Could this be the signal of a new feud between two political media companies?
Over the past few weeks, Politico has taken attacks on the Fox News Channel from the left-wing activist group Media Matters and reported them as news. The latest incident came on December 15, when Politico reported on e-mails leaked to Media Matters that described Fox News’ editorial policy on climate change. Previously, Politico ran a similar story that had been leaked to Media Matters about how Fox News management suggested on-air talent use the term “government option” to describe government-backed health insurance.
However, on the December 15 broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” co-host Steve Doocy fired a couple of salvos back at Politico. He went after the site for falsely reporting that Michael Steele had decided not to run for reelection as Republican National Committee chairman, going on to describe the news outlet as “left-wing,” during the 6:00 a.m. hour of the program.
“You know it’s interesting – we’re talking about this because a couple of days ago had this story said he was not going to run for reelection,” Doocy said. “Well, he is running. How’d they get that story so wrong? I even asked how could a left-wing blog like Politico knows what the right-wing and the head of the right-wing, the RNC is doing? Well as it turns out, they didn’t know. And you know there’s a fellow over there by the name of Fred Ryan. He’s the CEO of Politico. You better keep an eye on what’s going on over there. The website is called Politico. You better get the political stories right.”
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But Doocy took another shot at Politico later in the program. During the 7:00 a.m. hour, he raised the same question.
“You know what’s amazing about this story is a couple of days ago, Politico came out with it and said he was not going to seek reelection and they really got that story wrong and we said on this show, ‘How could a left-wing blog know what a guy at the RNC, the right-wing, is doing?’ Well turns out they didn’t.”
Doocy called out Ryan again for not managing Politico on these scoops.
“I tell you what, if I was the CEO of Politico – that guy right there, Fred Ryan, I think I would go keep an eye on what’s going on over at the website because it’s a political website and they blew it,” Doocy said.
Former White House spokeswoman and fill-in co-host Dana Perino suggested it was possible Politico was given incorrect information and said if that were so, they should have reported that as well.
“They try to say they were careful about it and I wonder if somebody gave them misinformation, but they didn’t report that yesterday,” Perino said
FoxNews.com did have a similar report about Steele filed on December 12 as well.