Newsmax Caught Editing Interviews — Under Orders From Ruddy

Newsmax has had a bit of a streak lately in making substantial and dishonest edits to on-air interviews. Mediaite caught one on Feb. 27:

Viewers who caught Tuesday’s edition of Frontline on Newsmax were likely shocked to find CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen endorsing laws passed in Florida and Texas designed to inhibit social media platforms’ ability to moderate content. However, there was more to the story.

[…]

But here’s the broader context of Eisen’s remarks, which clearly shows that rather than siding with Florida and Texas – Eisen was rehashing their lawyers’ argument, which he actually called “an extreme view of the law”:

In April, a more egregious example was found by Mediaite — done under the apparent orders of Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy:

The day after Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) appeared for an interview on Newsmax, he publicly lambasted the conservative network.

“Newsmax cut an entire segment of my interview last night,” Lee fumed in a post on X (formerly Twitter). “No mention of Ukraine – even though part of the interview focused specifically on the supplemental.”

“I’ve never had this happen with any news network, not like this,” he added, tagging the head of the network, Chris Ruddy, and asking: “what happened?”

The interview, a sit-down with Newsmax prime time anchor Eric Bolling, was pre-taped on Monday and aired 8 p.m. that night on Eric Bolling The Balance.

In the portion of the discussion that aired, Lee and Bolling spent roughly nine minutes discussing the Trump hush money trial, anti-Semitism on college campuses, and the border crisis.

An exchange about Ukraine, in which Lee expressed his opposition to U.S. funding for the war-torn country, was cut from what aired. The interview came the night before the Senate passed a $95 billion aid package that included funds for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.

Sources at Newsmax who spoke with Mediaite on condition of anonymity said the criticism of Ukraine was cut for a reason other than time: Ruddy, a vocal supporter of Ukraine, is averse to allowing on-air criticism of the nation and of U.S. aid to it after Russia’s invasion.

“It’s my understanding that the network did not want any criticism of Ukraine,” said one Newsmax staffer.

Another staffer said Bolling was overheard at the Boca Raton, Florida offices of Newsmax aggressively fighting back over the edit, arguing the network could not cut comments from a high-ranking U.S. senator on a newsworthy topic.

“Bolling and his team fought back against the edit in an effort to maintain their journalistic credibility while the network sought to further management’s preferred narrative,” the first staffer said.

The staffer said such interventions from Ruddy are “standard” in the newsroom of the conservative network.

It’s “common,” they explained, “to receive warnings when [Ruddy] wants to drive a certain narrative on topics. Oftentimes, these opinions conflict with that of Republican lawmakers, Newsmax hosts, and the general Newsmax audience.”

We’ve actually praised Newsmax for deviating from the ConWeb in aggressively supporting Ukraine and specifically calling out then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson for his pro-Russia attitudes (though it stopped doing that when Fox News fired him and Newsmax reportedly dangled the incentive of giving Carlson control over Newsmax’s programming if he hosted a show there). Specifically censoring opinions Ruddy doesn’t like out of interviews, however, seems a step too far. And this is apparently far from the only instance in which Ruddy has dictated his channel’s content:

Ruddy’s peculiar editorial directives have for years been a subject of gossip inside Newsmax. More than a year ago, multiple Newsmax sources said, mandates from Ruddy were changed to be signed as directives not “per Ruddy” but from “The Network.”

The sources said “The Network” is understood internally to be a mandate for what Ruddy will and will not allow on the network.

“‘The Network’ will sometimes send out emails outlining ‘The Network’s’ view on network-sensitive topics — basically, adopt this stance on air, or else, because it is the boss’ view,” a staffer said.

“In certain cases when lawmakers in particular have an opposing view, hosts have been warned to not address certain topics,” one employee explained, pointing to Ukraine, Qatar (Newsmax boasts a member of the royal family as an investor), former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and the Covid vaccines as topics on which Ruddy seeks to avoid airing criticism.

“If a lawmaker brings up the opposing view anyway, the interview is almost always cut,” the staffer said.

“Ruddy is the voice of the network,” another staffer said. “There’s so many things we are told not to say or do on-air.”

This is the sort of thing that would have right-wingers like the Media Research Center screaming — if it didn’t happen on an ideological fellow traveler, that is.