WACH, a Fox-affiliate in Columbia, SC, is demanding that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley apologize for a recent Facebook post in which she said the station “has no concept of journalism.”
The pointed criticism came after WACH posted a story about a new book from political advisor Will Folks, who claims that he had a sexual affair with Haley several years ago. Haley has vehemently denied Folks’s claims, which first surfaced last spring in the lead-up to the 2010 gubernatorial election, saying that she has been “100 percent faithful” to her husband.
David Olmsted, WACH’s president and CEO, issued the following statement regarding Haley’s Facebook comments:
The WACH Fox news department has published or broadcast more than 100 stories pertaining to Gov. Haley during the past year. Despite that voluminous amount of reporting, there is not a single documented instance of the governor challenging the accuracy of any fact in any of those reports.
The governor’s own actions concede the station’s coverage has been consistently fair, credible and accurate.
WACH ran the story this past weekend, linking to a short excerpt in which Folks describes his first (alleged) sexual encounter with Haley. WACH’s news director Bryan Cox has contended that the station’s coverage was fair and accurate.