Hmmmmm Very Interesting

Earlier this week, FTVLive reported that Fox News had reached a settlement with former PR head at the network, Brian Lewis.

Word is that FNC shelled out as much as $8 million dollars to keep Lewis quiet.

It was a big story to say the least. Anytime a news orginazation has to pay off one of their own to keep quiet, it's a story that deserves some attention.

And while many news outlets and blogs covered the story, there was one blog that did didn't touch the story. Some say it was out of fear. 

Mediabistro's TVNewser has not reported on the story of a major cable news outlet paying off a former staffer to stay quiet. 

Why?

One cable news executive emailed FTVLive with his take. 

"TVNewser is so in bed with Fox News that they knew if they covered the Brian Lewis story that FNC would cut them off. So they bowed down and kissed the ring (ass) of Fox News," the Executive said to FTVLive. 

FTVLive can't say if this is what happened, but we do wonder why the site chose to ignore what in reality is a big story? 

We can give you a first hand account about dealing with the Fox News PR Department and how what the cable executive says rings very true. 

For a longtime we would get calls and emails from Fox News PR...... heck, each Christmas we would get gifts from them.

FTVLive used to talk often with Irena Birganti at Fox News. Briganti was the No. 2 behind Brian Lewis. We also dealt with Lewis as well but not nearly as much as we did with Briganti. 

We liked Irena and always enjoyed our conversations with her. Some call he a bulldog and a spokes monster, but we always found her nice and a likable person. 

At one point, we did warn Briganti that one day we would write something that pissed her off and Fox News would stop calling.

It happened a couple of years ago.

We don't know what story it was or what we wrote, but Irena and the Fox News PR staff hasn't contacted us for years.

Oh..... the Christmas gifts stop coming as well. 

Although the Fox PR people have quit talking to FTVLive, it hasn't stopped us from writing both positive or negative things about FNC. Our goal remains the same to cover TV news as open and honestly as possible.

FTVLive is not "in bed" with any of the networks and we have praised and criticized them all.

We have often said that the last people we call are the PR people because they are the ones that are going to just spin the crap out of the story and it will likely be nowhere near the truth.

On the other hand, Mediabistro and their websites rely heavily on the PR people to provide them with press releases that they can regurgitate on their sites.

We're not saying that their way is wrong or not proper, it's just not the way we run FTVLive.com.

But, we will say, when you don't cover a story for fear of being "cut off," then you might as well throw your credibility out the window.

Just saying....

A footnote: When FTVLive FIRST broke the news that Sam Champion was leaving Good Morning America for the Weather Channel, we were a bit surprised when almost an hour later TVNewser posted the story with the tag "First on TVNewser!" We emailed Chris Ariens at TVNewser and informed him he was a bit late to the party. He never responded. 

Maybe that story alone should tell you everything you need to know about how that site operates.