The Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan got only silence when she tried to determine the ethics policy Fox News execs keep insisting has been breached with incidents such as Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro joining a Trump campaign rally and Fox & Friends pre-scripting Scott Pruitt interviews.
You may recall that after Hannity and Pirro joined a Trump campaign rally, Fox issued a vague statement claiming that the incident had “been addressed”:
FOX News does not condone any talent participating in campaign events,” Fox News spokesperson Carly Shanahan said in a statement to TPM. “We have an extraordinary team of journalists helming our coverage tonight and we are extremely proud of their work. This was an unfortunate distraction and has been addressed.”
After the more recent revelation that Fox & Friends colluded with the Environmental Protection Agency to pre-script interviews with Pruitt, the agency’s then-head, Fox issued another vague statement. This time, the network insisted such behavior “is not standard practice whatsoever” and that it would “discipline” some employees. But the network would not say which ones would be disciplined or how.
So it’s no wonder that Sullivan got an urge to investigate. Currently the media columnist for The Washington Post, she’s also a former public editor for The New York Times. Yesterday, she wrote about her efforts:
On Wednesday, I asked two high-ranking Fox News executives about this: John Stack, senior vice president for news coverage, whom I had met at a recent gathering of standards editors and media ombudsmen, past and present; and Irena Briganti, executive vice president of corporate communications for Fox News and Fox Business.
Does Fox News have a written ethics policy, I asked.
If so, is it published anywhere?
Is there a Fox News standards editor, even if he or she doesn’t have that specific title?
What Fox News standard or practice, exactly, was breached in the way the Pruitt appearance was handled, and what is the nature of the disciplinary measures being taken?
Neither Stack nor Briganti responded at all.
My guess is that Fox has some written policy of ethics and standards stashed somewhere just in case the network needs an excuse to fire somebody. Or maybe the network brass have decided that no policy is better. That way, they never have to deal with it getting violated all the time.
(Fox & Friends image via screen grab)
Under this so-called ‘policy’, employees who witness or experience harassment or discrimination in the workplace must report it to the useless human resources or the legal departments.
There are so-called mouthpieces who believe they are above this policy. In their demented minds, the policy is beneath them. The ‘if it weren’t for me, Fox would not be the number one’ network’ crowd-and they know exactly who they are-think they are untouchable. Hah!
The tables will turn soon, and the Foxies will find themselves in another MAJOR nasty scandal very soon. We hope The Heels is prepared for the nasty fallout.
Most mainstream news outlets have an ombudsman to deal with complaints about stories and practices. Not Fox News from what I can tell. I’ve heard, for example, NPR a number of times mention a decision of their ombudsman to correct bad reporting. Never Fox News.
But what does one expect? Fox News (AKA Trump TV) is a corrupt cheerleader for the corrupt presidency of Trump.
