Anyone doubting Roger Ailes' eye for talent needs to go somewhere else besides his shuffling of Fox News's weekday evening lineup, especially but not exclusively his decision to move Megyn Kelly into the 9 p.m. time slot.
Variety's Brian Steinberg reports that Kelly has put even more distance between Fox and its so-called competitors at CNN, MSNBC, and HLN, while Greta Van Susteren and Sean Hannity have both grown their respective time slots (HT Johnny Dollar's Place; bolds are mine):
It looks like Fox News's revised lineup is a hit with viewers.
On Tuesday, FNC almost doubled the combined total viewers of CNN and MSNBC achieving its best ratings since recent changes that included the addition of Megyn Kelly to primetime.
On Monday's PoliticsNation, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank claimed that it "couldn't be the case at this time" that ObamaCare is already causing people to lose their current health insurance plans, in spite of all the documented cases insurance companies canceling plans as they struggle to comply with ObamaCare regulations.
After recounting the story of one man who appeared on FNC's Hannity show who supposedly misunderstood the ObamaCare law, Milbank continued:
Viewers of Fox News Channel's popular weeknight Hannity program got an unwelcome surprise during the Tuesday edition of the show, when liberal contributor Jehmu Greene tried to be funny by asking: “If [GOP Texas senator] Ted Cruz and [House majority leader] John Boehner were both on a sinking ship, who would be saved?” Her shocking answer: “America.”
As you might expect, it didn't take long for posters on Twitter to come out swinging.
PBS's Tavis Smiley made a comment Thursday that every African-American as well as liberal media member should sit up and take notice.
Appearing on Fox News's Hannity, Smiley said, "The data is going to indicate sadly that when the Obama administration is over, black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic indicator category" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir has fingered the main culprits behind Detroit’s bankruptcy. According to him, it’s none other than Fox News host Sean Hannity and all his fellow racist conservatives who were threatened by Smokey Robinson.
In his July 27 screed for Salon headlined “Why the Right Hates Detroit” O’Hehir claimed the fall of big cities like Detroit and New Orleans had less to do with longtime Democratic rule and more to do with the right’s desire, as seen in the “coded racism of Sean Hannity” to punish the cities that spawned “the worldwide revolution symbolized by hot jazz, Smokey Robinson dancin’ to keep from cryin’ and Eminem trading verses with Rihanna.”
On Thursday night’s “Media Mash” with Sean Hannity on Fox News, MRC president and "Collusion" author Brent Bozell unloaded on MSNBC star Chris Matthews for repeatedly citing conservative senators who are digging in against Obamacare as “terrorists.” Sean Hannity asked if MSNBC is so desperate for ratings that they’ll say anything now.
Brent said Chris Matthews isn’t a liberal any more. He’s a radical with no decency (video and transcript below):
On Friday's PoliticsNation, as host Al Sharpton attacked "right-wingers" like Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh for "push[ing] the most negative stereotypes of the African-American community for their own gain," and again repeated a 2007 smear against O'Reilly, MSNBC contributor Goldie Taylor accused conservative hosts of "pimping" and "pandering" for "personal gain."
After a clip of O'Reilly recounting his visit to a predominantly black restaurant from 2007, Sharpton posed the question:
Appearing on the July 9 Hannity, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell slammed the "character assassination" perpetrated by the liberal media in the 2012 presidential election. Talking with host Sean Hannity about his new book with Tim Graham, Bozell described the previous election cycle as "character assassination against anybody who would challenge Barack Obama." (Collusion is available online and in book stores.)
Highlighting the embarrassing Obama stories that the media refused to cover, the Media Research Center president explained, "All these things that you and I know to be scandals, the average Joe out there doesn't know even exists, because the media refuse to report them. And we show you over and over and over again real scandals, that never saw the light of day."
Conservative commentator Sean Hannity was interviewed in the most recent issue of Playboy magazine, and not surprisingly, he was hit hard and hit often from the left.
Yet of all the questions asked by contributing editor David Hochman, potentially the most absurd was when he tried to beat Hannity up with - wait for it! - Rachel Maddow's plummeting ratings:
On Thursday afternoon, FBI director Robert Mueller was called before the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions about the bureau's association with the recent scandals that have rocked the president's second term. He testified about the FBI investigation into the IRS targeting scandal as well as about the security at Benghazi and their delay in responding to the attack. Mueller stumbled through the interview, as he did not give many straight or definitive answers. In fact, he seemed to be remarkably uninformed about key elements regarding the scandals given the fact that he was supposed to be in charge of the entire operation.
Curiously, with such a significant development in these scandals, particularly the one pertaining to the IRS targeting, all of the broadcast networks’ evening newscasts neglected the story. NBC Nightly News along with CBS Evening News and ABC World News did not deem this progression in the scandal newsworthy as it was given collective total of no air time. The only network that gave this new development any time at all was the Fox News Channel. In fact one of the channel’s staple primetime shows, Hannity, featured the story as its leading piece and had a number of guests on the show to comment about the scandal and its lack of media coverage, including the founder of the Media Research Center, Brent Bozell.
Left of center columnist Kirsten Powers on Wednesday called the Obama administration's repeated attacks on Fox News "completely despicable."
Appearing on Fox News's Hannity, Powers noted that "any president would be happy" if there were just one news outlet "that allows people to say things about him that he doesn't like" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):