Hacking Scandal Update: FNC Still Offers Least Coverage, But Was First with BSkyB News

By Alex Weprin 

With the News Corp. hacking scandal creeping onto U.S. shores thanks to calls for investigation by high-profile politicians, it continues to get extensive coverage on U.S. cable news. Fox News Channel, which is owned by News Corp., has continued to offer the least coverage of the scandal, according to TVEyes.

Yesterday the network covered the scandal six times, according to TVEyes (Update: Johnny Dollar weighs in, noting that there were actually nine mentions on FNC yesterday). By comparison, CNN covered it 24 times, and MSNBC 21 times, including a commentary from Martin Bashir, in which the anchor rips into News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch:

Advertisement

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


While the story led many of the hours on MSNBC and CNN, on FNC it was mostly relegated to news breaks, and in primetime only Greta Van Susteren addressed it, toward the end of her program.

Fox News was able to benefit from being a corporate sibling, however. The network was the first cable news outlet to report that News Corp. was withdrawing its bid to acquire BskyB yesterday, reporting it moments after the statement went over the wire.

Advertisement