Bill Sammon
Bill Sammon is a former managing editor and vice president for
Personal life
A graduate of
Career
Sammon authored four New York Times bestsellers: At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election; Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism From Inside the White House; Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, Media Bias and the Bush Haters; and Strategery: How George W. Bush Is Defeating Terrorists, Outwitting Democrats, and Confounding the Mainstream Media. These books have been largely derided as overtly favorable to President George W. Bush and his administration. Vanity Fair critic James Wolcott listed Strategery among other related books on Bush written by "faithful holdouts in Bush's pep squad [who] are happy to have endowed him with superpowers" as "hagiography mash notes whose toothy gleam of triumphalism was almost blinding".[4] Reporter David Weigel sarcastically referred to these books as "scathing critiques of presidential power".[5] The American Prospect wrote that Sammon "wrote an astonishing four books on the topic of Bush's super-awesomeness".[6]
He is a frequent guest on Fox News programs like Special Report with Brit Hume, Fox News Sunday, and Hannity & Colmes. On September 13, 2007, Sammon appeared on Special Report and argued that Theodore Olson should be confirmed as Attorney General.
On February 27, 2009, Sammon was promoted to vice president of Fox News and Washington managing editor.
In January 2021, Sammon announced he was retiring at the end of the month, with his position to be assumed by editorial staff members. On the night of the 2020 United States presidential election, Sammon had supervised the network's Decision Desk HQ, which had controversially declared Arizona for then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Sammon's departure, along with that of Chris Stirewalt, was seen as retaliatory in light of President Donald Trump's criticism of the network and subsequent decline in viewership.[7] It was subsequently reported that Murdoch suggested that it was "maybe best to let Bill go right away" as a "big message with Trump people".[8]
Controversy
Fox News memos
Media watchdog group
Another leaked memo showed Sammon had given orders for Fox News to characterize then-
In 2009, during the Copenhagen Summit, Sammon instructed Fox News reporters to "refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question."[15]
References
- TV Newser. August 5, 2008. Archived from the originalon December 1, 2008.
- ^ Bill Sammon biodata
- ISBN 978-1-596-98036-5.
- ^ Wolcott, James (January 14, 2008). "How Bush Stacks Up". Vanity Fair.
- Reason.
- ^ Waldman, Paul (March 3, 2009). "Believe It or Not, He's Walking on Air". The American Prospect.
- ^ Ellis, Sarah (January 19, 2021). "Top Fox News managers depart amid Murdoch's concerns over controversial Arizona election night projection". The Washington Post. Retrieved September 21, 2022.
- ^ Barr, Jeremy; Ellison, Sarah; Weiner, Rachel (February 27, 2023). "Murdoch admits some Fox hosts 'were endorsing' election falsehoods". The Washington Post. Retrieved February 28, 2023.
- ^ Dimiero, Ben (December 9, 2010). "LEAKED EMAIL: Fox boss caught slanting news reporting". Media Matters for America. Archived from the original on December 10, 2010.
- ^ Petri, Alexandra (December 9, 2010). "Can't say 'public option' on Fox News? Try these instead!". The Washington Post.
- ^ Kurtz, Howard (December 9, 2010). "How Fox News Spun the Health-Care Debate". The Daily Beast.
- ^ Chait, Jonathan (December 9, 2010). "Shocker: Fox News Not Fair And Balanced". The New Republic.
- ^ a b Pareene, Alex (March 29, 2011). "Fox exec: That whole "Obama is a socialist" thing was a wacky joke". Salon.com.
- ^ Willis, Oliver (February 3, 2011). "FOXLEAKS: Fox Caught Scripting Socialism Attack". Media Matters for America. Archived from the original on February 6, 2011.
- ISBN 978-0415722568.
External links
- Biography at Fox News
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Bill Sammon on Charlie Rose
- Bill Sammon at IMDb
- Audio interview with Bill Sammon, radioblogger.com
- Critical review of Sammon's reporting, Rolling Stone magazine