CNN host Alisyn Camerota has been making appearances recently to discuss her new book, Amanda Wakes Up, which is a fictional work that is nevertheless based in part on her past experiences working as a FNC host for the weekend edition of Fox and Friends. Camerota -- who left FNC to join CNN three years ago -- has been showing this past week a greater willingness to criticize her former employer -- yesterday on CNN's Reliable Sources, going so far as to charge that her old FNC show "unnecessarily stoked outrage" and "took a really myopic view of, say, President Obama or the current administration." She even suggested the show has sometimes been "toxic" or "foxic."
Additionally, in an appearance on CNN Tonight, Camerota tried to fend off charges of bias by arguing that people only think she has ideological biases because she asks contrarian questions to her guests, therefore pressing some from the left and some from the right. But the CNN host does, in fact, have a demonstrated pattern of tilting left on her CNN show, New Day, over the past three years.
On Tuesday's CNN Tonight, Camerota recalled that the main character in her book, Amanda Gallo, works for a news network called "Fair News." After relating that "Fair News" was based on her "imagination" of what a balanced network should be like, she lamented that "it ends up becoming like a Frankenstein monster of a network."
After informing viewers that his guest used to be a weekend host for Fox and Friends, Lemon chose a passage from the book in which the Amanda character lamented making activists on both sides of the abortion issue angry because she asked questions posed from opposite sides of the issue. Camerota then denied being a biased journalist as she responded:
You know that feeling of, depending upon what segment you do, then social media can light up with calling you names and trying to put you into a box, and you're either a "conservative maniac" or you're a "liberal, left-wing nut."
She added:
And I do think there's something to that, that then you must be doing something right if you get hate from both sides. It's unpleasant, regardless of what side it comes from, but I do think that people have a hard time fitting me into some box, which I've always seen as sort of a feather in my hat.
It's true that asking contrarian questions can be a useful tool in getting guests to clarify or strengthen the case for their point of view, but CNN's New Day show does not always press its political guests equally -- especially on certain issues -- as evidenced further down. At times she has even repeated misinformation that ends up being beneficial to the left-leaning point of view.
As for Sunday's Reliable Sources, host Brian Stelter introduced his segment with Camerota by making clear that much of the novel was based on Camerota's experiences working for Fox News:
Alisyn Camerota says not all news is created equally. In real life, she's the co-anchor of New Day here at CNN, and now she's also a novelist -- the author of a brand new book titled Amanda Wakes Up. The fictional Amanda is Amanda Gallo, a young reporter who lands a dream job as a co-host of a cable news morning show called Wake Up USA on the Fair News Network, whose motto is "True and Equal." Is this Camerota's way of revealing what it was like to work at Fox News? Well, sort of.
A bit later, Stelter picked up on a passage from the book in which Camerota had described the news network in the book as being a combination of "fun" and "toxic," and coined the term "foxic" as an obvious jab at Fox News. Stelter:
But you did have a line I wanted to quote. Your character at one point says, "The crazy part about" our show Wake Up is "sometimes it's really fun and sometimes it's really toxic. That's quite a hybrid, you know. It's almost like we should invent a new word for our brand of news that combines fun with toxic."
He added:
And the word your character suggests is "foxic," which, again, made me think of Fox. I wonder if that's what it was like for you at Fox and Friends. It was fun but also toxic?
Camerota more directly tied the word "toxic" to her former employer as she recalled an actual conversation with a friend:
That passage that you happen to have pulled was a real conversation that I had -- I mean, not verbatim, but with a woman who was on the air, but a dear friend of mine. And she and I met for lunch, and I was frustrated one day during these years when I wrote it because I did feel that way, that the show that I was on, it was -- there was a lot that was great about it. It was really spontaneous live TV.
She then further took aim at Fox and Friends as she added:
At its best, it's spontaneous and fun and unpredictable, and you never know what's going to happen. But I also thought -- as I said, I wrote much of this during the 2012 election. It unnecessarily stoked outrage.
