Fox News’ MediaBuzz Briefly References the Network’s Own Scandals During Weinstein Coverage
Fox News’ coverage of the Harvey Weinstein scandal has been somewhat notable in the past week, given the network’s recent history. And it was briefly addressed during Fox News’ MediaBuzz this morning.
Roger Ailes left Fox News after sexual harassment claims and Bill O’Reilly parted ways with Fox after the harassment claims against him piled up. (Sean Hannity, who has been slamming liberal moral hypocrisy over Weinstein, recently hosted O’Reilly’s big return to the network.)
Howard Kurtz opened MediaBuzz today talking about Weinstein, especially the media angles, given the serious questions surrounding NBC News allegedly spiking Ronan Farrow‘s report.
Fox News contributor and Townhall.com political editor Guy Benson noted the Weinstein response from late night hosts in particular, and in his comments he referenced Fox News itself:
“One element of this story that I’ve been fascinated by is the late night comedians who jumped all over stories about, oh, I don’t know people, at our network who got into trouble along these lines… and Trump regularly. This is obviously a harassment problem, not just in Hollywood, but elsewhere.”
Kurtz himself very briefly mentioned the issue in a subsequent segment with The Hollywood Reporter‘s Matthew Belloni, as they talked about how much journalists knew about the allegations:
“After cases that we’ve now all been through, involving Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, all these Silicon Valley companies, do you think the climate has changed for the media in reporting on this and perhaps also made it easier for women––some of whom were traumatized by this, even got out of the business because of Harvey––to speak on the record?”
Belloni agreed that “the culture has changed.”
Most of Fox News’ Weinstein coverage has avoided mention of its own house, though Fox Business host Kennedy did invoke both Ailes and O’Reilly during a recent segment on Weinstein.
Watch above, via Fox News.
[image via screengrab]
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