MEMO: Fox News & Rudy Giuliani
M E M O R A N D U M
To:
Interested Parties
From: Karl Frisch, Media Matters for America
Re: Fox News Channel and Rudy Giuliani
Date: Thursday, November 15, 2007
Given the recent media discussion of Fox News' treatment of Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, Media Matters for America thought it would be helpful to bring your attention to some illustrative examples of Fox News' coverage of Giuliani from the past year.
While Media Matters is not privy to internal Fox News discussions or their content regarding the coverage of the current slate of presidential candidates, we have identified numerous instances of misinformation advanced on the network pertaining to Giuliani. As the items below illustrate, Fox News has often ignored Giuliani's policy flip-flops, spun scandals surrounding the former New York City mayor into supposed political advantages and relentlessly touted the candidate as a hero of 9-11. Sean Hannity, co-host of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, even went so far as to interview Giuliani and his wife without disclosing that he has reportedly helped raise money for Giuliani's presidential campaign.
More detailed descriptions of Media Matters' work on these and other important issues with links to full transcripts and video are included below:
Touting Giuliani as 9-11 Hero
http://mediamatters.org/items/200710280001
On the October 25 edition of Fox News' The Live Desk, host Martha MacCallum reported on recent allegations that during the 1980s, "John Gotti, the late head of the Gambino crime family, along with four other powerful mafia family bosses, at one time thought about and talked about ... whacking" Giuliani, who then was a U.S. attorney. Following the report, MacCallum asked attorney Arthur Aidala: "But in terms of Rudy Giuliani and his presidential aspirations, does this help him, this story? Does it make him, you know, even more, sort of, invincible?"
Fox News on-screen graphic: "RUDY GIULIANI + 9/11 = THE WHITE HOUSE??"
http://mediamatters.org/items/200710180002
On the October 17 edition of Fox News' Studio B with Shepard Smith, during a segment on Hannity's interview with Giuliani and his wife, Judith, an on-screen graphic read: "RUDY GIULIANI + 9/11 = THE WHITE HOUSE??" Smith prefaced his discussion with Republican strategist Margaret Hoover and Democratic strategist Malia Lazu by asserting, "Judy Giuliani has been very quiet for the past few months, maybe by campaign design, but last night she and her husband sat down with Sean Hannity -- in obviously very friendly territory -- and one of the first topics: 9-11, the day Rudy Giuliani became a worldwide, household name." While the segment did not include any additional discussion of Giuliani's response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the same on-screen graphic was shown repeatedly throughout the rest of the segment.
Giuliani's Ties to Fox News
Hannity interviewed Giuliani but didn't disclose reported appearance at a Giuliani fundraiser
http://mediamatters.org/items/200710180001
On the October 16 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Hannity interviewed Giuliani and his wife, Judith, but Hannity never disclosed during the 21-minute interview that he has reportedly helped raise money for Giuliani's presidential campaign. On August 19, the New York Daily News reported that Hannity "introduced the Republican front-runner at a closed-door, $250-per-head fund-raiser Aug. 9 in Cincinnati, campaign officials acknowledge." Bill Shine, Fox's senior vice president of programming, was quoted in the article saying, "Sean is not a journalist -- Sean is a conservative commentator."
Touting Giuliani's as Front-Runner
http://mediamatters.org/items/200710310003
During his interview with Giuliani on the October 30 edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto said: "[P]olls are polls -- and you're right to dismiss them, I know as you do on the stump." Cavuto then cited an October 17-24 University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll showing Giuliani statistically tied for second place in Iowa with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and asked Giuliani: "[A]re you worried that Huckabee is actually the rising star here and threatening you?" Giuliani responded by touting his lead in the polls, saying: "[P]olls are polls, and there are a hundred of them, and we're ahead in about 98 of the hundred, in just about every state," adding, "[W]e're ahead in the national polls by double digits, we're ahead in every big state by sometimes more than double digits." Cavuto offered no challenge to Giuliani's touting of his performance in the polls, despite having just commended him for "dismiss[ing]" polls "on the stump."
Ignoring or Misrepresenting Giuliani Campaign Controversies
http://mediamatters.org/items/200706210014
On the June 20 edition of Fox News' Special Report, Fox News correspondent Steve Brown falsely asserted that Giuliani had "fired his South Carolina state campaign chairman Thomas Ravenel after his indictment on federal drug charges." But according to a June 18 Giuliani campaign press release, the campaign had "no information about the accusations pending against Mr. Ravenel," and he had "stepped down from his volunteer responsibilities with the campaign." No further statements about Ravenel have appeared on Giuliani's website.
Media blasted Edwards for speech fee but omitted Giuliani speeches, Edwards' explanation
http://mediamatters.org/items/200705230010
Several media outlets, including Fox News, have attacked Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards for receiving a $55,000 fee for a January 2006 speech at the University of California-Davis but did not mention reports that Giuliani charged Oklahoma State University $100,000 for a speech he delivered in 2006 and an additional $47,000 for the use of a private jet. On the May 22 edition of Fox News' The Big Story, after noting that the Edwards campaign said that the speech "was funded by sponsors and ticket sales," guest host Jon Scott asked the Chronicle's Carla Marinucci, who posted the original blog entry about the Edwards speech, if it isn't "just as wrong for Senator Edwards not to offer himself up to speak for free at a publicly funded university." While noting that Edwards is "not the first guy to make big bucks speaking at major events," Marinucci made no mention of Giuliani or his reported $100,000 speaking fee at a publicly funded university.
