Pop Culture

Fox News’ Rabid Tara Reade Coverage Is a Far Cry From Allegations Against Trump

While Fox News largely ignored or dismissed the more than two dozen women who came forward to accuse Donald Trump of sexual misconduct, the network now can’t get enough of Tara Reade. The network’s on-air mentions of Reade, a former Joe Biden Senate aide who alleges that the presumed Democratic nominee sexually assaulted her in the early ’90s, have already surpassed 300, according to the news transcript service TVEyes. The outlet’s website, which has a category tag dedicated to Reade, has published over 120 stories on her allegations, including exclusive interviews.

Given the network’s obvious favoritism of Biden’s soon-to-be opponent, its blanket coverage of Reade’s allegation is not surprising. But it is telling when compared to its coverage of E. Jean Carroll, the most recent woman to publicly accuse the president of sexual assault. When the longtime Elle magazine columnist claimed in 2019 that Trump raped her in the dressing room of a New York Bergdorf Goodman in the ‘90s—meaning her decision to come forward decades later followed a similar timeline to Reade’s—Fox barely mentioned her. A Daily Beast report this week found that the network touched on her claim just over six times, even as other outlets spent significant airtime and ink interviewing Carroll or those close to her.

The time elapsed between the alleged assault and when each woman chose to disclose it isn’t the only point of similarity. Carroll, like Reade, told friends about the incident around the time it was alleged to have occurred. (Biden has strongly denied the allegations). But the little coverage Carroll received on Fox News focused either on Trump denying her claims, casting doubt on them altogether, or on brief, straight news readings of her story—in contrast with the extensive panel discussions dedicated to deliberating Reade’s claim. In one of its few prime-time segments on Carroll’s allegation, Tucker Carlson wrote it off entirely, saying she has “no corroborating evidence” for the “confusing” claim and concluding, “It’s embarrassing and discredits all involved.” In another segment on Carroll, Senator John Kennedy, a Republican, sided with his colleague Senator Lindsey Graham’s defense of Trump. “Just because you are accused of something doesn’t mean you’re guilty and doesn’t mean you’re not entitled to due process,” said Kennedy on Martha MacCallum’s show, before noting “the accuser is also coming up with a book. Some will say it’s true but some will wonder if she’s doing this to sell her book.” The Beast also found that an allegation by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on NBC’s The Apprentice who claimed Trump sexually assaulted her, was covered less than a half dozen times on Fox News, including one instance in which a pro-Trump guest, David Wohl, accused her of “reading from a script.” (Trump denied Zervos’s allegation.)

When it comes to Biden, however, the standard seems to be different. “It’s never-believe-her if it’s a Democrat, even if there’s more credibility behind the allegation,” said Sean Hannity of Reade on Tuesday. His statement embodies the tone of much of his colleagues’ coverage too. Network hosts are quick to disparage the “mainstream media” for its handling of the Reade story, even as they cite the in-depth reporting done by left-wing and mainstream outlets on Reade’s allegation. “If any of that had existed in the [Brett] Kavanaugh case, Kavanaugh would’ve been finished,” said Marc Thiessen, a Fox News contributor, during a late April panel discussion on Reade’s contemporaneous evidence. “The Democratic standard here is that we believe the women as long as they are accusing a Republican. I don’t know if Tara Reade is telling the truth or not but we should hold the Democrats to the same standards that they held themselves in the Kavanaugh case.”

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