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Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera said Friday that he has never seen the mainstream media be so partisan in terms of their involvement in the presidential election. “I have never – and I’ve been around a long time – ever, ever seen the mainstream media, particularly The New York Times or the Washington Post - be so partisan in terms of their involvement,” Rivera said on “Fox & Friends” in the wake of allegations that Trump inappropriately touched or kissed several women years ago. “What about the fact that all the stories came out all at the same time? You know first—and it does look like, according to the Trump campaign, it was orchestrated, because you had the Billy Bush tape last week, and NBC - they weren’t gonna run it because of the hurricane, but somebody said we gotta get it out before the debate, and then this stuff all drops at the same time from different publications on the same day,” Fox & Friend’s Steve Doocy said. “Well it’s certainly coordinated, because five women coming out on the same day, that has to be coordinated,” said Fox & Friends’ Ainsley Earhardt.
“Now Peter Doocy was just talking about the Clinton machine being in bed with mainstream media.” Earhardt noted that on Thursday night, ABC, NBC, and CBS all devoted a significant amount of time to the allegations – up to nine minutes on ABC and NBC and five minutes on CBS, while only devoting seconds – 30 on ABC, 26 on CBS and none on NBC – to Wikileaks’ leaked Clinton emails. “Did you see The New York Times this morning? There was no mention of Wikileaks that I could find in the whole first, in the whole A section,” Rivera said. “In fact, the second story on Hillary Clinton, the first story talked about how she’s just humming along. They used the old Wall Street Journal poll, not even a mention of the revelations that have emerged. It’s the second page,” Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade said. “I have never – and I’ve been around a long time – ever, ever seen the mainstream media, particularly The New York Times or the Washington Post - be so partisan in terms of their involvement,” Rivera said.
“And I also want to say imagine how daunting it is if you’re Donald Trump and you wake up every day knowing that there are 20 of the best investigative reporters at the Washington Post and 20 of the best investigative reporters at the New York Times on your case every day, every night, 24-7,” he added. “Anything that ever reflects negatively on you, they will dig up. They’re the best investigative reporters. Whatever you think of their political ideology, they are very much, very competent people,” Rivera said. “My point is that I have never seen a more – I think it really started with climate change, where I saw the New York Times take a hard turn to the partisan worlds, and not historically—” Rivera said. “Because it turned out that they were lying about a lot of their empirical evidence?” Kilmeade chimed in. “Right, well historically, the press in this country has been very partisan. You had your right-wing papers, your left-wing papers, your center right, your center left papers, and then we drifted away from that. We became so-called objective, and that’s sort of in the ‘50s and ‘60s,” Rivera said.
“Now we’re going back to the pick up two sides, side of it, and now we’ve become echo chambers. I have no doubt but the vast majority of the media believes sincerely that Donald Trump is the lesser of the two candidates, and they are campaigning, crusading against him,” he said. “I have no doubt that there’s a sincere motivation from their point of view, and when the president condemns Fox News …” -- “The thing about Fox News is, whether you like us or not, we do, do both sides, where as you watch the other channels, they just do the other side,” Doocy said. “Thank God for Fox News, because if it were not for Fox News and a handful of bright, right-wing websites like Drudge or Breitbart … and AM talk radio, which really start[ed it]. Now you give people on the other side of the political spectrum at least some place where they can go,” Rivera said. “Most people get their news from places where they agree with what’s being said. You don’t want to watch and throw stuff at the TV set all day long, so I really do think that Fox News—that’s one of the reasons we’re so big, so powerful, because we’re alone in terms of TV networks,” Rivera added.