Questions Worth Asking (Maybe) – Cable News Host Edition
- What would Fox News do if one of their major hosts directly supported a political candidate?
Fox News host Sean Hannity spoke as a “special guest” at Trump rally Monday night after having been there originally to conduct an interview with President Trump prior to the event. According to Politico, Hannity said that he was only at the event for the interview, but didn’t decline the invitation to come on stage.A press release from the people running the event had promo-ed Hannity as a “special guest” prior to the event. During his appearance, Hannity praised the president, repeated a campaign slogan, and criticized the press attending the event (which included Fox News journalists) as “fake news.”Following the event, Hannity denied his was criticizing his Fox News colleagues. The network’s official statement said, “FOX News does not condone any talent participating in campaign events. We have an extraordinary team of journalists helming our coverage tonight and we are extremely proud of their work. This was an unfortunate distraction and has been addressed.” How that has been addressed is not yet clear, but to date it does not appear to go beyond a verbal reprimand.
- What would MSNBC do if one of their major hosts directly supported a political candidate?
The network would suspend him. This is not a hypothetical. In 2010, then MSNBC host Keith Olbermann (whom sooner or later gets fired by everyone) made there $2,400 contributions to three Democratic congressional candidates. Once those contributions were made public by Politico, Olbermann was suspended indefinitely without pay.In a statement, Olbermann pointed out, “I did not privately or publicly encourage anyone else to donate to these campaigns, nor to any others in this election or any previous ones, nor have I previously donated to any political campaign at any level.” Olbermann eventually left MSNBC in January of 2011.
