On Tuesday’s Fox News Channel’s “Red Eye,” “America’s Newsroom” co-anchor Bill Hemmer went after how Pima Co. Sheriff Clarence Dupnik handled himself during a Saturday press conference following the shooting in Tucson that claimed six lives and injured 14, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
Hemmer said he was less concerned about the media feeding frenzy that seemed to infer conservative voices inspired alleged shooter Jared Loughner, which was the the target of host Greg Gutfeld’s criticism, and more about elected officials.
“I know the media is in the cross hairs on this, and I think rightfully so,” Hemmer said. “But I don’t care who is writing what or what they are saying. When we have elected, responsible officials who are speaking on behalf of their constituents and the nation is holding on to their every word, and yet they talk about opinion and not fact, and mind you that’s the height of you are responsibility.”
Hemmer explained the news business relied on facts, which took a backseat during Dupnik’s statement.
“And on Saturday night, that’s what unfortunately we got from the sheriff in Arizona,” he continued. “I was in our office, and we were getting ready for a two-hour program on Saturday night, and I had not heard anything like that before. We had no facts. In our business if we don’t have the facts we don’t have a job. If we don’t have the facts we don’t run a business because people don’t trust us.”
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Later during the “Halftime Report” ombudsman’s segment with Andy Levy, Hemmer offered some advice for Dupnik.
“He deals with the law and the law is based on fact,” Hemmer said. “Keep your mouth shut. I couldn’t understand why he was saying what he was saying other than he really believes that and he was part of that crowd that thought, ‘Well, there’s only one reason why this happen and it happened because some guy was ticked off at politics.’”