Mary Katherine Ham @ Hot Air:
Look, I’m happy to talk about the different approaches Fox and MSNBC took to the gun debate. Frankly, I think it reflects quite well on Fox, as New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter’s complaint against Fox illustrates.
Fox is usually accused by other media sources of cheerleading for a conservative cause, but in this case, Stelter points out Fox didn’t cover the gun debate as much, or as emotionally, as MSNBC did. As a Fox News Contributor, I’ve talked about guns probably four times in the last several months, at least once (maybe twice) on the network’s highest rated show— “The O’Reilly Factor”—on which I was up against two people far more friendly to gun-control legislation than I am, by the way. I appear on the network only several times a week, not every day, so that feels like a fair amount of gun talk to me. But let’s use Stelter’s own example of the disparity, from this morning, in which he seems to bemoan that “Fox & Friends” didn’t properly bemoan the failure of the background check bill in the Senate during this morning’s broadcast:
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the co-hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” have openly campaigned for legislative reforms after the mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., in December, which left 20 children dead.
On Thursday, Mr. Scarborough, a registered Republican who promotes his conservative credentials as well as his independent streak, assailed the lawmakers who voted against the background check legislation. Citing the failed Senate vote as evidence, Mr. Scarborough said, “This party is moving toward extinction.”
That would come as news to Fox fans, who have heard comparatively little about the subject. While most of “Joe” was dedicated to guns on Thursday, Fox’s morning show, “Fox & Friends,” didn’t mention the word once. It focused instead on news about a Texas fertilizer plant explosion.
So, one morning show was home to two unabashed, unofficial lobbyists for gun control, and they spent the entire morning lecturing those who had not voted for their favored legislation, with furrowed brows, calling one party “extinct” despite the glaringly obvious political fact that most of 2014′s competitive Senate elections take place in pro-gun territories. The other morning show “focused instead on news about a Texas fertilizer plant explosion.”
Which explosion was that? The massive fertilizer plant explosion that rocked an entire region, with casualties feared in the high double digits and injuries to over 150? The explosion that happened just hours before the broadcast and featured dramatic live and viral video from the scene? The one that sent shock waves 45 miles across the state of Texas and a chill down the backs of citizens too often besieged by fiery, unexpected tragedies this week? The one that was an ongoing threat to surrounding areas because of the highly flammable nature of fertilizer, had not been definitively deemed an accident, and had ATF agents heading down to its location just north of Waco, Texas? That explosion? Because I’m pretty comfortable with that editorial decision.
Joe Scarborough is as much a Republican conservative as Steven Colbert. Which is all pretend.