The Democratic National Committee announced on Wednesday that Fox News will not host any of its presidential primary debates in the 2019-2020 cycle, citing a recent article in The New Yorker that characterized the outlet as an agent of the White House.
"Recent reporting in the New Yorker on the inappropriate relationship between President Trump, his administration and FOX News has led me to conclude that the network is not in a position to host a fair and neutral debate for our candidates," DNC Chairman Tom Perez said in a statement. "Therefore, FOX News will not serve as a media partner for the 2020 Democratic primary debates."
The network has not hosted a Democratic presidential debate in more than 15 years, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The network reportedly made an offer to do so for this cycle.
Fox News said it hopes the DNC will reconsider.
"We hope the DNC will reconsider its decision to bar Chris Wallace, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, all of whom embody the ultimate journalistic integrity and professionalism, from moderating a Democratic presidential debate," Fox News said in a statement.
"They're the best debate team in the business and they offer candidates an important opportunity to make their case to the largest TV news audience in America, which includes many persuadable voters," Fox said.
The DNC has so far announced 12 televised debates, which will begin in June. MSNBC, NBC News and Telemundo will host the first debate, the DNC has said. CNN will host the second debate, in July.
Prominent conservatives, including several Fox News hosts, have urged the DNC to award the channel a debate.
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of MSNBC, NBC, Telemundo and CNBC.
maluminse on March 6th, 2019 at 20:33 UTC »
Thats totally fair. It should be CSpan. A neutral boring channel.
Now who moderates would be interesting. Who is objective enough?
Also the questions should be handled by an accounting firm. So we dont get any fkn leaks (preference) again.
0674788emanekaf on March 6th, 2019 at 19:46 UTC »
Fox News could change their name to Fox Propaganda Network and not lose a single viewer.
thefugue on March 6th, 2019 at 19:40 UTC »
They should absolutely be holding FOX to basic standards such as this. The time for humoring them was never and it’s gone on too long.