Brit Hume

Brit Hume (born June 22, 1943) is the Washington managing editor of the Fox News Channel. He anchors Special Report with Brit Hume and is a panelist on Fox News Sunday. Hume graduated from the University of Virginia, and is married to Kim Schiller Hume, Fox News's Vice President and Washington bureau chief.

Controversy

War in Iraq

Hume has come under fire more recently from the political left for comments made on air, with the criticism led by Media Matters for America, a liberal activist organization that critiques the press. One such criticism concerned a comment on August 26, 2003, regarding the loss of life during the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq:

Related Topics:
Media Matters for America - August 26 - 2003 - 2003 invasion - Occupation - Iraq

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

::"Two hundred seventy-seven U.S. soldiers have now died in Iraq, which means that statistically speaking U.S. soldiers have less of a chance of dying from all causes in Iraq than citizens have of being murdered in California, which is roughly the same geographical size. The most recent statistics indicate California has more than 2300 homicides each year, which means about 6.6 murders each day. Meanwhile, U.S. troops have been in Iraq for 160 days, which means they're incurring about 1.7 deaths, including illness and accidents each day."

Related Topics:
Murder - California

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Opponents attacked the factual accuracy of Hume's statement, pointing out that while someone in California has a 1 in 5.2 million chance of being murdered every day, a soldier in Iraq has a 1 in 113,000 chance of dying every day—46 times as high a risk. http://www.wage-slave.org/archives/00000233.html Supporters emphasize Hume's pointing out an undue focus on Iraq casualties when California murder victims didn't get the same type of news coverage by the mainstream American media. (Franken Accuses Hume)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hume has also been criticized for statements made on the March 28, 2004 edition Fox News Sunday. During the show, Chris Wallace and Hume were discussing criticism of a joke made by President George W. Bush. The joke referred to the lack of weapons of mass destruction found after the invasion of Iraq:

Related Topics:
March 28 - 2004 - President - George W. Bush - Weapons of mass destruction - Invasion of Iraq

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

::Chris Wallace: "And one that got a big laugh in the room that day -- and I must say, I still think it's funny -- the day after, some Democrats and the families of some American soldiers in Iraq, some who died in Iraq, said they were offended by this kidding about the missing weapons of mass destruction. Brit?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

::Brit Hume: "Well, we have a society in which one of the greatest things you can do is a platform to see victim status, and one of the qualifications for that is that you have these exquisitely tender feelings about things and sensibilities which are easily offended.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

::"And in America today, if your sensibilities are offended by something that has happened, you get an enormous amount of credibility and are taken very seriously.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

::"My own view of this is, the president's there poking fun at himself over what goes down, I think, as one of his failures. And I thought it was a good-natured performance, and it made him look good only in the sense that it showed he could poke fun at himself. But he certainly doesn't disguise the record on weapons of mass destruction.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

::And you have to feel like saying to people, "'Just get over it.'"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Critics charge that Hume's statement was offensive to the families of soldiers who died during the Iraq war. Others say the statements were not inappropriate in that they were not meant to be about military families and their reaction whatever it may be, rather it was directed at their self-appointed media advocates.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

2004 Presidential Campaign

Hume has been criticized for statements made June 2, 2004, on the Grapevine section of Special Report with Brit Hume:

Related Topics:
June 2 - 2004

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

::"The Washington Post has reported that the Bush re-election campaign is using, quote, 'unprecedented negativity against John Kerry.' The Post says Kerry has so far aired only 13,300 ads in major media markets, while Bush-Cheney has aired more than 49,000. But the Post is only counting ads from the period since March 4, when the Bush-Cheney '04 team began its ad campaign. The Post fails to note that more than 15,300 negative ads that Kerry ran during the primary season, which means that Kerry ran nearly 29,000 negative ads, more than twice as many as the Post noted." http://mediamatters.org/items/printable/200406030006.

Related Topics:
The Washington Post - Bush re-election campaign - Unprecedented negativity - John Kerry - Negative ads

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In this statement, Hume criticizes The Washington Post report on negative political ads, saying that the newspaper ignored negative ads run by John Kerry. Hume says that the Post should have gone further back, counting negative political ads made during the primary season. However, even if the Post had done that, it would have showed that Bush had run 71 percent more negative ads than has Kerry in one-third of the time. Opponents charge that this statement by Hume was an attempt to mislead viewers, remarking, "Indeed, if Bush had been running ads at his current pace since Kerry ran his first ad, his current negative ad total would be approximately 147,000 -- 413 percent greater than Kerry's current total" http://mediamatters.org/items/printable/200406030006. The Washington Post story in question was also criticized by their own ombudsman for being over the top and overstated after numerous complaints from readers.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

2004 Broadcaster of the Year award

Controversy surrounded Hume when he was awarded the National Press Foundation's Broadcaster of the Year award in 2004. The head of the University of Missouri's Washington journalism program, Geneva Overholser, resigned from the Foundation's board due to her belief that Hume's political views are connected to his journalistic work. Past recipients of the award such as National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg have also been criticized for allegedly biased journalism. However, Overholser did not step down over identical controviersies surrounding other award recipients.

Related Topics:
2004 - University of Missouri

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Social Security reform

On the February 3 edition of FOX News' Special Report with Brit Hume, Hume claimed that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the founder of Social Security,

Related Topics:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt - Social Security

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

had proposed something similar to the personal accounts offered by President Bush as part of his Social Security reform plan:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

:Senate Democrats gathered at the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial today to invoke the image of FDR in calling on President Bush to remove private accounts from his Social Security proposal. But it turns out that FDR himself planned to include private investment accounts in the Social Security program when he proposed it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

:In a written statement to Congress in 1935, Roosevelt said that any Social Security plans should include, quote, "Voluntary contributory annuities, by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age," adding that government funding, quote, "ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans." http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,146409,00.html http://mediamatters.org/items/200502040010 http://www.airamericaradio.com/weblogs/alfrankenshow/index.php?/franken/hume_context/

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Many liberal groups and liberal commentators, including Media Matters for America and Keith Olbermann, have claimed that Hume distorted Roosevelt's views. An inspection of the context in which Hume quoted FDR reveals that the former president wanted Social Security as we now know it, supported by taxpayers, to supplant the government funding simply given to retirees who had not payed into the system at the time of Social Security's enactment. http://www.ssa.gov/history/voluntaryannuities.html.

Related Topics:
Media Matters for America - Keith Olbermann

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But the record also shows that Roosevelt also was interested in the "voluntary contributory annuities," cited by Hume. The idea, however, was rejected by Congress, in part because of resistance from the insurance industry.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann claimed that Hume and FOX News committed "premeditated, historical fraud" in distorting FDR http://mediamatters.org/items/200502150008; on Olberman's low-rated program, James Roosevelt, Jr., said that Hume's "outrageous distortion" of FDR "calls for a retraction, an apology, maybe even a resignation" http://mediamatters.org/items/200502160003.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~