Fox News Panel Gets Heated Over MSNBC’s WaWa Edits…And Debates Mediaite’s Political Leanings
One week after the initial controversy, Fox News finally got around to discussing MSNBC’s “WaWa-Gate” edited footage of Mitt Romney and its subsequent fallout. In a panel hosted by Gregg Jarrett, Fox News contributor Jim Pinkerton and Fox News’ in-house liberal Alan Colmes got heated over whether this scandal is indicative of a pro-Obama bias at MSNBC and in the mainstream media in general. In the process, Mediaite got a shout-out for its coverage of the scandal.
As a refresher of the full story: Andrea Mitchell aired edited footage of Mitt Romney speaking about his experience at a WaWa convenience store and his fascination with their electronic sandwich ordering system. Without full context, critics contend that MSNBC’s edited footage made Romney seem out-of-touch and fascinated by simple technology, when he was really explaining the contrast between private sector innovation and public sector stagnation. A day later, Mitchell played the full clip without offering an apology for the initial edit.
Asked whether he would expect some apology or regret from Mitchell, Pinkerton said “She was a very distinguished foreign affairs reporter at NBC. But I guess she wants to maintain her new gig at MSNBC and, of course, that means stick to the party line over there.” He added that despite Mitchell’s attempt to paint Romney’s statement as another “supermarket scanner” moment from a Republican politician, today’s media environment — fueled largely by blogs — wouldn’t allow her to get away with the edit.
Colmes defended Mitchell, saying she “did not personally edit it. For all we knew that’s all she knew existed in that clip … MSNBC issued a statement saying there was nothing intentional. It wasn’t edited out of sequence. They left out the last part of the clip, which they later played.”
“You think that’s all right? That’s what you’re telling me?” Jarrett shot back.
“I didn’t say it’s all right. I said they corrected the situation,” Colmes replied. “MSNBC issued a statement and said nothing was done intentionally. You’re trying to impute to MSNBC some kind nefarious scheme to prove that Romney — I’m saying that they corrected the situation. They didn’t say the words maybe you want, that Jim wants, or maybe they didn’t say the words that Howie Kurtz wants, but what else do you want them to do?”
– RELATED: Former TV Producer On MSNBC WaWa Edits: ‘I’m Done’ Denying Liberal Bias
Jarrett then cited Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell who wrote that “‘this is an outrageous example of how MSNBC will do anything to help Obama in 2012 no matter how irresponsible or unethical it is.'”
“That’s a little bit of an overstatement, isn’t it?” a skeptical Jarrett asked Pinkerton.
Pinkerton replied: “I’ll give you another example. In this morning’s Mediaite [hey, that’s us!], which is a kind of media blog watchdog thing [close enough] has a grab from a former CBS reporter named Greg Kandra … addressing the mainstream media now that he’s left CBS: ‘You have worked long and hard to merit the suspicion, acrimony, mistrust and revulsion of the American people.’ So, you know, there’s Brent Bozell’s opinion as one, and here’s this guy who was inside the belly of the beast for 26 years.”
“This is a hobby that conservatives have, which is to go after the media,” Colmes shot back. “We know that Brent Bozell runs a conservative website and goes after what he perceives as liberal media bias.”
“Alan, you didn’t answer the guy from CBS,” Pinkerton retorted. And then Colmes oddly took to…defending Mediaite?
“I didn’t see that story today,” he said. “But Mediaite, by the way, publishes all kinds of information and all kinds of opinion, both left and right. I defy you to tell me that Mediaite is some kind of a left-wing website, which it is not. There are all kind of opinions there.”
“I didn’t say it was,” Pinkerton responded. “I just said that a veteran of CBS news says everything that people have been saying about the mainsteam media is correct.”
“That is one man’s opinion, so what?” Colmes replied. “It’s never going to be enough for conservative media critics, no matter what MSNBC does.”
Check out the segment below, via Fox News:
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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
