WEBCommentary Contributor

Author: Michael J. Gaynor
Date:  August 8, 2015

Topic category:  Corruption of American News Media

Fox News Prime Time Debate Moderators: Unfair and Unbalanced


"Can Trump ever be derailed? Fox 'News' and Roger Ailes sure seems to be trying."

On August 6, 2015, Fox News presented two debates involving seventeen Republican presidential hopefuls.

The way the debates were moderated was striking.

Bill Hemmer and Martha McCallum moderated the debate among the seven hopefuls who did not make the top ten based on polls.

It was an interesting debate in which Carly Fiorina shined and Hemmer and McCallum lived up to the Fox News "fair and balanced" slogan.

Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace moderated the prime time debate among the top ten.

They were NOT fair or balanced.

They seemed to be on a search and destroy mission targeting Donald Trump.

Baier began by asking a question to which he and anyone paying attention to the race knew the answer: would everyone pledge to support the 2016 Republican presidential nominee and not become a third party presidential candidate.

The only feasible third party presidential candidate is Trump.

The only Republican presidential hopeful who has not agreed to support the eventual Republican presidential nominee is Trump and he had said he would do that if he is treated "fairly" (which Trump would determine).

Baier did not elicit any news in asking a question apparently designed to depict Trump as the odd man out in the group and turn the audience against him.

As soon as she could, Kelly targeted Trump by quoting insulting remarks about some women that Trump allegedly had made, presumably to portray him as a misogynist.

Kelly offered no context.

Then, after Trump joked "only Rosie O'Donnell," with whom Trump had feuded years ago, attorney Kelly testified that was not true.

Kelly may have been campaigning herself for the Candy Crowley award for a presidential debate moderator who makes herself the determiner of the facts and skews a presidential election.

If Kelly's tactic did not win her an interview from the Democrat presidential hopeful beating the War on Women drum, then Hillary Clinton is just too ungrateful to be President of the United States.

Conservative attorney David Limbaugh tweeted less than 30 minutes into the prime time Republican Presidential hopefuls' debate: "It's one thing for a moderator to ask a pointed question, it is another for them to try to bias the jury pool."

Exactly!

Baier and Kelly should be ashamed.

Dick Morris, no longer with Fox News, was blunt (www.dickmorris.com/gop-debate-winners-trump-cruz-huckabee-christie-losers-fox-news/):

"The other big loser was Fox News.

"Their anti-Trump bias was obvious. The questions were way too negative and often too personal. The network, which is built on being fair to conservatives, was manifestly unfair to them tonight."

Upon further reflection, Morris added a disconcerting speculation(www.dickmorris.com/fox-news-seeks-to-satisfy-mainstream-media-not-its-viewers/#more-16115):

"In its GOP primary debate coverage, Fox News’ recent desire to be accepted into the fraternity of leftist leaning journalists was on full display. Having built its audience by being fair to conservatives, its anchors now seek to pivot to the left in order to satisfy their professional peers.

"It is very revelatory that CNN praised Fox News for its handling of the debate.

"Fox News couldn’t care less what the audience or the Republican candidates thought of them. It was trying to make it in the journalistic cocktail circuit. That’s why they pummeled Trump with such personal attacks and treated all of the other candidates like enemies.

"Megyn Kelly was especially partisan, her bias showing through her questioning of Trump. You can bet she’ll never be as tough on Hillary as she was on the Donald last night and certainly won’t be asking her personal questions.

"Fox News showed an arrogant contempt for its audience in its leftist bias and was, in effect, telling them that they have no other place to go.

"The network’s choice of who got to answer questions was just one of the many ways it showed a bias. Conservative Ted Cruz had to wait for 25 other responses before he was finally asked a question — and that one was about God.

"Conservative newcomer Ben Carson was ignored for so long by the Fox News anchors that he even commented that he was wondering if he would ever get the chance to speak.

"Fox News could have shown that it could be fairer than any other station. Instead its liberal bias rivaled that of George Stephanopoulos."

Radical Brad Friedman, in his August 7, 2015 email promoting his BradCast (http://bradblog.com/?p=11302), celebrated the targeting of Trump:

"Can Trump ever be derailed? Fox 'News' and Roger Ailes sure seems to be trying."

They sure seem to be sacrificing "fair and balanced" in the process of targeting Trump.

Michael J. Gaynor


Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.


Copyright © 2015 by Michael J. Gaynor
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