Fox News co-host Greg Gutfeld attributed the media failing to adopt Fox's attacks on President Obama regarding the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi to networks not wanting to report stories Fox covered. However much of Fox's reporting was found to be false, overhyped, and criticized even by personalities on their network.

On The December 19 edition of Fox News' The Five, co-host Eric Bolling claimed that a recently released independent review on the consulate attack in Benghazi showed that the media ignored the story which “had a lot more legs than they saw.” Gutfeld responded “I think there is something called Fox News dismissal syndrome. If we cover something really, really well, other networks...dismiss it”:

In fact Fox News gained wide criticism for their coverage of the Benghazi consulate attack. Since the attack was first reported, Fox falsely reported that President Obama abandoned Americans in Benghazi, claimed the president did not call the attack “acts of terror,” and hyped the conspiracy that Obama was involved in a cover up on the attack. The Washington Post reported that Fox's coverage of Benghazi was found to be so misleading that the CIA “took the unusual step of issuing an on-the-record denial of the story's core message” after Fox's Jennifer Griffin reported that the CIA gave “stand down orders rather than help the ambassador's team.”

Fox News has also been criticized by their own guests and commentators for their coverage of the attack. In an appearance on Fox, national security journalist Tom Ricks accused the network of hyping the Benghazi story for political purposes. Fox's Juan Williams called their attacks on U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice a witch hunt and Geraldo Rivera criticized  Bolling for “misleading the American people” on Benghazi. Fox's White House correspondent Ed Henry stated that he “would not be so deluded to say that some of our shows, some of our commentators, have covered it more than it needed to be covered” in an article by Huffington Post.

Gutfeld's comments are an example of the Fox Cycle, the process Fox News uses to promote bogus stories from the right-wing fringe. After heavily covering a story that originated from right-wing bloggers and talk show hosts, Fox and their allies in the conservative media attack other media outlets for not following suit.