Suspended NFL player Ray Rice’s now infamous punch that knocked out his then-fiance has now sparked a battle between Fox News and CNN.
As we reported earlier this week, “Monday on Fox & Friends the hosts had a big laugh about the new TMZ video showing NFL player, Ray Rice beating his fiancee unconscious. After playing the video from inside of the elevator the Fox morning hosts admitted that it was “shocking” but it didn’t take long before they started playing the old misogynistic game of blame the victim.”
On Tuesday morning’s edition of “Fox & Friends,” host Brian Kilmeade addressed his remarks, but did not apologize for it.
“Comments we made during this story yesterday made some feel like we were taking the situation too lightly,” Kilmeade said, adding “We are not. We were not. Domestic abuse is a very serious issue to us, I can assure you.”
Later that day, CNN’s senior media correspondent Brian Stelter hit back at Kilmeade’s second-day comments.
“To say ‘Take the stairs,’ it implies that’s a way to go and commit that kind of crime and do it secretly. It was a horrible thing to say,” Stelter said.
After airing Kilmeade’s comments, Stelter continued his attack:
“Notice what he (Kilmeade) said there: ‘It made SOME people feel like we weren’t taking it seriously.’
“It’s a very cheap way to pretend to apologize, but, then again, Fox News tends not to come out and apologize when their hosts say offensive things. This is kind of how the network operates. So I can’t tell you I’m particularly surprised by it.”
This was also followed up by CNN host Carol Costello who took Fox and Friends to task for their “victim blaming” commentary of the Ray Rice video.
Let’s take a breath. Domestic violence is a crime. Ray Rice was charged with aggravated assault. His then-fiance was not charged. Just stop the victim blaming. Yes, victims of domestic violence often return to their abusers for many complicated reasons. I did briefly. In an op-ed I wrote for CNN.com, I talked about a boyfriend who knocked me out. I met up with that boyfriend again because he wanted to apologize. Let’s just say, it was not a good idea.
So Fox & Friends, to put it bluntly, SHUT UP.
Game, set and match goes to CNN. Good for them!
You must be logged in to post a comment Login