Fox News denounces rally appearances
Network yet to say whether Hannity, Pirro to be punished
NEW YORK — Fox News said Tuesday that it has addressed the “unfortunate distraction” of Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro speaking at President Trump’s campaign rally in Missouri the night before, and that it doesn’t condone such behavior.
The network did not say what, if any, discipline that the two network personalities would face.
Meanwhile, Hannity tweeted on Tuesday that he was being “100 percent truthful” on Monday when he tweeted that “I will not be on stage campaigning with the president.”
“When the POTUS invited me on stage to give a few remarks last night, I was surprised, yet honored by the president’s request,” Hannity tweeted. “This was NOT planned.”
Hannity, who told the audience at Trump’s rally that “all these people in the back are fake news,” also tweeted Tuesday that he was not referring to any of his Fox News colleagues. Fox reporter Kristin Fisher, who tweeted a copy of Fox’s statement on Tuesday, was covering the rally.
It’s considered standard for employees of news organizations not to engage in political campaign activities so their outlets do not appear unfair; some journalists go so far as to not vote at all for this reason. Fox News resisted Monday when the Trump campaign had advertised to its followers that Hannity would appear as a “special guest” at the Missouri rally, saying Hannity was only there to cover the event.
Hannity, cable news’ most popular personality and a vocal Trump defender, has twice been publicly rebuked by Fox for campaign activity. Hannity was made to cancel a 2010 appearance in Cincinnati when it was revealed he was participating in a fundraiser for the Tea Party. When he was featured in a 2016 Trump campaign video, Fox told him to never do it again.
Since then, Fox opinion personalities have doubled down on their support of Trump. Already No. 1 in the cable news ratings, Fox has had a strong fall with the campaign and hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, with Hannity leading the way.
Critics have claimed that Fox News Channel is less of a news organization than an arm of the Trump campaign, and Monday’s rally gave them fresh ammunition. In the past, Hannity has said that he’s a talk show host, not a journalist. But in an interview with the New York Times a year ago, he said he was a journalist, more specifically an advocacy or opinion journalist.
Hannity broadcast his show from the site of the rally Monday, where he exhorted viewers to vote Republican.
When it was done, White House communications director Bill Shine, a former Fox News Channel executive, high-fived Hannity, according to the White House pool report.
It’s not clear, however, whether Hannity was sanctioned. Fox has not addressed the question publicly.
Some surprised journalists at other news organizations didn’t hesitate to make their feelings known on social media. “The White House-Fox News nexus has rarely been as evident as tonight in Cape Girardeau,” said Philip Rucker, White House bureau chief at the Washington Post, on Twitter.
Alisyn Camerota, a former Fox News anchor who now hosts a morning show on CNN, said executives at Fox “know vaguely” that they’re not supposed to have one of their hosts endorse a candidate or party, but that Hannity can’t help himself.
“They’re having a schizophrenic moment over there trying to figure out what their role is going to be with the Trump presidency,” Camerota said on CNN.