Fox News anchor Chris Wallace got props all over the media yesterday after he confronted Sarah Huckabee Sanders over Trump administration BS about the border wall and the government shutdown. But instead of ballyhooing a real journalistic accomplishment, Fox seems ashamed.
In his Fox News Sunday interview with Huckabee Sanders yesterday, Wallace magnificently debunked the Trump administration's claim that thousands of terrorists have been caught trying to enter the country via the southern border. While he was it, Wallace also forcefully challenged the Trump administration for not opening the parts of the federal government that have nothing to do with a border wall. Wallace was widely hailed for the interview – except on his own network.
Media Matters’ Matt Gertz explains:
By contrast, as of 1 p.m. EST on Monday, outside of its regular re-airings of the program, Fox News had mentioned Wallace’s debunking of Sanders’ claim only once: on Fox & Friends First, during the 4 a.m. hour. Fox & Friends, the president’s favorite morning show, aired a clip from a different part of the interview, in which Sanders said that Trump is refusing to reopen the government without funding for a wall on the southern border to protect Americans from violent undocumented criminals.
Fox’s website has also been downplaying the exchange. On Sunday, it promoted the interview with the headline, “Sanders: Trump willing to ‘do what it takes,’ including bypassing Congress, to build border wall.” That FoxNews.com headline linked to a write-up that mentioned, in its eighth paragraph, that Wallace had responded to the Sanders talking point by “noting that the overwhelming majority of those individuals are captured at airports -- not at the border.”
By Monday morning, even that story had disappeared from the website’s front-page. But the website did continue promoting an interview with Sarah Huckabee Sanders: The one she gave to Fox & Friends on Friday morning, in which the hosts allowed her to push the same false talking point.
What kind of network all but hides such an interview? One that cares more about promoting politics than it does about practicing journalism.
(Wallace image via screen grab)
;^)
