Eager to promote an anti-Fox News hit piece in The New Yorker, on Tuesday, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell brought on the liberal magazine’s chief Washington correspondent Jane Mayer to tout some of the article’s most salacious accusations of pro-Trump bias at the rival cable news channel. Lacking any sense of irony, the two Democratic activists masquerading as journalists were aghast at the idea that a media outlet would help a politician with slanted coverage.
Mitchell breathlessly hyped anonymous claims in the piece from “Fox insiders” accusing the network of “killing stories for political purposes to affect the election,” including allegations that then-candidate Donald Trump had an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels. NBC would certainly know about sitting on damaging accusations against a president. In 1999, the network delayed airing an interview with Bill Clinton rape accuser Juanita Broaddrick until after impeachment of the Democratic president had passed.
Another anonymous charge leveled against Fox in Mayer’s lengthy smear job was that the late Roger Ailes tipped off Trump to tough questions he would face in the first Republican primary debate hosted by Fox News in August of 2015. Though in the New Yorker piece, Mayer admits that claim was more suspicion than fact: “A pair of Fox insiders and a source close to Trump believe that Ailes informed the Trump campaign about Kelly’s question. Two of those sources say that they know of the tipoff from a purported eyewitness.”
In a later paragraph, Mayer briefly acknowledged the proven scandal involving interim Democratic National Committee chair and CNN contributor Donna Brazile leaking questions from a CNN-moderated Democratic primary debate to Hillary Clinton.
After promoting the unsubstantiated claims against Fox, Mayer bemoaned:
I mean, I think at this point Fox has gotten something like 44 presidential interviews. The rest of the networks have gotten ten altogether. I think CNN’s got none. Clearly the President’s playing favorites. He’s very tight with Fox. And the former president of Fox is now his communications director. It’s a very close loop that they’ve got going. And I think, you know, a lot of people I interviewed said it raises questions that are troubling about our democracy, when the number one rated cable news show is – appears many times to be an arm of the White House.
Mitchell chimed in: “And of course Sean Hannity appearing on stage and at various other events, most recently in Hanoi.”
The host then added: “We should point out that Fox News has some really great reporters and correspondents.” Mayer agreed, but proclaimed: “...it’s a real disservice to them in many ways and I’m sure it’s uncomfortable for some of them to have this situation going on. Because there ought to be a line between politics and news and it seems like it’s getting crossed and blurred every day over there.”
The gall it takes for committed liberals like Mitchell and Mayer to sit and pass judgment on alleged bias at another media outlet is stunning. The two of them, and most of their press colleagues, have spent decades carrying water for the Democratic Party and slamming conservatives. Just a look back at the 2008 presidential race and the uniform media adulation for Barack Obama shows how blatantly journalists disregard the “line between politics and news” on a routine basis.
Here is a transcript of the March 5 exchange:
12:24 PM ET
(...)
ANDREA MITCHELL: Now, another thing you cite in this story is that Fox killed the Stormy Daniels story, that they knew about it before the election? Which would be, you know, sort of extraordinary. You write that, “After getting one noncommittal answer after another from her editors,” this reporter who tried to file the story for Fox, “Falzone at last heard from LaCorte, who was then the head of FoxNews.com. Falzone told colleagues that LaCorte said to her, “Good reporting, kiddo. But Rupert Murdoch wants trump to win so just let it go.”
JANE MAYER: Can you imagine? I mean, so if you want evidence that Fox was killing stories for political purposes to affect the election, that’s about as strong evidence as you can get. You’ve got an editor saying, “We’re going to kill a story because it’s gonna to hurt Trump,” and the owner of this company, the major mover and shaker, Rupert Murdoch, “wants Trump to win.” So they killed it. I mean, so the Stormy Daniels story did not really come out until a year and a half later, it was long after Trump was elected.
MITCHELL: And it was important enough that, we now know contemporaneously, the President was paying potentially illegal hush money to try to kill that story at the time, he was so worried that it would affect the outcome of the election. Let me ask you about the debate, that first Republican debate, where Fox, according to your reporting, leaked debate questions that Megyn Kelly was gonna ask. We don’t have any idea whether she was aware of this, perhaps not aware at all.
MAYER: I think she was not aware of it, is my sense.
MITCHELL: But leaked the questions to – perhaps to the candidate.
MAYER: Yeah. And so, Megyn Kelly asked a sort of famously tough question of Trump in the debates and according to several sources at Fox, Trump was tipped off in advance to this. And we do know for sure that he called Fox the day before the debate and he was agitated and was upset that he heard there was going to be a tough question. He spoke to someone, and according to two sources, who were Fox insiders, one of whom is – there’s also an eyewitness that Ailes tipped off Trump to that question.
MITCHELL: The late Roger Ailes, then in charge. And Bill Shine, of course from Fox, is now the White House communications director, they’ve hired a lot of people from Fox, we know his appearances, the President’s appearances on Fox. One day, Mike Pompeo, not known for doing a whole lot of network interviews, did three Fox interviews in one day, in different branches of Fox.
MAYER: I mean, I think at this point Fox has gotten something like 44 presidential interviews. The rest of the networks have gotten ten altogether. I think CNN’s got none. Clearly the President’s playing favorites. He’s very tight with Fox. And the former president of Fox is now his communications director. It’s a very close loop that they’ve got going. And I think, you know, a lot of people I interviewed said it raises questions that are troubling about our democracy, when the number one rated cable news show is – appears many times to be an arm of the White House.
MITCHELL: And of course Sean Hannity appearing on stage and at various other events, most recently in Hanoi.
We should point out that Fox News has some really great reporters and correspondents.
MAYER: They actually do, and I think it’s a real disservice to them in many ways and I’m sure it’s uncomfortable for some of them to have this situation going on. Because there ought to be a line between politics and news and it seems like it’s getting crossed and blurred every day over there.
MITCHELL: Jane Mayer, great to have you here. Thanks so much.
MAYER: Great to be with you.
MITCHELL: Great to have you here.
