MRC Vice President for Business and Culture Dan Gainor appeared on Fox Business to argue that the media’s lack of Benghazi coverage was for protection of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama.
After Charles Payne, Fox Business Network Contributor and co-host of “Varney & Co,” noted that the media appeared to either brush off Benghazi coverage or defend the administration, Gainor responded that the media “care most about protecting Hillary Clinton as well as protecting Barack Obama” on May 9.
Gainor pointed out the discrepancies in coverage: “When Jon Stewart spends more minutes on his show covering Benghazi then all ABC, CBS and NBC did this morning, you pretty much know you’ve got a problem.”
A few minutes into the segment, Fox Business presented 3 charts from NewsBusters research outlining Benghazi coverage. The first showed how NBC’s May 9 “Today” show spent 2.5 minutes on Benghazi, but 27 minutes on Arias verdict and Ohio kidnappings. The second illustrated how Fox News spent 108 minutes on “live coverage of Benghazi hearings,” CNN a total of 17 minutes and MSNBC 0 minutes on May 8. The third summarized May 9 “This Morning” coverage: CBS spent 3+ minutes on Benghazi 3+, but 9+ minutes on the Arias verdict and Ohio kidnappings.
With CBS, Gainor stressed the network held “almost a bi-polar result. They’ve done more coverage, much credit goes to Sharyl Atkisson. But at the same time we see in Politico yesterday that the anonymous sources from CBS are concerned that her coverage is trending too close to activism.” He continued his complaints with a “The New York Times” piece where “they slipped in the middle of it that … Hicks’ complaints talked about something that was unbecoming of the administration. Unbecoming is just, I mean, come on, they might destroy the man’s career, that’s a little bit more than unbecoming.”
In his final comments, Payne quoted “The Washington Post’s” Dana Milbank as saying, “Hicks didn’t lay a glove on the former secretary of state” and then immediately asked, “That’s running interference in the best of ways, isn’t it?”
Gainor concluded, “That is the democratic talking point for 2016. That this is not, didn’t affect, Hillary one iota, and you know she’s going to run, and this is all just GOP conspiracy theory.”
Gainor also appeared on Fox News to speak with anchor Megyn Kelly on Benghazi coverage
