Fox and CNN go to war over O'Reilly, Rice

[corbe]

Fox and CNN go to war over O'Reilly, Rice

 By Jonathan Easley - 04/06/17 02:36 PM EDT

Fox News and CNN are at war.

 Anchors and reporters at the cable news giants are directly attacking one another on the air, sniping over Twitter, blanketing the airwaves with coverage of each other’s controversies and counting the hours until their rival personalities are driven to ruin.

 At CNN, reporters and anchors have put Fox’s top anchor Bill O’Reilly through the ringer, gleefully cataloguing the advertisers that have fled his show over allegations of sexual harassment and opining about how much backlash O’Reilly can absorb before the Murdoch family cuts him loose.

Fox News, meanwhile, has been hell-bent on slamming CNN as a biased liberal outlet, taking it to task for its coverage — or non-coverage — of former national security adviser Susan Rice requests to unmask  Trump officials who appeared in intelligence reports.

 Fox News anchors have been apoplectic that CNN’s anchors have sought to diminish the Rice story. They focused on CNN’s chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto — a former Obama administration appointee — as a case study in the network’s alleged bias.

 The feuding underscores the high stakes cable news outlets face in the fight for market share in the age of President Trump, who has sparked a once-in-a-generation media frenzy that has been a ratings boon for both networks.

“This is not a totally new phenomenon, the three cable networks have skirmished off and on for years,” said Jeffrey McCall, a professor of media studies at DePauw University. “But the latest incidents are, indeed, taking matters to the next level.”

The insults and innuendo came fast and hard out of both networks this week, beginning after a Sunday New York Times report on Fox paying $13 million to settle harassment complaints against O’Reilly.
The women accused O’Reilly of verbal abuse, unwanted advances, lewd comments and indecent phone calls.

The report provided the perfect ammunition for Fox’s rivals at CNN.

“Is Bill O’Reilly done?,” Erin Burnett, the host of CNN’s “Out Front,” asked on Tuesday night.

 Don Lemon, the host of “CNN Tonight,” invited one of O’Reilly’s accusers, Wendy Walsh, on to his show. Walsh’s appearance quickly went viral. 

“The workplace is not a mating marketplace,” Walsh said. “If you are looking for a date, do like everyone else and go on Tinder."

 Dozens of companies have pulled their ads from “The O’Reilly Factor,” O’Reilly’s massively popular prime-time cable program.

 O’Reilly has countered that fame has made him a target for frivolous lawsuits, which he says are often easier to settle than to litigate.

 But CNN’s media analyst Brian Stelter dismissed O’Reilly’s defense.

“I can't point to anybody else in television news that has this pattern of lawsuits and settlements,” he said on CNN’s “Out Front.”

CNN’s primetime shows have prominently featured the story throughout the week.   

 Burnett teased the story throughout her hour-long program on Tuesday night before launching into a segment with Stelter and a criminal defense attorney. The crew counted the number of advertisers abandoning O’Reilly as it crept up from 16 to 18 to 20.

 CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the host of “AC 360,” brought Stelter back, this time accompanied by a former Justice Department prosecutor.

“When you hear the sheer volume of lawsuits and behavior that’s going on there, I can’t imagine,” Cooper said. “I can’t believe this went on for so long. It’s stunning.”

Fuming that O’Reilly had attacked him for failing to cover the Rice storyline, Lemon, the host of “CNN Tonight,” escalated the fight by opening his Tuesday night program by speaking to O’Reilly directly.

“Bill, we have covered the Susan Rice story,” Lemon said. “We did it for a long time on this program last night.  And tonight, we’re going to cover it again.  Another story that we’re going to cover again tonight, later in the show: the sexual harassment allegations against you. So, let's get started.”

Sean Hannity, the host of Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” fired back on his show, which competes in the same time as Lemon’s.

“Hey Don, there's no evidence of collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign and you guys have been harping on that conspiracy for eight months,” Hannity said.

 Fox News’s primetime trio of O’Reilly, Hannity and Tucker Carlson, the host of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” have launched parallel attacks against CNN, accusing the “Clinton News Network” of trying to bury the Rice story and shame the media outlets that have covered it.

“The alt-left-propaganda-destroy-Donald Trump media, they're doing the best to cover up and distort the news that former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice was unmasking the names of Trump officials who shouldn’t have been surveilled,” Hannity said in his opening remarks on Tuesday night. “On CNN last night, Don Lemon began the show defending Susan Rice. Inexplicable.”

