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