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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHannity's ethics under fire
Fox News hosts failure to disclose his relationship with Trump attorney Michael Cohen puts his credibility on the line.
By MICHAEL CALDERONE 04/16/2018 08:11 PM EDT
Sean Hannity has wavered over the years on whether he is a journalist or conservative activist, but ethics specialists say that whichever hat the Fox News host was wearing last week when he condemned the FBI raid on attorney Michael Cohens office, he should have disclosed that hes a client of Cohens.
It doesnt matter if youre a newspaper reporter or an opinion journalist, said Indira Lakshmanan, the journalism ethics chair at the Poynter Institute. If you want to maintain credibility with an audience, and be honest with them, you have to disclose all facts.
Just hours after the raid on the office of Cohen, President Donald Trumps personal lawyer, Hannity inveighed that special counsel Robert Mueller had declared war against the president of the United States. But Hannity didnt disclose that he, too, had received legal advice from Cohen. Hannitys relationship with the embattled attorney was revealed during Mondays hearing over materials gathered during the raid and only after a judge pressed Cohens attorney on the identity of a previously unnamed third client. The omission raised questions about whether Hannity had violated journalistic ethics or whether he was a journalist at all.
Hannity has shifted in recent years on that point. I never claimed to be a journalist, Hannity told The New York Times in 2016 when asked about his informal advising of then-candidate Trump. The next year, Hannity referred to himself in a Times magazine profile as an opinion journalist or advocacy journalist. He said last month that his show breaks news daily in response to colleague Shep Smith characterizing Fox News prime-time lineup as entertainment.
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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/16/sean-hannity-cohen-attorney-trump-527897
spanone
(136,301 posts)Zambero
(9,010 posts)Hannity and ethics.
CatWoman
(79,311 posts)"credibility"
Atticus
(15,124 posts)stonecutter357
(12,711 posts)thucythucy
(8,263 posts)Who knew?
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)jalan48
(13,997 posts)bitterross
(4,066 posts)It's like saying Hannity and morals in the same sentence. They just don't go together.
onecaliberal
(33,457 posts)Hayduke Bomgarte
(1,965 posts)That's rich. If he'd had ethics, faux would have never hired him to begin with.