It was fascinating to see the reaction on Fox News Thursday night to the announcement that ACORN was suing the filmmakers Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, along with the Web site Breitbart.com, over the hidden camera recording that the two did at an agency office in Baltimore.

There was Bill O'Reilly offering his sympathy to Andrew Breitbart, the founder of the Web site that first put the film online.

"I'm sorry you have to go through this, Andrew, I know it's unpleasant," O'Reilly said in opening the interview. Sound sympathetic enough, you think?

And there was Sean Hannity with Giles and her attorney, Kelly Shackelford, skillfully setting them up so that Shackelford could describe the lawsuit as "an attempt to bully a 20-year-old girl" and "to intimidate, to chill speech and freedom of expression."

Hannity, not to be outdone on the sympathy front by O'Reilly, solicitously asked Giles if the lawsuit has "scared" her "a little bit?"

Continue reading "O'Reilly, Hannity reach out to ACORN camera duo" »

Posted by David Zurawik at 1:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (127)
Categories: Fox News
        

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Amid all the conflicting reports on cable TV and the Internet as to whether or not the filmmakers who secretly taped two ACORN employees in Baltimore violated any law, let me add one historical fact that might bring a bit of clarity and context to the discusssion.

The Baltimore State's Attorney's office has brought felony charges in the past for what was alleged to be essentially the same act as that committed by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, the two who did the secret taping at ACORN.

And one of the five persons whom the state's attorney's office charged in the past was John Stossel, the TV news journalist who this week made headlines for another reason by leaving ABC News to join the Fox News Channel.

I know this because I was one of two journalists who was believed to have heard Stossel allegedly admit that ABC News had violated the secret taping statute and was subpoened to testify at the trial. The case was reported in the "New York Times."

Continue reading "ACORN precedent: John Stossel once charged in Baltimore secret taping case" »

Posted by David Zurawik at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (85)
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Brian Kilmeade, co-host of Fox & Friends, apologized for remarks he made about American ethnicity during a recent telecast on the Fox News Channel.

Discussing a Swedish study on the relationship between Alzheimer's disease and marriage, Kilmeade said it was problematic to compare Swedish and American populations, because, "we [Americans] keep marrying other species and other ethnics . . . Swedes have pure genes . . . in America we marry everybody . . ." 

Unity: Journalists of Color, condemned Kilmeade's words, saying they lent credence to "the basest of white supremacist ideologies, the notion that white people and non-white people are of different species, with the white race as 'pure.'"

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Posted by David Zurawik at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (32)
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Since an exchange I had on CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday is being batted around elsewhere on the Web, I suppose I should weigh in on it -- or, at least, try to get in on some of the traffic.

The headline is that Lauren Ashburn, managing editor for USA Today Live, and I said that MSNBC and the Fox News channel are bad for America. Here is the way my colleagues at newsbusters.org characterized it. Howard Kurtz hosted the discussion, with BBC America anchorman Matt Frei as another of the panelists.

Continue reading "Angry talk on MSNBC and Fox is bad for the nation" »

Posted by David Zurawik at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (36)
Categories: CNN, Cable and Network News, Fox News, MSNBC
        

Does anyone on cable TV cover real breaking news like CNN?

Tuesday when Senator Arlen Specter dropped the bomb that he was switching to the Democratic side of the aisle, CNN was all over it. From Dana Bash (left) reporting the story on Capitol Hill to a team of reporters gathering instant reaction around Washington, while Ed Henry and Bill Schneider offered on-the-run political analysis, this is the way a major story should be covered.

A note to some of my colleagues: Let's stop blindly celebrating the ratings successes of the cymbal-clanging chimpanzees named Olbermann, Maddow, Hannity, Beck and O'Reilly on MSNBC and Fox, and pay some attention to the last real journalism being done on cable TV by the folks at CNN. They did some fast, sound and fine work again on a huge political story -- delivering the journalistic goods once again so that the sit-on-their-butt partisans on Fox and MSNBC will have something to actually talk about Tuesday night.

Continue reading "CNN shines in instant coverage of Arlen Specter story" »

Posted by David Zurawik at 1:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)
Categories: CNN, Cable and Network News, Fox News, MSNBC, TV and Politics
        

For the first in the history of cable TV news, MSNBC has drawn a larger prime-time audience than CNN. And Fox continues to build the largest audience of all from 8 to 11 p.m. each night, the most lucrative part of the broadcast day.

That's the news from the March ratings period, and as much as I would like to be dispassionate about it, I just can't. That's because I know how dangerous a trend we have here with viewers flocking to fiercely-partisan, ideologically-driven opinion-based programs as they abandon productions that seek to provide down-the-middle coverage, verified information and analysis that explores all sides of issues.

In this time of national crisis, it is no small matter that viewers are choosing the bombast and posturing of Keith Olbermann on the left, and Bill O'Reilly on the right  just when sound information is needed more than ever.

Continue reading "MSNBC beats CNN in prime time - and Fox wins it all" »

Posted by David Zurawik at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: CNN, Cable and Network News, Fox News, MSNBC, Ratings
        

Memo to Fox News management: Get Greta Van Susteren some anger management help before she does serious damage to someone, herself or your news channel's brand identity.

Van Susteren, who has bared her attack dog teeth more than once against me and this blog since I dared to criticize her cotton-candy interview of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin last fall, is out of control on the Web once again. Following her online attack on me for saying she was "overly friendly" in her first Palin interview, she followed up with a post attacking Howard Kurtz, media critic at the Washington Post, because he dared to quote me. But then, she tried to take the post down before anyone noticed. Only someone already had.

This time, she is railing against Politico for reporting that her husband, John Coale, helped Palin set up a political action committee.

Continue reading "Van Susteren loses it again on her Sarah Palin conflict" »

Posted by David Zurawik at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Categories: Fox News, TV and Politics