Fox News briefly cut away from its coverage of the White House’s press briefing on Friday after press secretary Kayleigh McEnany began showing videos of rioting in Portland, Oregon.
Harris Faulkner, a daytime anchor on the cable news network, explained to viewers why Fox made the decision.
“Our management here at Fox News has decided we will pull away from that at this time,” she said.
As Faulkner introduced two panelists for her next segment, she added, “Some tough images there. A lot of things that we didn’t anticipate to be shown in terms of some wording on the screen, but certainly a collection of the conflict that’s going on in some of the areas of America.”
Protesters in the video loudly shouted expletives, and one protester even expressed her wish that police officers would die.
Fox resumed carrying the briefing soon after.
At the end of the program, Faulkner further explained why the network had made the decision to pause airing it. She said Fox News was not warned in advance about the video. “A heads up at those times, with videos like that in the middle of the day, sometimes, is helpful,” she said.
“Fox News was not provided with any advance warning that a video using profanity would air during this afternoon’s White House press briefing,” a network spokesperson later told the Washington Examiner. “Once it aired, Fox News made the decision it was inappropriate for a daytime audience and temporarily dropped out of coverage.”
