Fox News broke from other cable networks when it cut away from President Obama's speech in Berlin to host a panel previewing planned tea party protests in Washington, D.C.
Fifty years after President Kennedy delivered his famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech on the front line of the Cold War, President Obama kicked off a series of German events celebrating the 1963 address with a speech of his own. MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News each covered the speech live. But while MSNBC and CNN aired Obama's remarks to their conclusion, Fox cut away early in order to discuss tea party protests planned in Washington, D.C. the same day.
After cutting to a commercial break, Fox News ignored the remainder of the president's speech, opting instead to host a panel to discuss the significance of the tea party's rally against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Following that segment, Fox News covered wildfires in Colorado and an NFL player suspected of murder, all while their cable news peers continued to cover the president's address from Berlin.
Obama received criticism from Fox for speaking in Germany as a U.S. senator in 2008. Then in 2009, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Fox News personalities criticized Obama for failing to give a speech in Berlin. Fox contributor Monica Crowley even accused the president of being “very reluctant to stand up for the values on which America is based and the values on which we stand.”
Fox News' promotion of anti-IRS tea party rallies is not surprising. The network has a history of pushing misinformation regarding the recent allegations of improper IRS scrutiny of conservative groups and has a storied history of propping up the tea party during the movement's infancy.