Members of the media are criticizing Fox News for choosing to air a police press conference on the murder of missing Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts.
Journalists suggested that it was “amazing” that Fox would give the story any airtime given the other breaking news stories about former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort being convicted of bank fraud and former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pleading guilty to campaign finance violations.
Beth Fertig, a reporter for WNYC, falsely claimed that Fox News opened their 5 p.m. hour with the Tibbetts case.
And @FoxNews is leading it’s 5 p.m. newscast with police news conference on missing Iowa student Mollie Tibbets
— Beth Fertig (@bethfertig) August 21, 2018
A review of TV clipping service Grabien reveals that Fox actually led their newscast with the Manafort news, spent a little over two minutes on a press conference about the Tibbetts murder, and then continued coverage on the Cohen case.
Maxwell Strachan, a Huffington Post reporter, sounded off when Fox went back to the Tibbetts case later in the hour. The suspect in the Tibbetts case is an illegal immigrant. (RELATED: Illegal Immigrant Charged With Murder Of Mollie Tibbetts)
It’s 5:30 p.m., and Fox News has moved on from the Manafort-Cohen news — back to the death of Mollie Tibbetts, who authorities believe was killed by an undocumented immigrant pic.twitter.com/1wd3PqFB0O
— maxwell (@maxwellstrachan) August 21, 2018
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes agreed that it is “amazing” that Fox broke into the Manafort and Cohen news in order to give their viewers updates on the brutal murder of a 20-year-old Iowa college student who had been missing for a month.
This is really pretty amazing https://t.co/T4JvF59D6d
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) August 21, 2018
Fox News has been giving the public updates about the Tibbetts case since she went missing and has interviewed members of her family.