For weeks, Fox News has been hyping J. Christian Adams' discredited allegations that the Department of Justice has “a hostility in the voting section and in the civil rights division to bringing cases on behalf of white victims for the benefit of national racial minorities.” Predictably, right-wing media quickly used the phony controversy to race-bait, attempting to connect the Obama administration to the New Black Panther Party -- a designated hate group. Fox News' Glenn Beck, for example, said on his radio show that the New Black Panther Party represented “the kinds of people that our president aligns himself with,” and Fox News' David Asman accused Obama of “defending racists” by “letting the Black Panthers off.” More recently, Megyn Kelly, the biggest Adams cheerleader of them all, devoted airtime interviewing New Black Panther President Malik Shabazz. This episode follows a pattern of Fox highlighting this radical fringe group over the years.
Republican Vice-Chair of the Commission on Civil Rights Abigail Thernstrom said in April that a line of questioning establishing that the New Black Panther Party was a fringe hate group was not relevant to the Justice Department's handling of the case, or to the Commission's dubious investigation into the DOJ, saying it did not “really get to the matter of the internal DOJ decision to dismiss this lawsuit. ”Yet Fox News has recently focused the story on the NBPP itself, seemingly portraying Obama's Justice Department as defenders of an organization that is labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Anti-Defamation League describes the New Black Panther Party as “the largest organized anti-Semitic and racist black militant group in America.” But research compiled by Media Matters shows that for years this fringe hate group has essentially had an open invitation to appear on Fox News, amounting to at least 51 appearances by its members. And that's only on primetime shows that are available in the Nexis database.
- In June 24, 1998, Sean Hannity reported on a Klan rally planned in Jasper, Texas, following the murder of a black man allegedly by white supremacists. Hannity hosted New Black Panther Quanell X as well as a Klan member to discuss the murder.
- On May 3, 2001, Bill O'Reilly hosted NBPP President Malik Shabazz to comment on President Bill Clinton's decision to rent an office in Harlem. Shabazz responded that “the New Black Panther Party is not real happy about Mr. Clinton's presence up town” and “we want to keep Harlem as it is, as a black area.” Shabazz called gentrification “genocide” and blamed the U.S. government for having “pushed drugs into the black community.”
- On April 12, 2001, Hannity & Colmes hosted Malik Shabazz, along with radio host Bill Cunningham, to discuss a curfew enacted in Cincinnati following racially charged violence in the city. Shabazz stated, “We understand our people's sentiments. It's not a riot. It's a rebellion in Cincinnati.” He continued: “The mayor is no friend of ours. Under the mayor's watch in Cincinnati, black people are dying in cold blood, and we will not sit back and allow that to continue.”
- On the August 31, 1999, Fox News' Hannity & Colmes hosted Quanell X to discuss a New Black Panther-organized Million Youth March planned in Washington, D.C. The previous year's march had erupted into violence when New Black Panther leader Khalid Muhammad made inflammatory statements regarding Jews and white people. During the interview, X called fellow guest Jesse Peterson of The Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, a group of conservative African-Americans, a “snaggle-toothed sell-out against black liberation” and a “boot-licking hypocrite.”
After the jump is a list of more than fifty instances Fox has hosted a member of the NBPP:
Date
Show
Guest
6/24/1998
Hannity & Colmes
Quanell X
8/31/1999
Hannity & Colmes
Quanell X
6/21/2000
The Edge with Paula Zahn
Quanell X
6/22/2000
Hannity & Colmes
Quanell X
6/23/2000
Hannity & Colmes
Quanell X
2/19/2001
Hannity & Colmes
Malik Shabazz
3/19/2001
Hannity & Colmes
Quanell X
4/12/2001
Hannity & Colmes
Malik Shabazz
5/3/2001
The O'Reilly Factor
Malik Shabazz
5/18/2001
Hannity & Colmes
Malik Shabazz
7/30/2001
The O'Reilly Factor
Malik Shabazz
9/7/2001
Fox News Edge
Malik Shabazz
11/1/2001
Hannity & Colmes
Malik Shabazz
1/16/2002
Hannity & Colmes
Quanell X
2/18/2002
Hannity & Colmes
Quanell X
7/7/2002
Fox Wire
Malik Shabazz
7/8/2002
Hannity & Colmes
Quanell X
7/18/2002
Hannity & Colmes
Quanell X
8/16/2002
Hannity & Colmes
Quanell X
10/24/2002
The O'Reilly Factor
Malik Shabazz
10/28/2002
Hannity & Colmes
Quanell X
7/9/2003
Hannity & Colmes
Malik Shabazz
2/28/2004
Big Story Weekend Edition
Malik Shabazz
6/21/2004
Hannity & Colmes
Malik Shabazz
5/3/2005
Hannity & Colmes
Malik Shabazz
5/5/2005
The O'Reilly Factor
Quanell X
5/25/2005
Hannity & Colmes
Quanell X
9/19/2005
Hannity & Colmes
Hashim Nzinga
9/27/2005
Hannity & Colmes
Quanell X
10/13/2005
Hannity & Colmes
Malik Shabazz
10/17/2005
The O'Reilly Factor
Malik Shabazz
10/17/2005
Hannity & Colmes
Hashim Nzinga
11/29/2005
Hannity & Colmes
Quanell X
2/9/2006
Hannity & Colmes
Malik Shabazz
3/10/2006
The O'Reilly Factor
Malik Shabazz
4/10/2006
Hannity & Colmes
Hashim Nzinga
5/1/2006
Hannity & Colmes
Hashim Nzinga
5/1/2006
On the Record with Greta Van Susteren
Malik Shabazz
6/7/2006
Hannity & Colmes
Hashim Nzinga
8/11/2006
Hannity & Colmes
Hashim Nzinga
11/16/2006
Hannity & Colmes
Malik Shabazz
11/30/2006
Hannity & Colmes
Malik Shabazz
12/5/2006
Hannity & Colmes
Hashim Nzinga
1/5/2007
The O'Reilly Factor
Malik Shabazz
2/26/2007
Hannity & Colmes
Malik Shabazz
3/9/2007
Hannity & Colmes
Hashim Nzinga
4/13/2007
Hannity & Colmes
Hashim Nzinga
7/16/2007
Hannity & Colmes
Malik Shabazz
10/19/2007
Hannity & Colmes
Quanell X
12/4/2007
Hannity & Colmes
Quanell X
3/19/2008
Hannity & Colmes
Malik Shabazz