Shep Smith Cuts Interview Short After Guest Discloses Business Ties To Google

video

by Mark Joyella | 4:59 pm, June 2nd, 2011

» 28 comments

Fox News anchor Shepard Smith seemed to cut short an interview with a computer security expert Thursday afternoon, after stopping the guest to ask
if he did business with Google, which was the company the expert was discussing–and lavishly praising. In the segment, about a group of hackers who infiltrated hundreds of Gmail accounts, Symantec executive Francis Desouza began by saying “first, I think Google deserves a lot of credit for coming forward and talking about this attack.”

Desouza went on to describe the nature of the hackers’ attack, but his complimentary comments about the company clearly concerned Smith, who recently served as a journalism professor for a group of students from his alma mater, the University of Mississippi. At the end of Desouza’s answer, which wrapped with another suggestion that “Google deserves credit for coming forward” Smith asked, “do you have business ties to Google?” Desouza confirmed that yes, his company does do business with Google in “a number of different ways.” And… interview over. “Okay, that’s it,” said Smith. “Great. Thanks for coming on.”

Watch it here, from Fox News:

fnc, fox news, Google, Ole Miss, shepard smith, Symantec, University of Mississippi

http://TheDividedStatesBlog.com Publius219

Imagine if someone on Fox asked Bill Kristol this while he’s lavishing praise on Sarah Palin (in the past). And, on another note, Glenn Beck is literally crying on TV right now.
Arthur (Not a Political Comic)

My only question is since the guy was so forthcoming that he did have ties, why didn’t Shep and his staff not already know that before putting him on? Was this a lapse in research? Not coming out against Shep or anything, I like him and his program, but I’ve got to ask why didn’t anyone check that for certain.
SuburbanPatriot

Fox News has always been better than everyone else about checking their facts and checking them again. They have the highest ratings of any news channel or cable channel and wouldn’t have them if they weren’t accurate always.
Jaurez

Puby219 said:
Imagine if someone on Fox asked Bill Kristol this while he’s lavishing praise on Sarah Palin (in the past). And, on another note, Glenn Beck is literally crying on TV right now.

What ties does Bill Kristol have to Sarah Palin?
Nature Freak

Was this a lapse in research?

It wouldn’t surprise me. Someone screwed up, I doubt it was Shep as he’s pretty top of his game (and I don’t even like Fox news)
LOGICandREASON

LMAO

I wonder what’s going on today…lol
Pokerdude777

Looks like a clear example of unbiased news with the conflict of interest quick cut-off, but wait a minute. This can’t be true since all lefties KNOW fox is a republican only soap box. This would most certainly then lead all dems to attack the reason why the guests was allowed on to begin with. Let the theories fly lefties!
http://TheDividedStatesBlog.com Publius219

Jaurez said:
What ties does Bill Kristol have to Sarah Palin?

I’ll let you use your preferred conservative search engine of choice and let you choose a source that you find to your liking.
http://TheDividedStatesBlog.com Publius219

SuburbanPatriot said:
Fox News has always been better than everyone else about checking their facts and checking them again. They have the highest ratings of any news channel or cable channel and wouldn’t have them if they weren’t accurate always.

More people in this country believe in angels than evolution. This of course means that angels are more likely to exist than evolution, because more people believe in angels.
Arthur (Not a Political Comic)

Pokerdude777 said:
Looks like a clear example of unbiased news with the conflict of interest quick cut-off, but wait a minute. This can’t be true since all lefties KNOW fox is a republican only soap box. This would most certainly then lead all dems to attack the reason why the guests was allowed on to begin with. Let the theories fly lefties!

You do know that Shep is a liberal, or a lefty as you are nice enough to point out. Therefore, he should be attacking himself. I think it is an anomaly. Seemed odd. Again, I like Shep. Just seemed out of place for him to only discover that he had business ties with Google after he was already on. Hence, lapse in research, which means I believe that research does get done.
Pokerdude777

Publius219 said:
Imagine if someone on Fox asked Bill Kristol this while he’s lavishing praise on Sarah Palin (in the past). And, on another note, Glenn Beck is literally crying on TV right now.

You just really refuse to try and understand the difference between a news reporter ( shepard smith ) and contributing political analysts ( Bill Kristol and Glenn Beck ). Is it really that hard for you to grasp?
WillP

This is really very funny. Fox News is run by former GOP operatives who aggressively push a right wing agenda. For heavens sake, Fox News directly financially supports the Republican Governor’s Association. Greta Van Susteren always interviews Sarah Palin despite the fact her husband, John Coale,remains one of her top advisors. So despite the lack of balance and fairness at Fox News Shep Smith is calling out a conflict of interest with this guest who had not fully divulged his business relationship to Google before giving the interview? LMAO.
Glackin

SuburbanPatriot said:
Fox News has always been better than everyone else about checking their facts and checking them again. They have the highest ratings of any news channel or cable channel and wouldn’t have them if they weren’t accurate always.

Lay off the Kool Aid!!! I have NEVER heard Greta start an interview with the Divine One by announcing that her husband is an employee. It must be hard to ask tough questions of your husband’s boss.
You don’t get rated for accuracy, just attendance. By your measure, WWF is better than Shakespeare.
Pokerdude777

Arthur (Not a Political Comic) said:
You do know that Shep is a liberal, or a lefty as you are nice enough to point out. Therefore, he should be attacking himself. I think it is an anomaly. Seemed odd. Again, I like Shep. Just seemed out of place for him to only discover that he had business ties with Google after he was already on. Hence, lapse in research, which means I believe that research does get done.

