Accuracy in Media, it seems, just can’t stand the sight of liberals on Fox News — in January, Cliff Kincaid ranted about Fox’s hiring of “open lesbian” Sally Kohn.
Now, Fox’s hiring of Jesse Jackson’s daughter, Santita Jackson, has brought a new round of freakouts. In an April 5 blog post, Don Irvine frets that the hiring will “confound conservatives who see no need for the top-rated cable news network to give liberals even more of a voice than they currently have. They already have MSNBC and CNN, along with the rest of the mainstream media.” Irvine continues: “Fox runs the risk of alienating its conservative audience to the point that they will look elsewhere for their news, and eventually end Fox’s long run as the top cable news network.”
Kincaid expands on the freakout in an April 6 article, claiming that Jackson’s hiring is a bid by Fox News to “avoid left-wing attacks on its news operations and commentators,” adding, “It is apparent that the left-wing attacks on Fox News, many of them directed through the Soros-funded Media Matters group, have taken their toll.” Kincaid went on to attack Jackson’s “taste for racial and divisive politics,” then follows Irvine in fretting that Fox is losing its right-wing cred: “Is her father next in line for a show on the ‘conservative’ channel?”
That hostility is telling — it shows that AIM is not interested in balance, which Fox is trying to achieve by adding liberal commentators, but cares only about shutting down liberal viewpoints.
AIM, by the way, had this same kneejerk reaction in 2006 when Fox hired Kimberly Guilfoyle as a commentator, attacking her as “a noted supporter of the homosexual rights movement” and “an active member in the San Francisco affiliate of the National Women’s Political Caucus, a pro-abortion feminist group.” Of course, Guilfoyle has more than proven herself as one of the many, many conservatives on Fox that is in need of being “fair and balanced” by an actual liberal commentator.