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Tag: howard kurtz
Fox Media Critic Slams Network Over Discredited Impeachment Witness

Fox Media Critic Slams Network Over Discredited Impeachment Witness

Fox News host Howard Kurtz suggested his network had not provided enough coverage after an impeachment witness, former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, was found to be lying about President Joe Biden.

On his Sunday Media Buzz program, Kurtz noted that Smirnov had been charged with making false statements about Biden and his son, Hunter.

"This is a star witness for Jim Comer, often cited by Fox and other outlets," Kurtz said. "And I think the story deserves even more coverage."

Washington Examiner editor Sarah Bedford agreed.

"Some of the allegations against the Biden family were built on lies," Bedford explained. "I don't think, though, that the impeachment inquiry here is necessarily completely undermined by this one fact, because so much additional evidence has been gathered. But certainly this is the blow to the credibility of the allegations against the Biden family."

Kurtz asked White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich if the indictment was a "big problem" for Republicans.

"Huge problem," Heinrich observed. "I think [Rep. James Comer (R-KY)] is going to have to lay out all of the evidence outside of this claim that makes the impeachment inquiry still valid."

"I mean, they threatened to hold the FBI director in contempt to get a hold of this 1023 form in which this witness makes his allegation," she continued. "So with this guy now having his credibility shot, a lot of onus on House Republicans to say that the impeachment inquiry is still warranted."

Watch the video below from Fox News or at the link.

Fox News host slams network over impeachment witness

via Fox News

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Howard Kurtz

How Arizona Audit Became Fox’s Biggest Gaslighting Charade Ever

Reprinted with permission from PressRun

Apparently Howard Kurtz never got the memo.

On his weekly Fox News show, Media Buzz, Kurtz invited a panel of guests to discuss the results of the so-called Arizona audit, which had dragged on all year in an effort by MAGA's to prove somehow that Trump had won the Copper State last November.

Instead of finding a treasure trove of uncounted Trump ballots, as conspirators had predicted, the pointless review of two million ballots in Maricopa County found that President Joe Biden defeated Trump by slightly more votes than the official count.

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Complaining About COVID-19 Coverage, Grisham Says Trump “Didn’t Have A Crystal Ball”

Complaining About COVID-19 Coverage, Grisham Says Trump “Didn’t Have A Crystal Ball”

Reprinted with permission from MediaMatters.

From the March 22, 2020, edition of Fox News’ MediaBuzz

HOWARD KURTZ (HOST): Before we interrupted for Gov. Cuomo, you were about to make a point about the press focusing on various things the president had to say in January, February and much of March, which they say didn’t match the coming crisis even though there weren’t that many cases in the U.S.

You want to pick up that point?

STEPHANIE GRISHAM (WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY): Yeah. I would just want to say the president didn’t have a crystal ball there, and he has acted appropriately.

…

I don’t think it’s appropriate right now for the press to be going backwards. There’s no reason to go backwards and figure out tick-tocks of what happened when. We’ve got a crisis on our hands, we’ve got a coronavirus in this country, and the press should — they’ve got a real opportunity, if you ask me, to also spread great information to this public and give information that our task force is trying to get out there.

…

KURTZ: The president the other day really got into it with NBC’s White House correspondent Peter Alexander, as you know. He had asked a question about, the president was talking about a couple of malaria drugs, he doesn’t know whether they would be effective against coronavirus but was willing to support further research. He said are you giving false hope to people over these drugs, and then Alexander said that what do you have to say to millions of scared Americans. The president said Peter Alexander had asked a nasty question and he was a terrible reporter. What was nasty about those questions?

GRISHAM: Well, I want to point out before I answer that question, the president just the day before, I believe it was or prior to the day before to that had said that he felt the media coverage was actually pretty fair. So he has given credit where it’s due. In that instance, the fact that he, a reporter is asking if he’s giving false hope to the American people, I think that was inappropriate. He’s the commander in chief. He is at the helm of this country. And it is his job as president to try and comfort this country and make sure that they know that they’re — we’re working towards options that will help people. It is his job to show not only leadership but try to calm the American people. So to come after him and say he’s giving false hope, I think, was wildly inappropriate, and I believe that’s how he reacted the way he did.

