Fox News: Hannity has our support
NEW YORK — Fox News Channel said Tuesday that it was as surprised as anyone to learn that Sean Hannity shared a lawyer with President Donald Trump but that its popular prime-time host “continues to have our full support.”
Hannity is a hot topic for journalism ethics experts — and comedians — after his relationship with attorney Michael Cohen was reluctantly revealed in a court hearing Monday regarding material seized from Cohen by federal authorities. Fox said Tuesday that it had reviewed Hannity’s “informal relationship” with Cohen and talked with the television personality about it.
Hannity has described his dealings with Cohen as centered on real estate advice, saying it “never rose to any level that I needed to tell anyone that I was asking him questions.”
The prime-time host is both Trump’s biggest defender in the media and Fox’s mostpopular personality. Usually, either Hannity or MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has the biggest audience in cable news.
For a traditional journalist, having a professional relationship with a figure he or she frequently reports on is considered unethical, even more so when that relationship is not disclosed to viewers or readers. For that figure not to inform bosses about it is often considered an offense that could result in dismissal.
Fox frequently makes a distinction between news programming Hannity during its daytime hours and opinion shows at night.
“I don’t think it’s enough to say that Sean Hannity was not a journalist,” said Indira Lakshmanan, a journalism ethics expert for the Poynter Institute. “He describes himself as a journalist when it suits him, and a commentator at other times. If you’re an opinion journalist, you’re still a journalist.”
The issue plays to his credibility, said Aly Colon, an ethics expert at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. Hannity frequently draws connections on his show between different people to suggest something nefarious is afoot — like a “deep state” plot against Trump — so it’s particularly damaging when he is revealed to have secret connections of his own, Colon said.