Last week it was revealed that Sean Hannity was also the client of Michael Cohen, the attorney of the president Trump. After this revelation, Fox News declared to support Hannity. In many situations, Hannity has defended Cohen. All these things have raised fingers over the credibility of Fox News and Sean Hannity.
When the Cohen-Hannity connection revealed, Fox News told that the channel had no information about the connection and also they are surprised by this linkage. This reaction has pushed the Fox News into the well of corruption and dishonesty.
Being a news outlet, it was a shocking reaction from Fox News. The news channel has a history of turning the blind eye to whatever they want and in the past, the outlet had also failed to reveal the true investigation on different cases. The author of Trumpocracy David Frum mentioned in the book that this is the same news outlet who claimed that no one knew that their former owner Roger Ailes had been assaulting women in his office for years.
During the presidential campaign, Fox News provided full coverage for Trump’s morning and evening shows. And in return, Trump praised the channel many times in his tweets.
Big show tonight on @seanhannity! 9:00 P.M. on @FoxNews
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2018
However, it is hard to predict that who is the puppet in this relationship. But either way, this relationship has plunder both. In addition to the false praising of the president, the news outlet also bashed all the news against Trump. When the Rob Porter, the White House staffer, resigned, Fox news didn’t mention his name for almost 12 hours.
Porter resigned after he was accused of abusing her two ex-wives. Instead of mentioning the name of the Porter, the morning show of Fox News Fox & Friends started criticizing Trump opponents on different matters.
However, the news outlet didn’t always support the president. Back in 2016, Fox News had many skeptics of the president but the coverage favored the other two candidates named Ben Carson and Ted Cruz. A debate was held by the news outlet in 2015, in which Trump was bombarded by the questions from Chris Wallace and Kelly. And later Trump lashed out at the questions asked by Kelly. And after this debate, Trump boycotted the next debate program of the Fox News.
Fox News started supporting Trump when he won the nomination of Republicans. The two reporters of Fox news who were against Trump, Megyn Kelly, and George Will, left the channel and in their place, Nigel Farage and Tucker Carlson were given a chance. However, in this whole process, Sean Hannity remained the top supporter of the president.
Both Hannity and Trump remained in contact through phone calls. According to president’s advisor, Hannity had a reserved desk in the White House. Fox News itself had nothing to do with the president but it was Hannity who ran the news outlet for Trump’s support.
According to other journalists, Hannity is a commentator and not a journalist, so his supreme support for the president does not harm the standards of journalism. The failure of Hannity to keep his relationship with Cohen confidential shows his credibility and the status of the news outlet who employed him. Hannity’s show at Fox New was the most watched show on the cable with almost 3 million views each night. Hannity’s popularity showed that he had an influential position at Fox News.
There was no wonder why Fox News supported Hannity when his relationship with Cohen was revealed. In the race to become the Trump TV, Fox News has lost its credibility and integrity. This transformation of Fox News resembles the transformation of the Republicans.
Trump has a stronger relationship with the Fox News than its own party – The Republicans. It is also reported that other than winning the presidential election, Trump wanted to run his own media platform — and he achieved the both of his goals.
In the month of February, Fox News covered two major events – Robert Mueller’s indictments of 13 Russian nationals and the incident of shooting in a school in Florida. And Fox News prolonged its coverage in the defense of the president. Instead of giving details on these incidents, Fox News pundits devoted their airtime to defend Trump’s administration.