According to the group's Facebook feed, Keep America Safe co-founder Liz Cheney will be guest-hosting tonight's Hannity. The decision to turn over one of its programs to a leader of a right-wing national security advocacy group is only the latest in a long line of ethical missteps for Fox News.
Cheney has used prior media appearances to push a variety of false, ridiculous, or inflammatory attacks on President Obama, his administration, and other progressives.
Keep America Safe publishes resources on the following topics on its website:
- War on Terror
- U.S. & Israeli Relations
- Guantanamo Bay & Terror Trials
- CIA Interrogation Program
- Iran
- Afghanistan
- Human Rights & Democracy
The group's positions on all of these issues hew to the neoconservative right. The group has also attacked the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero. Keep America Safe presumably raises money from its right-wing donors on the basis of the group's positions on national security issues.
Is Fox News really saying that it is comfortable turning over one of its programs to a right-wing activist? Do Fox executives think there's any difference between having Hannity and Cheney host the show? What does that say about Hannity? And what does it say about Fox?
Media Matters has previously called attention to a variety of ethical improprieties on the part of Fox News and its employees. Examples below the fold.
- In recent years, at least 20 Fox News personalities have endorsed, raised money, or campaigned for Republican candidates or causes, or against Democratic candidates or causes, in more than 300 instances and in at least 49 states. Republican groups and officials have routinely touted these personalities' affiliations with Fox News to sell and promote their events.
- Fox News hosts and contributors have raised millions for Republican candidates and causes using political action committees, 527 and 501(c)4 organizations.
- Karl Rove, whom Fox News uses in its purported news hours as its primary political analyst, has helped organize and raise money for the GOP slush fund American Crossroads. Rove has used his Fox appearances to support Republican candidates his group is backing.
- Amidst a firestorm of criticism, reportedly “furious” Fox News executives yanked Sean Hannity from taping his April 15 show at a Cincinnati Tea Party event that charged admission and had “all proceeds” benefiting the organization.
- Bill O'Reilly and Dick Morris have appeared in webcast “summits” for the right-wing website Newsmax. Those “summits” were thinly disguised infomercials in which Newsmax stoked viewers' fears of economic collapse to drive sales of its financial-services products.
- Morris has frequently used his Fox News appearances to urge viewers to donate to conservative advocacy groups with which he is affiliated.
- John Stossel keynoted a fundraising luncheon for the Institute for Energy Research, a “research” organization with heavy ties to the energy industry and whose research and representatives have repeatedly appeared on Fox.