WTF Is It Now?!?: Under fire, "furious" Fox Noise pulls partisan poophead from teabag turnout

April 16, 2010

Under fire, "furious" Fox Noise pulls partisan poophead from teabag turnout

Frothing Fox Fraudcasting execs remove pimply buttface Sean Hannity from scheduled appearance, demand he be less obvious in promoting Fox Nooze Tea Party Protest ^™ events.

Amidst a firestorm of criticism, reportedly "furious" Fox “News” executives yanked Sean Hannity from taping his April 15 show at a Cincinnati Tea Party event.

Hannity's appearance, which was promoted on 18 different editions of his Fox News program, elicited criticism from news and broadcast veterans who questioned the ethics of raising money for a political organization during a production of a Fox News [sic] show.

Media Matters investigative reporter Joe Strupp reported that "Hannity's plan to do his show from a Tea Party event that will charge admission is raising ethical worries among several news and broadcast veterans. The idea that a news show that covers the Tea Party issue, among others, would seek to raise money for the event during a production of the show has some in the industry crying foul."

"Unequivocally, from our standpoint, this is wrong," declared Kevin Smith, president of the Society of Professional Journalists. "For a news organization to charge people for access, then take that money and roll it over to a political action group that they cover quite a bit… It has gotten to the point where you cannot delineate between Fox News and the Tea Party movement - it is incestuous. There is a clear conflict of interest here."

Alicia Shepard, ombudsman for National Public Radio, also found fault with the plan. “'If the job of a news organization is to present the facts in an unbiased way and if Fox is charging people to raise money for a political cause, then they are undermining their mission to be fair and balanced.”

Frank Sesno, who spent 21 years at CNN and now serves as director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University , said: 'It violates virtually every rule of every ethical guideline that journalism covers. The idea that you would support a [political] movement and ask your audience to pay for it.'

Baltimore Sun critic David Zurawik also criticized Hannity and Fox, writing “[A]s a down-the-middle media critic, who has defended Fox News more than perhaps anyone else in the mainstream media, I need to go out of my way to say that what Hannity and Fox News are doing is wrong. Even if you buy the argument promoted by Fox management that Hannity's show is opinion, not news, and everyone on the planet knows that, it is still wrong to use your broadcast in such an overtly poilitical manner… But for Fox News to let Hannity take his show on the road and use it as a political tool to help mount dissent and fan the flames of protest is another thing altogether.”

Angry Fox News executives ordered host Sean Hannity to abandon plans to broadcast his nightly show as part of the Tea Party rally.