Posted on 04/16/2010 7:09:25 PM PDT by Man50D
Fox News says it pulled host Sean Hannity from a Cincinnati tea party event on Tax Day because the network never agreed to allow the program to be used to provide a profit to the grass-roots organization.
The tea party, however, is reporting that's not what it was told.
As WND reported yesterday, Fox News executives angrily ordered Hannity to drop plans to broadcast his show from Cincinnati where a tea-party rally was being held.
The celebrity was on a book tour for his No. 1 best-seller "Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama's Radical Agenda" and was scheduled to be a featured speaker at a four-hour rally at the University of Cincinnati – with as many as 13,000 in attendance. Proceeds from the event were to benefit a local tea-party organization.
Hannity's "Conservative Victory" now is available at the WND Superstore!
Fox News programming executive Bill Shine, however, was quoted in a Los Angeles Times blog explaining, "Fox News never agreed to allow the Cincinnati Tea Party organizers to use Sean Hannity's television program to profit from broadcasting his show from the event. When senior executives in New York were made aware of this, we changed our plans for tonight's show."
In a statement, officials with the Cincinnati organization said they were told Hannity has a "personal emergency."
"Shortly after the scheduled book signing (which was canceled) Fox News producers onsite informed the Cincinnati Tea Party senior leadership that Mr. Hannity had to rush home for a personal emergency. The Cincinnati Tea Party expressed a statement of support and concern to Hannity and family," the party said.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
Is the tea party getting too popular and Murdoch doesn’t like it?
Has Sean cleared this up? Even FOX is caving in to liberals.
So, reporters are not allowed anywhere near political fundraisers?
News to me.
Hmmmm....Never stopped a News Network before....
“Has Sean cleared this up? Even FOX is caving in to liberals”
Fox caved in to ethics. Hanity knows nothing of the meaning of the word. He is more harmful to the conservative movement than any liberal. He needs to learn more from people like Rush on the proper protocol of self promotion. Sean has become nothing more than annoying
“So, reporters are not allowed anywhere near political fundraisers?”
Not on the networks dime. Fox advertises as fair and balanced. Hard to back that up if you’re doing a prime time show live backing anyone.
The networks haven’t been doing prime time shows at the White House advertising Health Care, for instance?
Hannity was also to was to do his Fox show from the rally where he was the featured speaker. This would make Foxnews a participant in the rally whose purpose was to raise money.I can see their reaction. The networl takes heat for being a subdivision of the GOP (not true) but here it would act directly on behalf of a political organization. Sean should have known better and Fox should have been honest with the rally organizers. Their story about an emergency,coming from a news org., is reprehensible.
Hasn’t Sean been doing this all along? Why the strong reaction from Fox now?
Hannity bailed on the event... the excuse that he had a family emergency is a load of poo. The guy cares more about the money and position than the cause. Got to sell those books, etc. He talks a good game “freedom”, blah, blah, blah... but when push comes to shove and it is going to cost HIM something... well we have seen where his true heart lies. As they say: talk is CHEAP!
So it would be OK for CNN to host a show at a DNC function and give money to the DNC for doing so?
It is a non-profit organization. Were they raising money or paying the cost of the event?
Well, gee, CNN promotes the DNC 24/7 so what's your point?
Time for a new network.
This was to be a fundraiser. Sure the networks cheerlead and that is wrong too. Fox took the high road on this and were correct in doing so.
“Even FOX is caving in to liberals.”
I’ve noticed that too. What kind of pressure is applied?
I agree with most of what Sean says, but I find him a bit boring. I’ll give him this, however - he was exposing ZerO’s dirty linen long before almost anyone else.
In this case, he got tangled up in some corporate issues and was right to have a “personal emergency.”
I believe they were raising $$ to be used in future tea party activities. This is a no no for a news org. As much as they agree with MoveOn.org, no host on MSNBC has used his show to raise funds for MoveOn, and we’d be screaming bloody murder if they did.
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