June 19, 2009 / by emptywheel

 

Fox’s Non-Denial Denial

Loo Hoo linked to this, and it has me laughing, so I thought I’d share. Fox News says it didn’t "receive the letter" that John Ensign’s cuckold sent to them and they didn’t tip off Ensign to it. But that claim all depends on what your definition of "receive" is:

Tom Lowell, senior producer of "America’s Newsroom," hosted by Kelly and Bill Hemmer, says no one at Fox News ever received a printed letter, but that a booker on the show received an email from Hampton with the letter attached on June 15 — the day before the Senator’s press conference.

"We never received any letter from Mr. Hampton," Lowell told the Huffington Post. "He might have sent it, but we never received it. He did reach out to us about 24 hours before the news conference, and he sent an e-mail to a booker on my staff."

Lowell said that a member of his editorial staff followed up with Hampton that day.

"We followed up with him, but he seemed evasive and not credible, thus we didn’t pursue it," he said. "We certainly weren’t going to rush to air with accusations against a sitting Senator without doing due diligence on the reputability of the claims. [my emphasis]

I guess Fox routinely "follows up" on things they claim they haven’t received, huh?

And when they get around to denying that they tipped off Ensign, they limit their denial to the editorial staff of one particular show. 

Lowell also stated emphatically that no one at Fox News reached out to the Senator to alert him about the story.

"I know there are people asking if we alerted the senator," Lowell said. "Definitely no one on our editorial team called anyone in Senator Ensign’s office prior to our announcement. We just hadn’t gotten to that point of confirming the story yet. Somehow, somebody told the Senator something and I don’t know how that happened. [my emphasis]

So at Fox News, its denials that it tipped off a Republican friend all rely on your definition of "received" and "editorial team," but they do agree that somehow Ensign found out about a letter that–they confirm–got emailed to a Fox employee in plenty of time for Ensign to come clean on his affair. 

You know, I originally thought this story was going to be your garden variety Republican adultery and hush money. But it’s beginning to get interesting. 

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Originally Posted @ https://www.emptywheel.net/2009/06/19/foxs-non-denial-denial/