Howard Kurtz Torches the Associated Press For ‘Dishonest Piece’ on Fox News Graphic
Fox News host Howard Kurtz went off on the Associated Press in a Facebook post Monday morning, slamming the outlet for “a story that utterly distorts what happened yesterday on my program Media Buzz.”
The AP posted a piece on Sunday that reported, “Fox News inadvertently posted a graphic showing it lagged other cable news networks in trustworthiness.”
The AP report appears to be based on an incredibly misleading post on liberal blog Raw Story, which claims that Kurtz “frantically implored his producer to take down a graphic that showed Fox is the least trusted of the big three cable networks.”
What the AP article fails to note is that Kurtz asked the graphic to be taken down because it was displayed out of order. He actually covered the graphic — which showed a poll finding the big three cable networks are more trustworthy than President Donald Trump — moments later.
“The Associated Press should be embarrassed by a story that utterly distorts what happened yesterday on my program Media Buzz,” Kurtz wrote in a Facebook post. “And its dishonest piece was made worse by the fact that the wire service didn’t bother to contact me or Fox News for comment.”
He explained:
During the segment, the control room mistakenly posted the graphic early, while I was dealing with the fake news questions. So I calmly asked that it be taken down. About a minute later, I asked for the graphic to be put back on the screen and discussed the finding with my guest, pollster Frank Luntz.
The AP reported my request to take down the graphic and ended the story there, creating a false impression by not mentioning that I called for the very same graphic shortly afterward. This echoed partisan chatter online that I had somehow panicked or didn’t want to show the poll graphic, which is flatly contradicted by reality.
“I felt viewers deserved all the facts,” the Media Buzz host concluded. “That’s more than I can say for the AP, which owes me a correction.”
Read the full post here:
Watch the segment in question above, via Fox News.
[image via screengrab]
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