Newsman has words for colleagues

By David Bauder

AP Television Writer

NEW YORK

Sunday host Chris Wallace generally lives in peaceful co-existence with Fox News Channel’s opinion folks, except when he hears some of them echo President Donald Trump’s criticism of the news media.

Fake news? He’s fighting back.

“It bothers me,” Wallace said in an interview. “If they want to say they like Trump, or that they’re upset with the Democrats, that’s fine. That’s opinion. That’s what they do for a living.

“I don’t like them bashing the media, because oftentimes what they’re bashing is stuff that we on the news side are doing. I don’t think they recognize that they have a role at Fox News and we have a role at Fox News. I don’t know what’s in their head. I just think it’s bad form.”

Wallace, who turned 70 last week, speaks from a position of strength. He just signed a contract extension that commits him to keep questioning politicians for Fox until well past the 2020 election. Now the dean of Sunday morning political talk hosts, he moderated his first presidential debate last year and drew generally high marks.

He doesn’t call out press-bashing colleagues by name. It’s no secret that prime-time star Sean Hannity is the president’s fiercest defender on Fox, with frequent references to the “destroy Trump media.” Hannity criticized the press in 90 percent of his monologues from May 15 to Sept. 1, according to the liberal media watchdogs Media Matters for America, and used the term “fake news” 67 times.

Wallace generally steers clear of Fox News Channel’s opinionated shows when he makes appearances outside of “Fox News Sunday,” which is on the Fox broadcast network and is repeated on cable. He doesn’t go on the “Fox & Friends” weekday morning show, for instance, after he scolded that show’s hosts on the air in March 2008 for distorting remarks made by Barack Obama and giving excessive attention to them.

As president, Trump has given interviews to Fox News more than any other outlet, but he has favored Hannity and other supportive hosts like Jeanine Pirro and Jesse Watters. News anchors Wallace, Bret Baier and Shepard Smith and chief White House correspondent John Roberts have been shut out.