James Rosen, chief Washington correspondent for Fox News, said in an interview that aired Sunday that an element of “sexism” was rooted in a barrage of recent criticism against State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf.
“I’ve been dismayed by the treatment of Marie and [White House Communications Director Jen Psaki] on Twitter and other social media,” Rosen said on Fox’s “MediaBuzz” program. “They are routinely — not only vilified and derided and mocked in intimately personal ways that I think bespeak a certain amount of sexism.”
Rosen added, “I don’t think the same kinds of attacks would have been directed at male press secretaries in previous eras or this era.”
Harf was mocked, mostly by conservatives, last week for suggesting in an interview on MSNBC that economic opportunity in the Middle East could serve as a way to thwart growing terrorism in the region.
“We cannot kill our way out of this war,” Harf said Monday. “We need in the medium-to-longer term to go after the root causes that lead people to join these groups, whether it’s lack of opportunity for jobs. …”
