FOX & Friends played up “shove it” flap; Heinz Kerry corrected the record on editor's remarks

FOX News Channel's Fox & Friends co-hosts Steve Doocy, E.D. Hill, and Brian Kilmeade continued the cable news focus on Teresa Heinz Kerry's July 25 exchange with the editorial page editor of a right-wing newspaper, whom she told to “shove it”; the trio also continued to omit key details about the interaction.

In addition to replaying portions of the videotaped exchange between Heinz Kerry and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial page editor -- Colin McNickle -- at least three times, Hill and Kilmeade also interviewed McNickle on the July 27 edition of FOX & Friends.

In the interview, McNickle claimed that “We've [the Tribune-Review] always been very fair and respectful of Mrs. Teresa Heinz Kerry.” Hill and Kilmeade allowed McNickle's protestations to go unchallenged -- despite the fact that, as Media Matters for America noted on July 26, the Tribune-Review has a history of attacking Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and his wife. The newspaper is owned by Richard Mellon Scaife, known as the “Funding Father of the Right.”

During a July 27 interview with anchor Bill Hemmer on CNN's American Morning, Heinz Kerry explained why she objected so strongly to McNickle's questioning. In her remarks at a Massachusetts Statehouse reception July 25, Heinz Kerry had referred to “un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics.” But as she pointed out, McNickle asked her afterwards what she meant by “un-American activities”; Heinz Kerry explained that there was a great deal of difference to her between saying “un-American activities” and “un-American traits.” “Un-American activities,” she said, “has a very different connotation. It's a political connotation of [Senator Joseph] McCarthy implications, which I would not use unless it was very specific. And I would use it if it was correct, but that's not what I was talking about.”