Fox’s MediaBuzz show, supposedly a media criticism show, somehow missed the horribly inflammatory, divisive and partisan accusations that have been going on at Fox ever since the terrible shooting of 12 Dallas police officers last week. Host Howard Kurtz and guests even praised the media’s “sober coverage.”
Kurtz began the lengthy discussion by asking his three guests if there hasn’t been “a little bit of a lowering of the temperature” of the media coverage. He was referring not just to coverage of the Dallas tragedy but of the shooting deaths of two African Americans by police that preceded it.
“In a word, yes,” guest Keli Goff said. If there’s a silver lining in these awful incidents, she added, it’s that the media coverage “has been much more responsible than it has for previous incidents.” She called it “across the board.”
Kurtz did note that there has been some “pretty inflammatory stuff.” But he cited a “Civil War” New York Post cover as well as a Drudge Report headline, “Black Lives Kill.” He didn’t mention a thing about what has been said on Fox.
We can guess why he didn’t. But what was the excuse of guest Heidi Przybyla, of USA Today? She said the reason the Post and Drudge got so much attention is because, “There were relatively few headlines like that.” She even praised Fox’s Greta Van Susteren for “both paying proper tribute to the law officers and focusing on the egregious nature of this while, at the same time, reading a statement from Black Lives Matter and trying to make the point that condemnation, whether it’s Black Lives Matter protesters condemning all police or partisan sensationalizing Black Lives Matter, is exactly the kind of intolerance that has gotten us to this place. So I was heartened to see newscasters like her try to focus on both sides.”
Well, good on Van Susteren but Przybyla really should have taken a look elsewhere on Fox.
If so, she might have seen Fox host Leland Vittert deliberately suggesting that President Obama was overly partial to the black shooting victims and not so much for the police victims; Or Fox's favorite sheriff, David Clarke, who made five appearances on Fox on Friday, calling Obama the "cop-hater-in-chief" and accusing him of "fuel[ing] anger towards police;" Or Fox contributor Allen West accusing Obama and Hillary Clinton of having "set an atmosphere for the ambush of police officers." Or Fox contributor David Webb who added Black Lives Matter, the Congressional Black Caucus, Bernie Sanders and the Department of Justice to the list of Fox scapegoats.
Finally, with less than one minute left, Kurtz said, “For all the encouraging things I’m hearing here, we still do have political figures, whether it’s on cable news or on Twitter, blaming President Obama, ‘cause he’s supposedly anti-police, blaming Donald Trump’s rhetoric, so it’s not like we’ve moved completely away from that. I wonder how much of that will return.”
Guest Molly Ball said she thought there was a desire now for the country to come together in order to heal.
“I’m glad that the media seem now to want to be part of that, on the positive side,” Kurtz said.
Does he really think that’s about to happen on Fox? If so, maybe we could interest him in buying a certain bridge in Brooklyn.
Watch it below, from the July 10 MediaBuzz.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/07/06/fox-ailes-deny-allegations-in-gretchen-carlson-harassment-suit.html
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/07/07/fox-s-howard-kurtz-carries-roger-ailes-water-report-sexual-harassment-allegations/211417