One of CNN’s top anchors partook this week in the press’ favorite new game of sniggering at Fox News’ programming decisions. The problem here is that Don Lemon’s exact claim, that Fox ignored news of White House communications director Hope Hick’s looming resignation when it was first reported, is totally false.
Fox not only covered the Hick’s news as soon as it was reported Wednesday afternoon, but the right-leaning cable news network also covered it every hour for the rest of the day.
“I said something last night that was an attempt to make a broader point about Fox News and how they downplay bad news about the administration,” Lemon said Thursday evening.
“I think you understood it. Most people understood it. It was saying that — I think it was a bad example about Hope Hicks, but there was a broader context if you watched the entire show about how Fox hadn’t covered — they hadn’t covered it at all, but how they broadly downplay big stories and important news for this White House.”
But Fox downplayed the news, one of his guests volunteered.
Lemon responded, “It wasn’t particularly this, but they had covered it, though. That was a bad example and so apologies for that.”
He claimed originally Wednesday evening that the Trump-friendly network had ignored the Hicks news entirely, which, as you know, isn’t true.
“I was sitting in my office and was watching all the news channels, right — Trump TV or state-run TV, they’re not even reporting this,” Lemon claimed.
“So, Trump supporters, they don’t even know about these stories. It doesn’t even register, that’s the amazing thing. We cover all of these things every day,” he added. “The White House imploding behind him, and he’s standing there going, ‘nothing to see here.’ His supporters probably don’t even realize the extent of it.”
Fox was on the Hicks story at roughly 4:40 pm ET Wednesday. That response time is not half bad considering the New York Times broke the story at roughly 4:30 pm ET that day. Fox covered the story every hour after that, “typically devoting entire segments to the story,” as noted by the Washington Free Beacon.
Fox’s John Roberts was not at all happy with Lemon’s claim, responding on social media in all-caps: “WE REPORTED IT MULTIPLE TIMES. I REPORTED IT ON NEIL CAVUTO’S SHOW – AND ON THE FIVE. AND AGAIN AT THE TOP OF THE 6PM SHOW. AND WE DID IT AT THE TOP OF THE 7PM SHOW. CLEARLY SOMEONE IS NOT WATCHING FOX, BUT SAYING THEY ARE.”
Lemon’s on-air apology wasn’t his only mea culpa. He also tweeted Thursday, “Last night, in an attempt to make a broader point about Fox News prime time I misspoke. I should have been more specific.”
Yes, you should have.
Full disclosure: This author is a paid contributor with CNN/HLN.
