as some kind of victim of media over-reaction, he played the media martyr as he (falsely) whined that Menendez, merely under investigation, was not getting the same media scrutiny. Yet Mr. Fairness didn’t say a peep last night about the latest developments in the story he complained was under-covered just a few weeks ago.
O’Reilly and Hannity were not the only ones ignoring the information that served to undermine attacks on Menendez. Media Matters reports that Fox didn’t get around to reporting it until this afternoon on America Live. However, host Megyn Kelly made sure to keep hate alive by reminding viewers of every other allegation that has been made against Menendez and not disproven. She also hilariously referred to the day-old news as a “new twist.”
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