Stelter: Fox destroys its credibility when it leads with Hunter Biden news
The news isn’t particularly appealing to Fox News viewers at the moment: President Donald Trump’s election loss and the pandemic are dominant stories. So Fox is, for the most part, shifting its focus to a single big story: the Hunter Biden investigation.
“We watched every hour [of Fox News] on Thursday and Friday,” CNN’s Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter said on “Reliable Sources” Sunday. And more than 50% of those hours started with Fox anchors talking about the Hunter Biden story.
Federal authorities are actively investigating the business dealings of Hunter Biden, a person with knowledge of the probe told CNN. His father, President-elect Joe Biden, is not implicated.
CNN is covering the federal investigation and has cited statements from both Hunter Biden and the Biden administration.
“The investigation is important. We’ve been chasing it,” Stelter said. But he added that proportionality — or what journalists call “old fashioned news judgment” — is also important.
“These shows destroy their credibility when they lead with Hunter Biden for days on end,” Stelter said. “Yes, it’s an important story, but so is the pandemic. So is the vaccine. So is Trump’s denialism.”
The investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings first picked up steam in October when the New York Post published a story about Hunter Biden’s connection to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm.
But this story was pushed by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, so many news outlets covered it with skepticism and discernment.
“We are not talking about fully reliable sources here,” Stelter noted on “Reliable Sources” in October, referring to the New York Post’s story.
