Atlanta Fox affiliate blames ‘technical difficulties’ for cutting Jemele Hill before she dumped on Trump
It seemed as though the 'Atlantic' writer would get to voice her opinions about the president again, but suddenly...cut to commercial
Did a Fox station in Georgia intentionally censor journalist Jemele Hill’s critiques of the president?
According to Jezebel, Atlanta’s WAGA-TV (FOX 5) is claiming they experienced a broadcasting glitch at the exact same time that Hill was making comments against President Trump during her appearance this week at The Wendy Williams Show.
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In the past, the staff writer for The Atlantic and former ESPN sportscaster has flatly accused Trump of being a racist, tweeting in September of 2017, “Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.” At the time she was still working for ESPN as co-host of an evening edition of SportsCenter.
She was echoing a similar sentiment during Tuesday’s broadcast stating, “I thought it was something that was obvious, especially after Charlottesville. I was very disappointed, like a lot of people, that the president…”
Suddenly, mid-sentence, the broadcast was disrupted and her interview abruptly cut to a promo for Fox show Master Chef Junior. Instead of hearing Hill’s critiques, Fox 5 viewers spent almost two minutes watching commercials — including one from pizza chain Papa John’s, whose embattled former CEO John Schnatter has voiced public support for Trump — before finally cutting back to Williams’ talk show.
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By that time, the discussion had moved on from Trump onto a less polarizing topic.
The news station promised to re-air the interview in its entirety, but chose to do so in the early hours of Wednesday morning; further fueling speculation that the cut may have been a heavy handed attempt to stop viewers from hearing what Hill had to say.
“This morning, during a live broadcast of The Wendy Williams Show, FOX 5 experienced technical difficulties which triggered an interruption of the program,” read a statement from station reps. “The issue has been addressed and resolved. The program will be rebroadcast tomorrow morning from 3am-4am.”
The debacle over the Trump tweets led to a firestorm of controversy at ESPN, which ultimately resulted in her offering an apology for a later tweet in which people accused her of advocating assassinating the president. She was suspended, but returned and finally exited the network last September. She started working for The Atlantic as a staff writer the next month.
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