Fox News’ fascination with Benghazi seems to end at the Republican partisan divide. Today, during what Fox hyped as a major Benghazi hearing, Fox gave the bulk of its airtime to Republican questioning and hardly any from the Democrats. Even though the hearing aired during the daytime hours, which Fox claims constitute its “objective news” lineup.
From Media Matters:
For nearly an hour, Fox stayed live on the hearings without interruption, airing over 20 minutes of questioning from the Republican chairman (Mike Rogers). But when Rogers yielded the floor to Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff (CA) to question (former deputy CIA director) Morell, Fox cut away to hear “analysis” from a network contributor, breaking live footage for the first time.
As the hearing went on, a pattern emerged—out of the five Democrats who asked questions at the hearing, four saw Fox break live coverage less than a minute into their time, with the network choosing instead to air commentary or go to commercial break. Fox allowed the questioning of only one Democrat, Ruppersberger, to air for over 60 seconds. In contrast, the network aired a majority of Republican congressmen’s questions, cutting away from only one Republican, Rep. Joe Heck (NV).
This is a great example of how Fox News covers even a live news event through a Republican-promoting lens.
And I still remember when Brit Hume started out with “Special Report,” his second half-hour panel discussions had nearly equal Dem. and GOP participants. A couple years in, the Dems. had virtually disappeared. As this once very fine journalist got sucked farther and farther into the echo chamber, he lost interest in presenting other points of view or, God forbid, engaging in a legitimate discussion or argument.
