The Conversation (0)
Ellie Abraham
Mar 04, 2022
Fox News foreign correspondent fact checks 'apologist for Putin'
Video
A Fox News journalist has been praised for fact-checking colleagues' and guests’ questionable takes on the invasion of Ukraine.
Jennifer Griffin is the national security correspondent for Fox News and has found herself being the reasonable voice among others who have appeared on the conservative news channel.
One of Griffin’s Fox News colleagues Tucker Carlson recently drew criticism for appearing to downplay Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He asked viewers to question why they hate Putin, despite him launching a “full-scale invasion” of the sovereign state.
Elsewhere on the channel’s morning news discussion program Fox and Friends, former President Trump’s daughter-in-law and regular Fox News contributor, Lara Trump said: “Well, I think we all know if Donald Trump were president, this would not have happened.”
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, Griffin has been forced to challenge and debunk some of the misinformation and messaging from people appearing on the news channel while live on air.
Fox News' @JenGriffinFNC with a forceful fact-check after the previous guest, former Trump adviser Doug Macgregor, said the U.S. should "absolutely" let Putin take parts of Ukraine.\n\n"What he just said was so distorted that I do feel that our audience needs to know the truth"pic.twitter.com/WRxRHxS7qr— Dave Brown (@Dave Brown) 1646053866
In one viral clip, Griffin said: “I feel like I need to correct some of the things that Colonel Doug Macgregor said and, I’m not sure that 10 minutes is enough time to do so, because there were so many distortions in what he just said.”
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The Guardian reports Macgregor had claimed Putin had no intentions to invade other countries and he was “carrying through on something that he has been warning us about at least for the last 15 years”.
Macgregor also said the Ukrainians and Russians are “indistinguishable” and asserted that Putin should be able to take as much of Ukraine as he wants.
After his appearance, Griffin swiftly moved to question what he had said, saying he sounded like “an apologist for Putin”.
Griffin continued: “I don’t think anyone that I’ve spoken to here at the Pentagon or elsewhere in western intelligence believes they know how far Putin wants to go, and I think that the world has seen what Putin is capable of.”
In response to a clip on Twitter, one person wrote: “Glad she’s there, because their audience doesn’t get the truth from most of the others pontificating on that network.”The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered. To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here. To sign the petition click here. If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page.