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Fox focuses on Weinstein, ignores O'Reilly scandal

NEW YORK — Bill O’Reilly and Harvey Weinstein are the celebrity faces of sexual harassment in 2017. But on Fox News Channel, O’Reilly’s former home, the Hollywood mogul’s fall has gotten far more coverage.

Fox has devoted more than 12½ hours of airtime to Weinstein since Oct. 5, when The New York Times broke the story about his misconduct, according to the media watchdog Media Matters for America.

By contrast, Fox has spent 20 minutes, 46 seconds, on the accusations against O’Reilly since the Times revealed many of them in April, the group said.

A news organization’s instinct to downplay a story that reflects poorly on itself isn’t unusual. But in this case, some are attributing the disparity to politics. Weinstein has long been a supporter of liberal causes. “Does liberal Hollywood have a problem with sexual predators?” Trevor Noah, host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” asked this week. “Yes. Does conservative Fox News have the same problem? Yes. That’s my issue with this. It’s not supposed to be partisan.”

Indira Lakshmanan, a Boston Globe columnist and expert in journalism ethics, said the Weinstein allegations are clearly a big story. “But to devote hours of airtime to crowing about Weinstein’s well-deserved downfall because of his liberal politics, while ignoring the massive, decades-long pattern of harassment by powerful men at Fox, is both hypocritical and sad,” Lakshmanan said.

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