Ignoring or Misrepresenting Giuliani Statements and Flip-Flops on Issues
Cavuto failed to challenge Giuliani's "meaningless" statistics on prostate cancer
http://mediamatters.org/items/200710310009
During the October 30 Your World, Giuliani asserted that "[t]he chance of a man surviving prostate cancer in the United States is somewhere, when I was doing it, 82, 84 percent. It's probably over 90 percent now. In socialized medicine countries ... some of them can be less than 50 percent" -- a claim similar to the one he makes in a new radio campaign advertisement. Cavuto did not challenge Giuliani's statistics, which, as Media Matters noted, were characterized as "meaningless" by Howard Parnes, chief of the Prostate and Urologic Cancer Research Group at the National Cancer Institute, according to a washingtonpost.com Fact Checker blog entry posted hours before Cavuto's show.
O'Reilly didn't mention Giuliani's 1994 invite to illegal immigrants who "work hard"
http://mediamatters.org/items/200708160005
On the August 15 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly noted a viewer's complaint that during his August 14 interview with Giuliani, O'Reilly failed to confront Giuliani "about what he said 10 years ago on illegal immigration. He protected illegals." O'Reilly called this "a legitimate question," and added, "I did, however, ask him about the New York City situation." O'Reilly then played a previously unaired portion of the August 14 interview. But, in the clip, O'Reilly merely stated, "Here in New York City, you've got a million illegal aliens, many of whom came when you were mayor," and went on to note that Mitt Romney "is saying, 'Hey, you were "sanctuary city" guy. Now you're a tough guy. What about back then?' " In response, Giuliani claimed that he was forced to offer services to illegal immigrants because the "immigration service was deporting no more than 1,500 or 2,000 a year." However, O'Reilly did not bring up a 1994 speech in which then-Mayor Giuliani reportedly vowed to "protect" illegal immigrants and stated: "If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city."
Ignoring abortion flip-flops, Luntz claimed Giuliani "defines the phrase 'Says what he means, means what he says' "
http://mediamatters.org/items/200703150003
On the March 13 Hannity & Colmes, while discussing the abortion rights views of Giuliani, Republican pollster Frank Luntz said: "This is someone who defines the phrase 'Says what he means, means what he says.' " In fact, Media Matters has repeatedly documented Giuliani's inconsistent positions on abortion. In 2000, for example, Giuliani said he agreed with President Clinton's veto of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1997.
Fox's Cameron relayed Giuliani's implausible explanation of "partial-birth" abortion flip-flop
http://mediamatters.org/items/200702080012
On the February 6 Special Report, Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron uncritically reported Giuliani's explanation of why he changed his position and now supports a ban on so-called "partial birth" abortions. Cameron said the former New York mayor "opposed a ban on partial-birth abortion in 2000, saying, quote, 'I would vote to preserve the option for women.' Now, he says, because the current law banning partial-birth abortion contains an exception to save the mother's life, he supports it." However, Giuliani's explanation of his change of position is not credible because both the current federal ban and several federal bans proposed in 1997 through 2000 -- including the one vetoed in 1997 by then-President Clinton -- have "an exception to save the mother's life."
Misrepresenting the Kerik Scandal
http://mediamatters.org/items/200711110001
On the November 9 Special Report, during a discussion of how Giuliani has "dealt with" his former police commissioner Bernard Kerik's recent 16-count federal indictment, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer asserted that "the fact that [Giuliani] recommended [Kerik] for [secretary of the Department of] Homeland Security is, in some odd way, exonerating." Krauthammer continued: "[T]he man is not an idiot. If he had actually thought there was real criminality here, as we see in the indictment, you don't recommend a guy for a post like that if you assume he really is linked with the Mafia, he really has been involved in corruption." But according to a November 3 New York Times article, in 2006, Giuliani "acknowledged" in "testimony to a state grand jury" that "the city investigations commissioner, Edward J. Kuriansky, had told him that he had been briefed at least once" about Kerik's connections to Interstate Industrial Corp., which the Times described as a company "suspected of links to organized crime." Additionally, according to the Times, Kuriansky also briefed Giuliani's chief of staff and had documentation of those "sessions," both of which occurred before Giuliani appointed Kerik as police commissioner in 2000.
Newsday, Matthews, Cameron uncritically quoted Giuliani on his knowledge of Kerik
http://mediamatters.org/items/200710170009
In an October 12 article on Kerik's then-possible indictment on charges relating to Interstate Industrial, Newsday uncritically reported Giuliani's statement that "I take the responsibility that we should have known about them," suggesting that he had not been aware of Kerik's relationship with the company. Similarly, MSNBC's Hardball and Special Report uncritically aired Giuliani's quote, "I've already said I should have checked his background more carefully." In contrast with news outlets that uncritically reported Giuliani's statements claiming or suggesting a lack of knowledge about Kerik's problems, in an October 13 article, The New York Times reported, "It remains unclear how much Mr. Giuliani knew about the problems of Mr. Kerik before making him police commissioner," later stating, "Testifying under oath in April 2006, Mr. Giuliani told a grand jury that the former city commissioner of investigation remembered briefing him on some aspects of Mr. Kerik's relationship to the company in question before he named Mr. Kerik police commissioner."
Giving Giuliani Unwarranted Platform
Fox hosted Giuliani to balance Democratic rebuttal
http://mediamatters.org/items/200701240009
Following Sen. Jim Webb's (D-VA) response to President Bush's State of the Union address during Fox News' coverage of the January 23 speech, host and Fox News Washington managing editor Brit Hume said that, given that the audience had "heard a Democratic reaction to the president's comments" from Webb, he was going to solicit "a Republican reaction" from Giuliani. The Senate website states that "members of the opposition party, usually members of Congress, have provided responses to the annual message, usually in a televised format" since 1982, but does not mention a tradition of rebuttal-rebuttals from members of the president's own party. Giuliani characterized the president's speech as a "very good one" that "did what the president had to do."
For more information on Fox News' coverage of Giuliani, visit Media Matters' website
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