Fox News chief national correspondent Ed Henry had strong words for the ‘fake news’ media on Friday night, as well as some advice for Trump critics.
Henry’s Friday night dialogue with Fox News host Tucker Carlson followed news that the special counsel’s office disputed a Buzzfeed report which claimed that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen told investigators that Donald Trump had instructed him to lie to Congress.
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“When Trump exits the stage at some point and all of this is over, what’s left of our business, journalism?” Carlson asked Henry during their conversation about the discredited report and the media’s role in playing it up.
“The honest answer is, I simply don’t know,” Henry responded before acknowledging that the media should certainly “push back” on presidential claims that the media is “fake news.”
“On the other hand, the critics of the president should wake up,” said Henry. “Because the fact of the matter is when you keep producing fake news, and it’s not just BuzzFeed and the story. My broader point is CNN and everyone else, who when you wake up this morning the president is about to be impeached. ‘If true,’ of course, they had that little caveat. That’s just as bad as the original story. You are supposed to have credibility, and I just simply think that people hanging it on this ‘if true’ business, the more fake news you create, the more fodder you are giving that man there, the commander-in-chief to say, you know what, you are fake news.” (RELATED: ‘A Very Sad Day For Journalism’ — Trump Brings Up Dossier To Attack Buzzfeed)
Henry contended that while Trump is at times “not fair” with his criticism of the media, “sometimes it is, folks.”
“Because there are a whole bunch of people who are creating fake news,” he said. “Because the more you do it, the more the president is going to say it, and you know what? The less credibility, as you said, many, many in the mainstream media are going to have.”
Carlson pointed out that many are tuning in to “alternative news channels” because of stories “like this.”
Henry ended with a story about his lunch with a Democrat who fell back on the “Russia, Russia, Russia” narrative in case the Buzzfeed story happened to be untrue.