FOX News this morning accused the mainstream networks of media bias, claiming they asked Mitt Romney questions that led him to give less than substantial answers that are now causing an uproar and that have many questioning the readiness of the Republican nominee. FOX and Friends played an audio recording that supposedly exposed CBS reporter Jan Crawford coordinating with an NPR reporter to ask questions. Both were reportedly at Mr. Romney’s press conference in Jacksonville, Florida on Wednesday, June 12th. Many in the media and throughout the nation can’t help wonder how qualified Mr. Romney is in dealing with global and national issues as Head of State, if he can so easily be manipulated by reporters into answers he later does not stand by.
“We’re discussing the media’s bias for President Obama this morning because there is proof now, this audio tapes reporters caught on an open mic repeating ‘gotcha questions’ for Governor Mitt Romney,” Gretchen Carlson of FOX and Friends said. “Here’s a snippet of that.”
When the audio is played, among the intelligible chatter, the FOX anchors contend that the then unidentified reporters were strategizing to slam Mr. Romney with the same questions.
“I would say, ‘Do you regret your question; I mean your statement,'” the unidentified reporter said. “Cause then you could go off on. We’re just talking about, no matter who he calls on, we’re covered on one question.”
Ms. Crawford gave a positive review to a Sarah Palin movie in June of 2011. She also broke the story about a judge who changed his views to support Obamacare. Ms. Crawford was also critical of the economic climate under the Obama administration last week. Would somebody who was bias towards President Obama write on content favorable to the Conservative platform?
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FOX and Friends co-anchor, Steve Doocy, stated on-air that the voice was that of Jan Crawford from CBS and a reporter from NPR. Ann Coulter, author of Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America and Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America, argued that the audio tape confirmed her suspicions.
“How could all these reporters independently come up with the so many bone-headed questions?” Ms. Coulter said. “The president of the United States has just done something incredibly, stupidly naive harmful to United States foreign policy and just manifestly lead to our ambassador being killed.” She went on to say, “And what did they switch it to? Criticism of the Angel Obama.”
“And this is what it’s going to be like until election day,” Coulter continued. “You notice that not even on something that is as important as this, but the media’s technique, now, is to play a perfectly appropriate answer from Mitt Romney. And then to come back to them the host and say, and act like their shock, shocked. But there is nothing shocking in what was just said.”
Mr. Romney falsely stated that the U.S. embassy in Egypt issued an apologetic response to the attacks on the embassies. The embassy’s statement was posted on Twitter at 12 pm Cairo time, before the protestors attacked and killed four Americans in Libya. Mr. Romney was reaffirming the statement he emailed to reporters at 10:09 pm Eastern time on September 11, 2012, during an embargo upon which both the Romney and Obama camp agreed to avoid making political statements and broadcasting advertisements.
In a preceding segment, FOX and Friends co-anchor, Gretchen Carlson, made a misleading claim that the question posed during the press conference in Florida inquiring on Mr. Romney’s comments the night before was the only question asked.
“Time to bring in Michelle Malkin now. Michelle, there’s a lot being made right now about this sort of hot mic situation where reporters apparently were reporting these sort of gotcha questions from Mitt Romney yesterday,” Ms. Carlson said, talking with conservative pundit Michelle Malkin. “Instead of asking, what would you have done differently it was all about what he did wrong. What’s this about?”
At around 9:03 minutes into the C-Span recording of Mr. Romney’s comments during the Florida press conference, one could hear when Mr. Romney was asked just that.
“How specifically, Governer Romney, would a President Romney have handled this situation differently than President Obama did?” asked an unidentified reporter. “You spoke out before midnight when all the facts were known. How would you have handled this differently?”
FOX News didn’t air that part of the press conference, or other parts where Mr. Romney is asked questions such as why he is better qualified to handle foreign policy issues. After a question based on a hypothetical situation, Romney even brushes off reporters by stating that he wont take hypothetical questions.
In another on-air exchange, Mr. Doocy, seemed to steer retired Marine Corp official and former Assistant Secretary of Defense, Bing West, so he could falsely confirm that the media has been bias in criticizing Mr. Romney’s comments on the Obama administration. While the segment was supposed to be on 50 marines that were sent into Libya, Mr. Doocy also disproved Ms. Carlson’s allegation that the only question that reporters asked Mr. Romney was whether he regretted his comments on the Obama Administration’s response to the protests.
“And that’s one of the reasons, Bing, that Mitt Romney went after the president and his policy over there yesterday, and he got banged upside the head by the mainstream media,” Mr. Doocy said. “They thought he was out of line. Look we were having a race to see who was the next commander and chief, and he was just showing what he’d do in the same situation.”
Mr. West stated that most mainstream media outlets want President Obama to get reelected. However, he failed to note how FOX News coverage aims to solely broadcast positive political coverage of the Republican party and negative political coverage of the Democratic party.
“The unfortunate fact is that the vast majority of the mainstream press want President Obama to be the next president,” Mr. West said. “And in this particular case they diverted attention tremendously, and they did a disservice to the American public in recognizing that we have a huge problem in the Middle East, and they’re just trying to trivialize it.”
Interviewing Republican Allen West on the deadly attack in Libya, Mr. Doocy again asked him a question on how bias he thought the mainstream media was in reporting the incident.
“They are absolutely hostile because for whatever reason they have to protect the president and they’re going to close station around him,” Mr. West said. “I think that’s what you see from the mainstream media trying to really make the story about Mitt Romney, not what is happening in all across the (unintelligible), and Yemen, and now it seems, it’s going to happen in Iraq.”
Like Ms. Coulter, Mr. West also made an uninformed statement contending that the message published by the embassy before the attack, was in response to the death of Ambassador Stevens and the embassy attacks.
“We should not have made some kind of conciliatory apologetic stance in the middle of our embassies being attacked,” Mr. West said. “We should have sat back and understood that just because some one puts a Facebook video out there, that’s not a reason for us to lose an ambassador and have our sovereign land attacked.”