KURTZ: Well it was a question now. CNN’s John King reacted by calling the president’s response to Peter Alexander B.S., he used the actual word on the air, and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said cable news shouldn’t even carry these various briefings live because she says the president is spreading misinformation. Your response.

GRISHAM: Well, the irony there about now they shouldn’t have briefings is not lost on me, certainly. But it doesn’t surprise me that either of those networks or that cable channel would attack him. And that’s not the point. Right now they need to set aside their bias against this president, and they need to do what this White House is doing and show leadership and try to get information to the American public. That is your job as journalists.

KURTZ: At another briefing, the president responded to a question from One America News about whether some of the media was supposedly siding with Chinese Communist Party propaganda by ripping into the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and saying they are siding with China. What did he mean?

GRISHAM: There have been many, many outlets that have printed that the Chinese government is doing all that they can and that they are showing leadership towards this virus, and that’s not the case. There’s also, you know, there have been reporters who have jumped to calling it the Chinese virus racist. He was talking about that. Again, this is the media outlets ripping into the president because they can. This is why earlier he called it a hoax. He didn’t call the virus a hoax, he called the way the Democrats and media are treating it as just another hoax in that they’re trying to take him down. This president is focused on the American people, so should the media, period.

‘Federalist’ Editor Tries To Expose Alleged Whistleblower On Fox News

‘Federalist’ Editor Tries To Expose Alleged Whistleblower On Fox News

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

As the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump moves along, one of the tactics of Trump and his supporters is demanding to know the identity of the Ukraine whistleblower. Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway tried to out the whistleblower — or someone she believes to be that individual — during a Sunday morning appearance on the right-wing cable news outlet, inspiring host Howard Kurtz to stress that the person she was naming might not be the whistleblower.

Hemingway, a senior editor for the right-wing website The Federalist, was part of a panel discussion that also included Democratic consultant Philippe I. Reines, who served as a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state in the Obama Administration. When Kurtz objected to Hemingway naming the person she thought was the whistleblower on the air, she insisted that the person’s name was “already out there.”

Kurtz, however, stressed that outing a whistleblower could send a “chilling message” to other government whistleblowers in the future. The Fox News host asserted, “I don’t know whether this is actually the person or not, and I don’t want to speculate about that…. But there have been a few conservative outlets and commentators who have floated that name.”

This isn’t the first time someone appearing on Fox News has tried to out a person they believe to be the whistleblower: far-right talk radio host and Trump supporter Lars Larson, appearing on Outnumbered Overtime last week, named someone when speaking to host Harris Faulkner. But a Fox News spokesperson told the Daily Beast that the cable news outlet “has not confirmed or independently verified the name of the whistleblower.”

Mimi Rocah, a former federal prosecutor who often appears as a legal analyst on MSNBC, has asserted that when Trump demands the outing of the whistleblower, he is engaging in “witness intimidation and retaliation.”

Other legal analysts have asserted that in light of the testimony of various witnesses in the impeach inquiry — including diplomat William Taylor — the person’s identity is irrelevant at this point, as Taylor and others have verified the allegations in the whistleblower’s complaint. The whistleblower complained that on July 25, Trump tried to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into looking for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

Nonetheless, Trump and many of his supporters continue to obsess over the whistleblower’s identity — including Republican Sen. Rand Paul. At a November 4 MAGA rally in Kentucky, Paul — with Trump at his side — asserted that if journalists were doing their jobs, they would find out who he or she is and out the person.

On Sunday, Hemingway told the Fox News panel, “We could be talking about this reporting and talking about whether that’s accurate reporting or not. So, I feel a little confused why we are pretending it hasn’t already been reported.”

IMAGE: Mollie Hemingway, senior editor of The Federalist (screenshot).