Because Shepard does such a good job reporting the news, I had no idea he was a Dem. As long as he reports the facts down the middle fair and balanced it makes no difference to me. All I know is he does a great job.
Jaurez

Publius219 said:
I’ll let you use your preferred conservative search engine of choice and let you choose a source that you find to your liking.

Just as I thought.
SuburbanPatriot

Glackin said:
Lay off the Kool Aid!!! I have NEVER heard Greta start an interview with the Divine One by announcing that her husband is an employee. It must be hard to ask tough questions of your husband’s boss.You don’t get rated for accuracy, just attendance. By your measure, WWF is better than Shakespeare.

I have an unshakable faith in the free market system, as any real American should. The people have spoken, and their news of choice is Fox News. There is a reason that they are also called the Most Powerful News. Because they are that.
http://twitter.com/SailRabbits Magister

I don’t know that there’s any company of any size that doesn’t have some type of relationship with Google and Symantec, the maker of Norton security software is one of the oldest names on the web. Heck, offhand, I can’t think of many companies in that field and of that size that wouldn’t have some type of relationship with every company or organization about which they’d be asked to speak, including the federal government.

Sure, the guy may have praised Google one too many times, but they are the ones who publicized the breach. I appreciate Shep’s gut, but because every other security software manufacturer and many security experts would raise the same kinds of issues, he over-reacted in this case.
TeaPartyNation

“DO EVIL” google has become one of the top CRONY CAPITALISTS for “You Lie!” hussein and his lunatic-left d-cRAT socialist extremists, along with Government Motors, Government Electric and Government Sachs. So, let’s now call it “GOVERNMENToogle.”
http://TheDividedStatesBlog.com Publius219

SuburbanPatriot said:
I have an unshakable faith in the free market system, as any real American should. The people have spoken, and their news of choice is Fox News. There is a reason that they are also called the Most Powerful News. Because they are that.

Because they’re the most powerful, they’re also the best and most accurate. Therefore, because Barack Obama is the most powerful person in the world, he’s also the best and most accurate person in the world.

This is fun.
SuburbanPatriot

Publius219 said:
Because they’re the most powerful, they’re also the best and most accurate. Therefore, because Barack Obama is the most powerful person in the world, he’s also the best and most accurate person in the world. This is fun.

Just more of the egghead liberal logic confusion tacts I expect from liberal elitists. It’s what they teach in the ivy league schools where they indoctrinate everyone with socialism and black liberation theology.
Glackin

SuburbanPatriot said:
Just more of the egghead liberal logic confusion tacts I expect from liberal elitists. It’s what they teach in the ivy league schools where they indoctrinate everyone with socialism and black liberation theology.

Wherever you went, they didn’t teach logic, cause you don’t have any.
You also skipped English. “most” and “best” have different meanings.
Your right wingnut boilerplate impresses no one. We’ve heard all that BS a thousand times.
It just proves that you watch Beck, and have the memory of a parrot.
Glackin

SuburbanPatriot said:
I have an unshakable faith in the free market system, as any real American should. The people have spoken, and their news of choice is Fox News. There is a reason that they are also called the Most Powerful News. Because they are that.

By your logic, “The Hangover” was a far better movie than “Saving Private Ryan”.
It made more money (got better ratings).
blissfulwizard

Does anyone feel that Shep was extremely rude to this executive? Was he asking if he had personal Google stock or does Symantec use Google products? I’m sure you could go to all the other security companies and find that in some parts of their datacenter there is a Google appliance search engine. What does that have anything to do with the story? And why China is the world’s largest hacker sancturary.
This was down right rude… oh and BTW Fox uses McAfee — now who has the conflict of interest?
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http://www.sarainitalyblog.blogspot.com/ sarainitaly

WillP said:
This is really very funny. Fox News is run by former GOP operatives who aggressively push a right wing agenda. For heavens sake, Fox News directly financially supports the Republican Governor’s Association. Greta Van Susteren always interviews Sarah Palin despite the fact her husband, John Coale,remains one of her top advisors. So despite the lack of balance and fairness at Fox News Shep Smith is calling out a conflict of interest with this guest who had not fully divulged his business relationship to Google before giving the interview? LMAO.

false.

“While there, Mr. Coale, a prominent trial lawyer who helped lead the tobacco litigation of the 1990s, talked to Ms. Palin about her legal bills and advised her to start a political action committee. “I started the PAC for her over the next month or two, and helped start a legal defense fund for her. That’s about it,” Mr. Coale said last week. “I never advised her on any politics or anything like that.”

Mr. Coale, a longtime Democrat, has connections that cross party lines.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/business/media/25greta.html?ref=business

He was a Clinton supporter, fundraiser, and longtime Democrat. “one of her top advisors” haha He tried to get her to use her PAC money to help pay down Clinton’s campaign dept.
http://www.sarainitalyblog.blogspot.com/ sarainitaly

Publius219 said:
Imagine if someone on Fox asked Bill Kristol this while he’s lavishing praise on Sarah Palin (in the past). And, on another note, Glenn Beck is literally crying on TV right now.

What big connection? that he had lunch with her one time, and said she would make a great choice for MCCain, as VP?

ooooh scandal!

what does that have to do with this story?
george L

Shep Smith is the one and only Fox News person for whom I have complete respect.
J Baustian

Publius219 said:
More people in this country believe in angels than evolution. This of course means that angels are more likely to exist than evolution, because more people believe in angels.

Apparently we are supposed to determine scientific truth by counting so-called climate experts on both sides of the global warming debage.

So which is it? Decide by voting? Or should each of us use our own judgement, based on unbiased evidence?

Or, shall we just follow your practice: label as myth all that comes from conservatives, but accept as truth all that is promoted by the leftists?