Brit Hume: There's a double standard in media coverage on Biden allegations
Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume told 'Fox News @ Night' that the contrast between the coverage of Justice Brett Kavanaugh's allegations and former vice president Joe Biden's allegations is 'striking'
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There is a "pretty obvious" double standard between the media's coverage of allegations of sexual misconduct against former vice president Joe Biden and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume said Monday night.
Appearing on "Fox News @ Night" with host Shannon Bream, Hume pointed to the response of The New York Times.
"The contrast between how it covered the Kavanaugh allegations and the allegations against Joe Biden [is] pretty clear. The parallels between the two cases are pretty striking," he said.
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Hume said there was never any "really serious corroborating information" for the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford.
"And, the Times, of course, went with the Kavanaugh allegations right off the bat before there had been any attempt to investigate them by the Times or really anybody else," said Hume.
The Times drew criticism on Sunday after it deleted a tweet and tweaked its report about the 1993 accusation made by former Biden staffer Tara Reade.
Reade said she had tried to share her story last year, but nobody listened to her. This past Thursday, she filed a criminal complaint against Biden with police in Washington, D.C.
The Grey Lady's Executive Editor Dean Baquet appeared to admit Monday that the controversial change in its report was influenced by his presidential campaign.
The report originally read: "No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade's allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable."
Although no correction or editor's note was made in the report, the Times later explained their deleted tweet, saying, "We've deleted a tweet in this thread that had some imprecise language that has been changed in the story."
"We didn't think it was a factual mistake," Baquet said in a sit-down interview with Times media columnist Ben Smith. "I thought it was an awkward phrasing issue that could be read different ways and that it wasn't something factual we were correcting. So, I didn't think that was necessary."
"And, in this case, the Times waited, what?" Hume asked. "I don't know how many...19 days or something like that. They came out with an extensive story essentially concluding that the allegation was uncorroborated. Okay, I'll buy that."
"But," he continued further. "It also went on to say that there were cases in which the vice president had behaved in a touchy-feely way toward women that they found unwelcome. They didn't consider that to be sexual misconduct."
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"So, I think the double standard is pretty obvious and there's no way around it," he told Bream.
The Biden campaign has vehemently denied Reade's allegation.
"Women have a right to tell their story, and reporters have an obligation to rigorously vet those claims. We encourage them to do so, because these accusations are false," Kate Bedingfield, the deputy campaign manager and communications director for the Biden campaign, said in a statement to Fox News.
Fox News' Joseph A. Wulfsohn and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
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