After Stelter injected, "Just to tick people off -- just to make viewers angry?" Camerota fretted over FNC's coverage of President Barack Obama as she continued:
I guess. Or to -- that took a really myopic view of, say, President Obama or the current administration -- only saw them one way through a sort of outrageous lens. And I thought that there was a way to be a little bit more open-minded about seeing everything. And I still feel this way, by the way. I mean, again, I channel that experience even today, and I always try to say, "Well, what would the other side say?" In fact, there's more than just two sides. Sometimes there's many sides. And so anytime you think that you have such, you know, righteous indignation about something, it wouldn't hurt to look at it from the other side.
Since she joined CNN in 2014, Camerota has built up quite a record of left-leaning journalism and bias against the conservative point of view.
On June 1 of this year, Camerota pressed a Republican guest from the left on the issue of the Paris Accord and global warming, but, when facing a Democratic guest later, merely asked for his view without challenging his left-wing response.
On June 3, there was a repeat performance when her New Day show pressed two Republican guests from the left on the issue, but did not press any liberal guest from the right. While co-host Chris Cuomo hosted one of the two Republicans, Camerota hosted both a Republican and a Democrat while showing an obvious double standard. Camerota spent much of the time with her Republican guest fixated on President Donald Trump claiming global warming was a "hoax," but did not offer any challenge from the right for her Democratic guest on the global warming issue.
On February 23, Camerota made herself the third liberal voice in a debate where two liberal guests were already bullying one conservative guest over the issue of transgender bathroom access in public schools.
On January 31, the CNN host gave credence to the myth peddled by the Left that Breitbart News and Steve Bannon are anti-Semitic -- in spite of Breitbart's established history of documenting and criticizing anti-Semitism, and of defending Israel.
On January 27, she gave no pushback when far-left Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez blamed the NRA for an increase in shootings in Chicago. The CNN host merely cued him up to attack the NRA further as she cited crime statistics and then followed up: "Do I understand you correctly, in terms of what you think is at the root of that? You think it's because the NRA -- because of their lawsuits, they were able to dismantle some of the gun laws, and that's what is at the root of this problem?"
On January 25, she actually pressed far-left Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison from the left as she wrongly claimed that President Donald Trump's reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy would bar NGOs from discussing "contraception," even though the policy would only withhold funding if they perform or encourage abortion.
On October 6, 2016, the New Day program showed a blatant double standard as both major party vice presidential candidates appeared in separate segments on the same show. Co-anchor Cuomo repeatedly pressed Republican Mike Pence, but Camerota was soft on Democrat Tim Kaine.
On August 2, 2016, Camerota gave a liberal guest a forum to bash President Donald Trump over the Khizr Khan controversy without informing viewers of her liberal background.
On May 16, 2016, Camerota gave a liberal activist for transgender rights an unchallenged forum to blame the North Carolina bathroom law for the suicide of two transgenders, an increase in calls to suicide hotlines by transgenders, and the hospitalization of her own child due to stress caused by attention to the law.
On March 3, 2016, Camerota invited race-obsessed former MSNBC analyst Michael Eric Dyson to accuse Republicans of racism with little pushback, and provided a forum him to repeat the discredited canard tying Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign to the site of racially motivated murders from years earlier.
On August 5, 2015, Camerota distorted the findings of a poll to absurdly claim that 80 percent of Americans want abortion "kept legal" when, in fact, the poll in question found that a majority of Americans leaned against most abortions being legal.
Between June and early July of 2015, Camerota held a series of panel discussions with likely voters in which the panels were mostly stacked with liberals with few expressing conservative views.
