TV Barn at TCA: Chris Wallace

"Fox News Sunday" anchor Chris Wallace, who cut short a vacation to pay tribute to Tony Snow on Sunday's show (my tribute to Tony), flew out here to TCA to play straight man on a panel that features "Outfoxed" villain John Moody, Bush advisor Karl Rove and Hillary's bulldog Howard Wolfson.

Before the panel, he chatted with me about Rove and expanded on his previous criticism of a certain other cable channel. He also — happily — put to rest conflicting reports about Mike Wallace's supposed retirement.

You'll want, in particular, to hear what Wallace says right after this: "I think people are taking a second look at Fox, especially given how extraordinarily biased the coverage has been our main competitors ... especially MSNBC."

As for Mike Wallace, who at age 90 was reported to be "done with TV" after a recent health setback: "All I can tell you is, Dad's talking to producers about doing stories."

TVBARN_Chris_Wallace_07142008.mp3

Comments

[Jason]

Good interview Aaron! As liberal as you can be sometimes, I really love how you can interview anyone FAIR AND BALANCED! ;)

[Long Memory]

>>>As liberal as you can be sometimes.....

I seem to recall that Aaron was on the conservative newspaper staff at Northwestern U.

(Editor in chief for two years, in fact ... but who's counting? --AB)

[Rory O'Connor]

"he...expanded on his previous criticism of a certain other cable channel."

Kettle, please meet pot!

[daniel]

chris wallace has never apparently watched his own dumb network. fox distorts, we decide.

[walter]

Easy enough to see that Mr. Barnhart is a Republican, calling the Dem a "bulldog" and only refering to Rove, one of the most malign political influences of the last decade, as merely an "advisor."

Even worse is the bizarre proposition that Wallace, who is a Republican shill, should be granted any kind of credence at all on matters of fairness.

The real question is why people like this continue to behave in such un-American ways -- opress women and people of color, subvert the constitution, steal from the poor, etc. What does it really get them? Why not simply go out and do good, rather than spread Republican evil?

[Jason]

Yep. WE do decide as in the majority of the folks watching cable news that Fox is fair and balanced. Should Obama lose this thing (becoming a bigger potential each day with the situation in Iraq improving), then his fans will be in for a real wake up call when MSNBC has to start actually reporting the facts and not the DNC talking points. Oh, who am I kidding? They'll just keep distorting.

[Mark Richard]

Any analyis finding Fox News leaning to the Republicans (which is certainly true) will also end up conceding that all the other TV news outfits lean a bit to the Democrats in their framing and vocabulary. The result, as the Hillary Clinton campaign has angrily noted, is that Fox - emotionally detached from the Democratic contest - was able to cover the primaries more fairly than the other news organizations, which have stars in their eyes for Obama. The only negative coverage of Obama and his sketchy associates by the orthodox TV news outlets was forced by Fox News highlighting the rants of Obama's close friends.

The only people who defend the networks and CNN and MSNBC from charges of a pro-Democratic bias are themselves on the Left politically. By contrast, most conservatives concede Fox News' friendliness toward them.

[Jason]

Mark, you hit the nail on the head my friend. Its no secret that Fox is friendlier to conservatives and its no secret the others have at the very least a slight liberal slant.

[R Thomas Berner]

Lou Dobbs is a liberal?!