CNN’s coverage of the Rice fiasco has enraged the right.

 In a March interview on PBS, Rice said she didn’t know anything about allegations that Trump officials may have been swept-up in Obama-era surveillance.

 But Fox News and Bloomberg reported this week that Rice was directly responsible for revealing the name of former national security adviser Michael Flynn in intelligence reports that were circulated at the top levels of the Obama administration.

 Rice said this week that her actions were legal and that she was not responsible for illegally the leaking of a conversation Flynn had with a foreign official to the press.

 CNN’s Chris Cuomo responded by accusing “right-wing media types” of “peddling a fake scandal.” Lemon said he would not “aid and abet the people who are trying to misinform you…by creating a diversion.”

And Sciutto, CNN’s national security reporter, cited “someone close to Rice” to refute the reports before declaring that “this appears to be a story largely ginned up, partly as a distraction from this larger investigation” into alleged ties between Trump officials and Russia.

“The left is not happy about the Susan Rice-Trump surveillance deal,” O’Reilly said on Tuesday night, before cutting to a mash-up of CNN’s Cuomo, Lemon and Sciutto dismissing the story.

“That’s the liberal line,” O’Reilly said.

<..snip..>

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/327648-cable-news-war-breaks-out-between-fox-cnn

[Victoria33]

I watch CNN all day and at night and they covered the Rice story when it began so Fox is wrong. Lemon took his cue about Rice from their congress professional.  He said what Rice did was part of her job and she did nothing wrong.  That is what Lemon repeated. 

Someone should tell Hannity the FBI is investigating the connections between Trump and his group and Russia.  That is a fact.

About Bill O'Reilly:  I have read the court documents with copies of written messages and written phone messages he sent to a woman years ago.  Those would make you throw up.  That was not long after his wife left him after he threw her down the stairs.  Then, the ex-wife was going with a policeman and O'Reilly tried to get him in trouble.  The judge gave custody of the children to his wife due to what he had done.  After I read all the court records, I stopped watching him as all I could see was a ball of sleaze sitting there.

[Frank Cannon]

I watch CNN all day and at night and they covered the Rice story when it began so Fox is wrong. Lemon took his cue about Rice from their congress security professional.  He said what Rice did was part of her job and she did nothing wrong.  That is what Lemon repeated. 

Someone should tell Hannity the FBI is investigating the connections between Trump and his group and Russia.  That is a fact.

I can totally believe you are a devout CNN watcher.

BTW, FOX is DESTROYING all the other cable news outlets in the ratings. O'Reilly is setting records with his viewership. This is why the Leftwing hacks at The Hill are pimping this story. They need to get CNN spin out there because only shut ins and the mentally defective watch them anymore.

http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/here-are-the-most-watched-cable-news-shows-of-2017/325097

Fox News claimed 13 of the top 15 cable news programs in total viewers and 8 out of the top 10 in the A25-54 demo for the first quarter of 2017.

Additionally, all Fox News programs were up double-digits in both viewers and demo compared to the same quarter last year, and many posted record-setting quarters in their respective hours. They include Fox & Friends, Shepard Smith Reporting, Your World with Neil Cavuto, The Five, Special Report with Bret Baier, Tucker Carlson Tonight and Hannity.

Not only does The O’Reilly Factor remain No. 1 across cable news in total viewers, but it also delivered the most-watched quarter in network and cable news history.

MaddowMSNBCMSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show had a noteworthy Q1 ’17 in its own right. Not only did her program have its best quarter ever, but it delivered the network’s best quarterly ratings performance in the 9 p.m. hour, and ranked No. 6 overall in the key demo. Outside of Fox News, Maddow had the No. 1 program for the quarter, both in total viewers and in the key news demo. Three more MSNBC programs delivered their respective time period’s largest total audiences ever for the quarter: Hardball with Chris Matthews at 7 p.m., The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell at 10 p.m. and The 11thHour with Brian Williams at 11 p.m.

Anderson Cooper 360 was CNN’s No. 1 program for the quarter. The program ranked No. 8 across cable news among viewers 25-54, and No. 20 in total viewers. The 8 p.m. hour of AC 360 delivered its most-watched quarter on record since launching in the hour, both in the demo and among total viewers.

[EC]

Don't particularly care. News channel spats are not, or should not, be news stories.

[Cyber Liberty]

Don't particularly care. News channel spats are not, or should not, be news stories.

Sure they should!  At TMZ.