Below is a transcript of relevant portions of the Tuesday, July 25, CNN Tonight, and the Sunday, July 30, Reliable Sources:
#From the July 25 CNN Tonight:
11:50 p.m. ET
ALISYN CAMEROTA: It's my experience basically of 25 years of my career boiled down into her -- Amanda's trajectory -- Amanda Gallo -- of a year and a half. She basically figures it all out in a year and a half, what took me in 25 years go figure out. But the -- it's set at Fair News, and what Fair News is, it was sort of my imagination -- sort of my utopian dream of someday being at a network where people didn't try to put you in a partisan box of some kind because it would be a big tent for left and right, and old and young, and North and South. And then, as you'll see in the book, it ends up becoming like a Frankenstein monster of a network.
DON LEMON: So, for those of you who don't know, Alisyn -- because Alisyn is on in the morning -- you've always been on in the morning since you've been in cable news pretty much. You came from Fox -- you anchored the weekends at Fox, and I would watch you and Dave who's now here now on weekends at Fox.
(...)
LEMON: You write about, when you go in to your boss, Benji, right, and he's concerned about the attention that a segment on abortion is getting on your Twitter. ... She says, "When I was challenging the woman's attorney, they said I was a right-wing, anti-abortion woman hater. And when I was challenging Fluke,", who was a male, "they said I was a left-wing liberal baby killer. Those were the more pleasant ones. Benji snorted, 'Then you must be doing something right!'"
Do you agree with that? Because you recently quit Twitter because of this craziness like this.
CAMEROTA: But, look, you know that feeling of, depending upon what segment you do, then social media can light up with calling you names and trying to put you into a box, and you're either a "conservative maniac" or you're a "liberal, left-wing nut." And I do think there's something to that, that then you must be doing something right if you get hate from both sides. It's unpleasant, regardless of what side it comes from, but I do think that people have a hard time fitting me into some box, which I've always seen as sort of a feather in my hat.
(...)
#From the July 30 Reliable Sources:
11:49 a.m. ET
BRIAN STELTER: Alisyn Camerota says not all news is created equally. In real life, she's the co-anchor of New Day here at CNN, and now she's also a novelist -- the author of a brand new book titled Amanda Wakes Up. The fictional Amanda is Amanda Gallo, a young reporter who lands a dream job as a co-host of a cable news morning show called Wake Up USA on the Fair News Network, whose motto is "True and Equal." Is this Camerota's way of revealing what it was like to work at Fox News? Well, sort of. Here's what she told me about Amanda Wakes Up.
(...)
STELTER: You've spoken to me in the past about Ailes's sexual harassment, about him harassing you and other colleagues. I don't see that come across in the book in this fictional world of morning TV. But you did have a line I wanted to quote. Your character at one point says, "The crazy part about" our show Wake Up is "sometimes it's really fun and sometimes it's really toxic. That's quite a hybrid, you know. It's almost like we should invent a new word for our brand of news that combines fun with toxic."
And the word your character suggests is "foxic," which, again, made me think of Fox. I wonder if that's what it was like for you at Fox and Friends. It was fun but also toxic?
ALISYN CAMEROTA: That passage that you happen to have pulled was a real conversation that I had -- I mean, not verbatim, but with a woman who was on the air, but a dear friend of mine. And she and I met for lunch, and I was frustrated one day during these years when I wrote it because I did feel that way, that the show that I was on, it was -- there was a lot that was great about it. It was really spontaneous live TV. At its best, it's spontaneous and fun and unpredictable, and you never know what's going to happen. But I also thought -- as I said, I wrote much of this during the 2012 election. It unnecessarily stoked outrage.
STELTER: Just to tick people off -- just to make viewers angry?
CAMEROTA: I guess. Or to -- that took a really myopic view of, say, President Obama or the current administration -- only saw them one way through a sort of outrageous lens. And I thought that there was a way to be a little bit more open-minded about seeing everything. And I still feel this way, by the way. I mean, again, I channel that experience even today, and I always try to say, "Well, what would the other side say?" In fact, there's more than just two sides. Sometimes there's many sides. And so anytime you think that you have such, you know, righteous indignation about something, it wouldn't hurt to look at it from the other side.
