Newt Gingrich Attacks Fox, Saying the Channel Is Biased

Newt Gingrich Attacks Fox, Saying the Channel Is Biased

Newt Gingrich, committing a “political suicide,”  attacked Fox News earlier this week, saying that the cable news channel has favored Mitt Romney over him during the 2012 Republican race - and that CNN has been the more "fair-and-balanced" network this cycle.

"I think Fox has been for Romney all the way through," Gingrich said during a meeting with party leaders in Delaware on Wednesday.  "In our experience, Callista and I both believe CNN is less biased than Fox this year. We are more likely to get neutral coverage out of CNN than we are of Fox, and we're more likely to get distortion out of Fox. That's just a fact."

The former House Speaker blasted the Roger Ailes-led network, blaming Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of Fox News-owner News Corp., for the bias.

"I assume it's because Murdoch at some point said, 'I want Romney,' and so 'fair and balanced' became 'Romney,'" Gingrich said. "And there's no question that Fox had a lot to do with stopping my campaign because such a high percentage of our base watches Fox."

"This is nothing other than Newt auditioning for a windfall of a gig at CNN - that's the kind of man he is," a spokeswoman for Fox News responded in a statement to Yahoo News. "Not to mention, he's still bitter about the fact that we terminated his contributor contract."

Gingrich emphasized that he will be attending the White House Correspondents' Association dinner later this month - as a guest of CNN.

Recall that Gingrich was dropped by Fox last year shortly before he announced his presidential bid.

Posted by James Fried on Friday April 13 2012, 4:05 AM EDT. Ref: CNN. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Nation. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0