Howard Kurtz reported for Fox News Monday morning, “Scott Brown leaves Fox after bristling at questions about launching campaign.”
Fox has dropped musical state playing Scott Brown from its line up and the publicly aired parting shots are not as professional as is the norm in TV land, with Kurtz laying out Brown’s coyness and irritation with questions. Kurtz concluded that Fox had been a great platform for Brown, who waited until the last minute to tell poor, clueless Fox what was really going on, “But he sure waited till the last minute to cut the cord.”
Kurtz detailed Brown’s irritation with several media outlets over speculation that he was going to do what he is doing — run for Senate in New Hampshire. Republican Scott Brown, the former short lived Senator from Massachusetts, seems to view being a senator like playing musical chairs – any state with an opening will do. Brown’s coyness and irritation rubbed Kurtz the wrong way, because the “speculation” was based on reports that Brown was doing the sorts of things one does when they are gearing up for a campaign. Kurtz rightly called this “informed speculation”.
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It’s been obvious for some time that Scott Brown is running for the Senate, even as he grew annoyed with speculation that he was doing just that.
Fox News announced Friday that it has terminated its contract with the former senator, right after he formed an exploratory committee to run in New Hampshire. And that was inevitable: you can’t be a candidate for office and a paid television pundit at the same time.
What’s odd is that Brown kept getting annoyed when journalists suggested he was moving in this direction. Even if he hadn’t made up his mind, he was clearly moving in that direction.
If it was “obvious for some time”, why didn’t Fox suspend his contract until he made up his mind?
Brown declared officially on Friday that he would be campaigning for the US Senate in New Hampshire, and that’s the same day Fox announced it would be dropping him. Brown’s coyness didn’t just annoy Fox News, but it also annoyed New Hampshire Republicans. The Boston Globe reported, “His announcement at the Northeast Republican Leadership Conference marked a turning point in a months-long political flirtation that had begun to grate on New Hampshire Republicans, who were eager for Brown to declare his intentions.”
Brown has landed his musical state chair in New Hampshire this go, where he hopes to take on Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who leads him by 12 points in an American Research poll released Monday.
The fact of the matter is Fox News already gives tons of free air time to Republican candidates. This is something they’ve been criticized for, as it is just another tell regarding their undisclosed agenda and bias. Fox News is not “fair and balanced” at all, and Brown announcing the day he leaves Fox doesn’t exactly look great for the network.
MSNBC stopped paying Harold E. Ford, Jr on February 12, 2010 due to his potential campaign (he did not end up running). They also forced Chris Matthews to decide what he was going to do, albeit not as quickly as ideal. While the advent of 24 cable news left huge gaps that the networks chose to fill easily with talking heads and “experts”, it leaves a lot to be desired in the accountability department.
This arrangement works very well for the cable outlets and for the politicians who are brought right into voters’ living rooms, but is not so great for the electorate. It would be a good start if networks like Fox were forced to disclose their bias, at the very least.
The irritation or pretense of irritation that Fox is aiming at Brown seems a bit disingenuous, when they admit that it was “obvious” he was going to run. It seems like a big show, meant to create the illusion that they had no idea and weren’t not only giving free air time, but paying a Republican candidate to campaign on the air. By playing the used network, they get to excuse their ethical failure, but the truth is that it was “obvious for some time” that Brown was going to run.
It just so happens to be for a Senate seat in an election when the Republican Party desperately needs to take as many Senate seats as they can.
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