Fox's O'Reilly Producer Ambushes GE Shareholder Meeting

Media | Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 9:40:30 am PDT

MSNBC’s extreme leftward bias is obvious to any honest observer; Keith Olbermann is the poster boy for it, and was the winner of our 2007 Fiskie award.

But with this little stunt, Fox News crossed a whole lot of journalistic lines into behavior that borders on unethical: Drama at GE shareholders meeting.

The hostility between Fox News Channel and MSNBC reached a fever pitch Wednesday when a Fox producer infiltrated the GE shareholders meeting.

Just before GE re-elected board members, company brass were hit with questions from shareholders critical of an alleged leftward political slant at MSNBC.

But one of those questions came from Jesse Waters, a producer on “The O’Reilly Factor” whose criticisms were cut short when his microphone was cut off, according to several attendees. Waters apparently did not publicly identify himself as a Fox employee.

Waters has built a reputation as an ambush interviewer, specializing in on-the-street confrontations. But this is arguably the boldest move by a Fox newsie to utilize the tactic inside their chief rival’s tent, as it were.