Fox News Doesn't Want To Talk About Todd Akin's Rape Comments

Right now, Republican Todd Akin is the 6th hottest Google search in the United States, thanks to an uproar over his anti-abortion comment, "If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole (pregnancy) thing down." But you'd probably not know that if you get your news from Fox. In fact, some might say the 'fair and balanced" network is deliberately ignoring a very bad day for a Republican senate candidate. UPDATED

I spent about an hour today watching America Live and while there was lots of talk about President Obama and an abandoned dog, there was nothing about Akin.

It turns out that was not an anomaly. Think Progress noted:

While CNN and MSNBC — the two other main cable news channels — led with the Akin statement, Fox steered clear of the comments completely until 9:19 AM, referencing them in a loaded segment with Karl Rove without playing video of his remarks. The network didn’t air the remarks until 12:10 PM — showing the the clip well after Republicans (including GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney) harshly condemned the GOP Senate candidate from Missouri.

I just looked at the Fox Nation page and - nada. Well, nada about Akin. Plenty of posts designed to make President Obama look bad, though.

So I looked on Fox's video page and - nada. Funny how there always seems to be space and time for reports that are unflattering to Democrats, though.

FoxNews.com does have the story, although you'd have to look hard to find the name "Akin." And for some reason, Fox buried news about Republicans getting drunk and swimming or skinnydipping in the Sea of Galilee underneath it - though there's no relationship to the two stories other than that they're both sensational scandals about Republicans. But again, a story with a negative headline about Obama came first.

akin_foxnews.com.jpg

Buzzfeed posted a Twitpic of grabs from the three news networks. Guess which one was talking mergers and acquisitions?

UPDATE: 5:59 PM - There is now a video about Akin featured on Fox News' video page. FoxNews.com looks unchanged, as does Fox Nation.

UPDATE 2: 6:48 PM: Special Report just discussed this story with panelists saying "He's got to go." So you know it's probably as good as done now.

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Showing 15 reactions

commented 2012-08-22 02:24:48 -0400 · Flag

Thank you, W Mace!

commented 2012-08-21 14:53:10 -0400 · Flag

@D Smith: “Deceit and interfering with the voting public is OK?”

It’s apparently OK with Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. has donated over $500K to individuals and PACs, with the largest amount {nearly $59K} going to . . . . President Obama . . .

http://www.politicususa.com/rupert-murdochs-news-corp-donated-59000-reelect-obama.html

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commented 2012-08-21 14:38:18 -0400 · Flag

Zaglossus: True… and it doesn’t help that they had a lot of whining about petty crap.

commented 2012-08-21 08:55:06 -0400 · Flag

Joseph, it’s funny that with all of the other comments here, you call me out for sources and talk about legitimate? Look it up on CBS News and the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Oh, excuse me, I forgot we are on the infamous watchdog site where credibility is such a high priority.

commented 2012-08-21 02:44:06 -0400 · Flag

Akin came on live on the first hour of sewer-dweller Hannity’s radio show Mon. In fact, it was a rare departure for the Slanthead who usually devotes his whole first hour, without guests or callers, to a solo incoherrent Obama bashing rant.

From the outset, you could almost hear the disgust and rage in Hannity’s voice, as he continually browbeat Akin, trying to get him to drop out right there on the air (he refused). But was this because of Akin’s rape comments? Nooooo, not once did Hannity condem the congressman’s remarks. In fact, Akin got some instant Hannity rehab with compliments like: “I know you’ve apologized and your’re sincere….” “Your heart is in the right place…” (makes one want to puke!). Hannity’s disgust was purely due to Akin’s screwing up the chances of unseating McCaskill.

And as anyone who follows Hannity could have predicted, he spent a good 3-4 minutes complaining about the libs’ hypocracy, bringing up Joe “put ’em in chains” Biden, Bill Maher, et. al. [Hannity missed a few, but his fat little clean-up pit bull (6 pm, NY time), Mark Levin, covered the rest. Levin, the failed psychotic Philadelphia shyster (“I don’t want to take my thorazine!”) mentioned Chappaquidick and Juanita dozens of times in his first few minutes on the air before I forced myself to turn off the vile.]

So what does this teach us? That Hannity is a misogynist as well as a racist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, and an anti-semite (toward elderly, liberal American Jews). We knew all that!

commented 2012-08-21 01:46:59 -0400 · Flag

D Smith…..sources please? We all know of the GOP’s trickery in Wisconsin earlier this year, but until you provide reputable evidence from legitimate sources, you need to keep quiet.

commented 2012-08-21 01:39:03 -0400 · Flag

Klannity referred to Akin as "an obscure Congressman no one ever heard of. I don’t believe he even called him by his name. Nothing but Obama bashing in the first three segments, that was all I could stand. Didn’t watch the screech owl Ingraham, did she mention Akin at all???

Nothing less than we would expect from Faux. Virtually no coverage of Akin on air and the story buried on their website. How soon before Akin appears for some Klannity rehab or an appearance on the drug addict Limbaugh’s show??

commented 2012-08-21 00:38:38 -0400 · Flag

Fox News’ entire history of discussing both rape and abuse towards women consists of them saying ‘bitch earned it,’ and telling people to disagree to shut up before ending with ‘she earned it, but he went too far.’

Given that Snowmen will rule Hell before 93% of women will vote Republican again… I think keeping their mouths shut and letting the adults talk is the closest they’ve come to a wise decision in years. I say closest because it would have been wiser for them to speak up against that line.

commented 2012-08-20 21:51:40 -0400 · Flag

Maybe they report that the Democratic party donated $1.5 m to Akins campaign in the hopes he would be easier to defeat than the other republican candidates. Deceit and interfering with the voting public is OK?

commented 2012-08-20 20:39:56 -0400 · Flag

Asshole Akin’s idiotic remark will ensure that Senator McCaskill wins re-election. It also may swing enough votes to win Missouri for President Obama.

commented 2012-08-20 19:55:51 -0400 · Flag

Sean Hannity asked Akin to drop out on his radio show today. Now you all understand why smart, serious, sensible Sarah Palin endorsed fearless feminist Sarah Steelman in the Missouri primary. The populist princess once again proves herself perceptive, prophetic, & perspicacious. She foresaw this fiasco.

commented 2012-08-20 19:16:41 -0400 · Flag

Seriously now, is anyone truly shocked by this selective coverage by Fox? Funny how they found the time to cover Joe Biden last week.

I don’t believe he (Akin) misspoke at all. I think he just mistakenly revealed what he and many evangelical conservatives really think and say when nobody else is around.

commented 2012-08-20 18:42:13 -0400 · Flag

Of course Fox News doesn’t want to talk about Todd Akin;t hey’d rather talk about important things — like the Romneys telling America “you really DON’T want to see our tax returns”

http://www.politicususa.com/mitt-romney-tells-tax-returns.html

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commented 2012-08-20 18:39:52 -0400 · Flag

Ooops….maybe that was just the radio show!
I’m so confused!!!!!!
Can’t tell the goobers without a scorecard!

commented 2012-08-20 18:37:23 -0400 · Flag

But he’s on Hannity tonight, isn’t he??
Republican rehab….ain’t it beautiful?