From the September 18 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom:
On Fox, Breitbart bashes CNN's ACORN coverage: “The behavior of Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN, has been despicable during this”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
MEGYN KELLY (co-host): Joining me now is Andrew Breitbart. He's the founder of the website the video first appeared on. It's called BigGovernment.com, and the videos are still there. Andrew, good morning to you.
BREITBART: Good morning, Megyn.
KELLY: You were with us the morning that the story broke -- the morning that the first video aired on BigGovernment.com. And now in a week's time, the congressional action, the response by the Feds, has been really stunning. I mean, for years, the Democrats in Congress have not wanted to sign on to anything that would cut back funding from ACORN, and now we see these huge majorities coming out of the Senate and the House to cut down the group -- to cut off the group's funding. What's your reaction, a week into this?
BREITBART: Well, I'm grateful that the American public has realized that there's a serious problem here, and that their elected representatives are taking their concerns seriously. A new Rasmussen poll came out this morning that says America's overwhelmingly disturbed by what they've seen on these videos.
But, predictably, and why we rolled the videos out one by one by one by one, we set traps for ACORN to lie; each and every time they lied. They went to the mainstream media, continued to tell those lies. The next day, the previous day's lies were exposed. And CNN in particular has kept going back to ACORN and taking their line.
The behavior of Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN, has been despicable during this. They continue to impugn [filmmakers] James [O'Keefe] and Hannah [Giles], and they are continuing to tell falsehoods -- that they were kicked out of ACORN offices. And that's the current line that some at ACORN, including Bertha Lewis, continue to push. There are more videos to come, and some -- and in towns that they continue to say that they were kicked out of.
KELLY: It's not -- I mean, Bertha Lewis is the person behind that charge. She's the CEO of ACORN -- they call her the chief organizer -- but, essentially, that's the CEO. And she's been all over the map on responding to this, Andrew. First she came out and said, you know, this is defamatory. They threatened lawsuits against James and Hannah, against you, against Fox -- for anybody who would touch the story is going to get sued for touching the story. Then they came out and said, oh, they tried this stunt at a bunch of offices and failed. Then tape after tape we kept seeing that, well, actually, they tried it at a bunch of offices and succeeded at a bunch of offices as well. Are there more tapes to come?
BREITBART: Oh, absolutely. And I've -- they -- CNN in particular, I have spoken to their producers, who have been impugning the motivations of Hannah and James and trying to find aspects of their story that are false, when ACORN has been false. I have said to them James and Hannah will appear on your network, even for a hit job, if you show the American people -- or the small segment of their audience that still goes to that network -- if you show them those tapes and let them decide, just like Congress did, just like Al Franken did -- he voted against it.
He -- very early on, before the mainstream media started to pick up on it, what did Al Franken know about this that CNN didn't know about this? On these videos you see truth.
KELLY: Well, you know, it hasn't -- in CNN's defense, at least they've covered it. It hasn't been covered by virtually any media -- in particular, the big three. I mean, I was stunned this week --
BREITBART: Well, I will credit --
KELLY: -- when Charlie Gibson said he didn't even know about the story.
BREITBART: Yeah, I will credit Katie Couric and the CBS Evening News; on Tuesday evening they did it. And more importantly, it's already cycled through the Jon Stewart Daily Show and Jay Leno's Tonight Show. So when they're making jokes at the expense of ACORN, and ABC and NBC have refused to cover it, there is something desperately wrong with the mainstream media. And that's why we did the rollout the way that we did, because we wanted to not just expose ACORN for being corrupt, we wanted to expose that the mainstream media would treat this exactly like they treated the Van Jones story. And that's ignored until the consequences got too great for them to ignore.
Previously:
Police report filed by ACORN exposes false claims by individuals behind videos
Network news largely silent on Fox News' role in hyping, distorting ACORN story
Fox News runs with San Bernardino ACORN video without needed fact check
Beck relies heavily on Drudge protégé Andrew Breitbart in recent attacks on NEA, Jones, and ACORN