Fox News is a flip flopper.
Last month, while hardly covering the Democratic National Convention in Boston, the channel’s prime-time super host Bill O’Reilly said that the news network’s job at these conventions is “not bring you wall-to-wall blather.”
The network refused to cover any of what it called “partisan speech” and said it would do the same at the Republican National Convention, which started Monday night in New York.
So, you can imagine my surprise when I tuned in Monday night and found Fox News anchor Shepard Smith telling me that Fox News will take viewers through the Republican convention “from gavel-to-gavel.”
Surely, “wall-to-wall” and “gavel-to-gavel” are different.
Indeed, Fox News gave viewers speeches by Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in their entirety – 25 minutes for McCain, 40 for Giuliani.
In July, former Vice President and presidential candidate Al Gore got a whopping 45 seconds of face time during his speech at the Democratic convention, and Fox granted former President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter less than five minutes.
Other things you saw on Fox at the Republican convention on Day 1 that you didn’t see at the Democratic convention included the Pledge of Allegiance, the singing of the National Anthem and the entire ceremony acknowledging Sept. 11, 2001.
The main “news” on Day 1 of the Democratic convention was presidential nominee John Kerry’s first pitch at a Red Sox game, his visit to Cape Canaveral, where he wore a plastic suit, and his wife’s suggestion to a news reporter that he “shove it.”
Monday’s news was entirely different, offering an exclusive interview with Giuliani by talk-show host Sean Hannity, and a little focus on the protests going on outside the convention.
Those protests have been, by all accounts, peaceful.
Still Smith, the fair-and-balanced news anchor that he is, sought to compare this week’s peaceful protests to the ugly event in Chicago 36 years ago, saying, “this is the largest protest at a political convention since all that mess in Chicago back in 1968. “
In Chicago, 119 police officers and 100 protesters were reportedly injured in riots and melees that spanned a few days.
But the main flaw in Fox News’ staunch philosophy on what’s news and what isn’t came at the constant barrage of McCain and Giuliani coverage.
McCain is essentially a Democrat who turns into a Republican every election cycle, and Giuliani differs from the party platform on several of the litmus-test issues, like abortion, gun control and gay rights.
Still, Fox News held the pair up, just as Republican strategists knew they would, as the face of the Republican Party.
O’Reilly – who previously blew off Gore and Carter and everything they had to say as “nothing new” – praised McCain and Giuliani, calling the pair a “pretty powerful juggernaut.”
The new messages they had to offer were that President George W. Bush was right to invade Iraq and that he responded well after Sept. 11. Gee, I’ve never heard that spiel.
The icing on the cake, though, was Fox anchor Brit Hume’s assessment of the two speeches. Asking a panel of pundits about McCain and Giuliani’s performances, Hume said, “We know, of course, they were seen not by all the major networks, but certainly on the cable channels.”
Yes, Brit. We can always count on you to bring us all the coverage from a political convention – as long it’s the right convention.
Columnist Victor Balta: 425-339-3455 or vbalta@heraldnet.com.
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