Dianne
11-10-2011, 09:57 AM
politico.com[/url]
Herman Cain’s attempt to turn a series of sexual harassment complaints into a purely partisan issue has hit an unexpected roadblock - the Fox News Channel, where reporters and some commentators have pressed him hard for details and even offered a platform to one of his accusers on the most important media stage of the Republican primary.
While some of Fox’s evening hosts and commentators have been sympathetic to Cain’s suggestion that he’s the victim of a racial or partisan media vendetta, others have been skeptical of his claims from the moment his spokesman, J.D. Gordon, tried to use “Geraldo at Large” to damp down the story the day POLITICO broke the news. The appearance instead offered host Geraldo Rivera an opportunity to declare open season, a moment which launched the narrative of the campaign’s unsteady response.
“He may deserve better than this J.D. Gordon, spokesman for the Cain campaign,” Rivera declaimed. “But I want your denial, if you would, to be a little more substantive.”Later that evening, host Sean Hannity offered the bombthrower Ann Coulter a platform for the opposite view - a moment that launched a competing narrative, one in which Cain was being attacked by sinister and presumably racist media forces. “Herman Cain and Clarence Thomas used the term, high-tech lynching,” he observed, and Coulter chimed in that the news is “coming from the exact same people who used to do it with the lynching ropes, now they do it with the word processors.”
Fox is a hub of Republican opinion, employing many of the party’s key figures to shape its large, right-leaning audience’s views of the White House and the Republican field. Fox hosts have, at times, challenged other Republican presidential candidates, with Bill O’Reilly grilling Michele Bachmann, and both Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace and Special Report host Bret Baier calling on Mitt Romney to stop dodging their shows. Cain has been among its most regular guests – he’s appeared on Fox more than any of his rivals, according to the liberal, anti-Fox Media Matters, which tracks the appearances obsessively.
But while Fox at times shapes conservative opinion, it’s also a mirror of its audience and its conservative pundits and right-leaning news division. And Cain’s Fox problem is the same as his more basic problem: conservatives are split on whether he deserves defending. And so the network coverage of the story has been far from sympathetic, and has depended on the personality holding the floor. Two days after the story broke, during an interview with Cain, Charles Krauthammer told the candidate that his defenses sounded “Clintonian.” Fox has also given air time to Cain accuser Sharon Bialek, and daytime debates on media bias have featured analysts who fall on either side of the issue.
Fox’s treatment of the story come as an unpleasant surprise to supporters of the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO.
Read more: hxxp://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/68040.html#ixzz1dJnqImbX
Herman Cain’s attempt to turn a series of sexual harassment complaints into a purely partisan issue has hit an unexpected roadblock - the Fox News Channel, where reporters and some commentators have pressed him hard for details and even offered a platform to one of his accusers on the most important media stage of the Republican primary.
While some of Fox’s evening hosts and commentators have been sympathetic to Cain’s suggestion that he’s the victim of a racial or partisan media vendetta, others have been skeptical of his claims from the moment his spokesman, J.D. Gordon, tried to use “Geraldo at Large” to damp down the story the day POLITICO broke the news. The appearance instead offered host Geraldo Rivera an opportunity to declare open season, a moment which launched the narrative of the campaign’s unsteady response.
“He may deserve better than this J.D. Gordon, spokesman for the Cain campaign,” Rivera declaimed. “But I want your denial, if you would, to be a little more substantive.”Later that evening, host Sean Hannity offered the bombthrower Ann Coulter a platform for the opposite view - a moment that launched a competing narrative, one in which Cain was being attacked by sinister and presumably racist media forces. “Herman Cain and Clarence Thomas used the term, high-tech lynching,” he observed, and Coulter chimed in that the news is “coming from the exact same people who used to do it with the lynching ropes, now they do it with the word processors.”
Fox is a hub of Republican opinion, employing many of the party’s key figures to shape its large, right-leaning audience’s views of the White House and the Republican field. Fox hosts have, at times, challenged other Republican presidential candidates, with Bill O’Reilly grilling Michele Bachmann, and both Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace and Special Report host Bret Baier calling on Mitt Romney to stop dodging their shows. Cain has been among its most regular guests – he’s appeared on Fox more than any of his rivals, according to the liberal, anti-Fox Media Matters, which tracks the appearances obsessively.
But while Fox at times shapes conservative opinion, it’s also a mirror of its audience and its conservative pundits and right-leaning news division. And Cain’s Fox problem is the same as his more basic problem: conservatives are split on whether he deserves defending. And so the network coverage of the story has been far from sympathetic, and has depended on the personality holding the floor. Two days after the story broke, during an interview with Cain, Charles Krauthammer told the candidate that his defenses sounded “Clintonian.” Fox has also given air time to Cain accuser Sharon Bialek, and daytime debates on media bias have featured analysts who fall on either side of the issue.
Fox’s treatment of the story come as an unpleasant surprise to supporters of the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO.
Read more: hxxp://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/68040.html#ixzz1dJnqImbX