Why The Sudden Burst Of Journalistic Conscience?
by digby
Last night I wrote about Fox News belatedly deciding that it was wrong for their stars to be promoting and hosting political events and broadcasting them. I speculated that they simply didn’t want anyone but professional GOP operatives to make money on such things, but I really have no idea what inspired them to put the kibosh on Hannity’s teabagging lovefest in Cincinnati yesterday.
And it turns out that Fox was fibbing when they claimed they were “furious” when they found out about the problem. The Cincinnati Tea party calls BS:
The CTP is firing back, claiming that Fox News is lying. They said that not only did they work with Fox News staff on logistics for the event, but executives told CTP organizers Hannity wouldn’t be able to tape his show in Cincinnati because of a “personal emergency”:
Shortly after the scheduled book signing (which was canceled) Fox News producers onsite informed the Cincinnati Tea Party senior leadership that Mr. Hannity had to rush home for a personal emergency. The Cincinnati Tea Party expressed a statement of support and concern to Hannity and family. The Cincinnati Tea Party received information from local media attributing concerns regarding ticketing to a executive vice president at the Fox News Network. The Cincinnati Tea Party has not been able to confirm the authenticity of this message via a source this statement to any @foxnews.com email or http://www.FoxNews.com website. Emails and phone calls to network went unanswered until 7:48 p.m. — more than four hours after the scheduled appearance; this source has not yet put it in writing despite our request.
Again, Fox has been promoting these events from the very beginning. Hannity, Beck etc have been featured as headliners all along. An event charging 5 bucks a head can hardly be considered the journalistic sin here. I wouldn’t put it past Fox to find that the only crime in all this but that tells a bigger story, no?
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