REPORT: After obsessive coverage of O'Keefe's video, Fox largely ignored his arrest
Published
Fox News' January 26 evening programming largely ignored conservative activist James O'Keefe's arrest for his alleged role in a plot to attempt to tamper with the telephone system at Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) New Orleans office, dedicating 4 minutes and 34 seconds to the story, with Fox News' three top-rated programs for 2009 not mentioning O'Keefe's arrest. By contrast, Fox News devoted more than one hour on the evening of September 10, 2009, to discussing video footage of O'Keefe and conservative activist Hannah Giles, who was posing as a prostitute while asking for assistance from employees at an ACORN office.
Fox News provided 13 times as much coverage to O'Keefe's ACORN video as to his arrest
Fox News: 4 minutes, 34 seconds to discussing O'Keefe's arrest. Fox News programming between 5 p.m. ET and 11 p.m. ET -- Glenn Beck, Special Report, The Fox Report, The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity, and On the Record -- devoted a total of 4 minutes and 34 seconds to discussing reports that O'Keefe and three alleged accomplices had been arrested the previous day for allegedly attempting to tamper with Landrieu's phone. Fox News' three top-rated shows from 2009 -- The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity, and Glenn Beck -- did not address the story. Special Report with Bret Baier devoted 1 minute and 47 seconds to the story, at one point calling O'Keefe “a hero to many for exposing ACORN”; The Fox Report with Shepard Smith devoted 2 minutes and 2 seconds to the story; and On the Record with Greta Van Susteren devoted 45 seconds to the story. Smith also discussed the story during Studio B with Shepard Smith, which airs at 3 p.m. ET.
Fox News: More than one hour discussing O'Keefe's ACORN video footage. By contrast, the day after Glenn Beck helped Andrew Breitbart publicize O'Keefe's initial ACORN video, Fox News dedicated 1 hour, 1 minute, and 51 seconds to discussing the story, according to a Media Matters review of Fox News' programming between 5 p.m. ET and 11 p.m. ET on September 10, 2009. Beck himself spent 38 minutes and 11 seconds discussing the video that night.
