Bill Sammon
Encyclopedia
Bill Sammon is Fox News Washington managing editor and a vice president for the network, as well as a published author and newspaper columnist. He previously worked as White House correspondent for the Washington Times and the Washington Examiner
before joining Fox News in August 2008.
, and Miami University
in Oxford, Ohio
, Sammon lives in Maryland
with his wife, Becky, and their five children: Brittany, Brooke, Ben, Billy, and Blair. He stands 6 feet 7 inches tall and is reportedly nicknamed by some, including President George W. Bush
, as "Big Stretch," or "Superstretch."
and his administration. Vanity Fair
critic James Wolcott
listed Strategery among a group of books on George W. Bush
written by "faithful holdouts in Bush’s pep squad [who] are happy to have endowed him with superpowers" by writing "hagiography mash notes whose toothy gleam of triumphalism was almost blinding." Reporter David Weigel
has sarcastically referred to these books as "scathing critiques of presidential power." The American Prospect
wrote that Sammon "wrote an astonishing four books on the topic of Bush's super-awesomeness."
He is a frequent guest on FoxNews shows like Special Report with Brit Hume
, Fox News Sunday
, and Hannity & Colmes
. On September 13, 2007, Sammon appeared on Special Report and argued that Theodore Olson
should be confirmed as Attorney General
"because his wife Barbara
died on 9/11."
On February 27, 2009, Sammon was promoted to vice president of Fox News and Washington managing editor, a position once held by Brit Hume
. New York
magazine reported that Sammon pushed FoxNews' political coverage "further to the right", to the discomfort of the network's reporters. In 2009, the progressive watchdog group Media Matters for America
published a selection of internal FoxNews emails, in which Sammon directed the news division to present a skeptical view of the scientific understanding of climate change
.
: "Right after Barack Obama
finished his well-received 2009 speech
in Cairo
, Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon did a quick word search on the president’s prepared remarks. When he didn't specifically see the words 'terror' or 'terrorism' or 'terrorist,' Sammon decided that the president was soft of terror, and his interpretation was immediately repeated on Fox, over and over again, on the 'objective' news shows." Sammon sent the following e-mail to Fox News personnel:
In actuality, "Obama had mentioned 9/11, and al-Qaeda
, and 'violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security.'"
(or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists
to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies." Critics charged that Sammon was “urging Fox’s supposed ‘straight news’ anchors and reporters to adopt right-wing spin
when discussing the news,” and that he “want[ed] to make sure that no one on Fox ever admits that global warming
is happening,” despite the fact that “the scientific consensus
is that climate change
is real and caused by man.”
Obama as a socialist
. "Sammon repeatedly said Obama's remarks were 'tantamount to socialism,' on-air and in a FoxNews.com column, while also sending around a memo noting 'Obama's references to socialism, liberalism, Marxism
and Marxists' in Dreams From My Father
." Some questions asked by Fox journalists, including one from Steve Doocy
(“Isn’t that what they do in socialist countries?”), were scripted by Sammon in the memo. Sammon later explained the incident as a product of his "rather mischievous speculation about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism, a premise that privately I found rather far-fetched."
Washington Examiner
The Washington Examiner is a free daily newspaper published in Springfield, Virginia, and distributed in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. It is owned by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz....
before joining Fox News in August 2008.
Personal life
A graduate of Saint Ignatius High School, in Cleveland, OhioCleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
, and Miami University
Miami University
Miami University is a coeducational public research university located in Oxford, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1809, it is the 10th oldest public university in the United States and the second oldest university in Ohio, founded four years after Ohio University. In its 2012 edition, U.S...
in Oxford, Ohio
Oxford, Ohio
Oxford is a city in northwestern Butler County, Ohio, United States, in the southwestern portion of the state. It lies in Oxford Township, originally called the College Township. The population was 21,943 at the 2000 census. This college town was founded as a home for Miami University. Oxford...
, Sammon lives in Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
with his wife, Becky, and their five children: Brittany, Brooke, Ben, Billy, and Blair. He stands 6 feet 7 inches tall and is reportedly nicknamed by some, including President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, as "Big Stretch," or "Superstretch."
Career
He is the author of four New York Times bestsellers: At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election; Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism from Inside the White House; Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, Media Bias and the Bush Haters; and Strategery: How George W. Bush Is Defeating Terrorists, Outwitting Democrats, and Confounding the Mainstream Media. These books have been largely derided as overly favorable to President George W. BushGeorge W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and his administration. Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
critic James Wolcott
James Wolcott
James Wolcott is an American journalist, known for his critique of contemporary media. Wolcott is the cultural critic for Vanity Fair and contributes to The New Yorker. He also writes a blog....
listed Strategery among a group of books on George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
written by "faithful holdouts in Bush’s pep squad [who] are happy to have endowed him with superpowers" by writing "hagiography mash notes whose toothy gleam of triumphalism was almost blinding." Reporter David Weigel
David Weigel
David "Dave" Weigel , is an American journalist, currently working for Slate magazine and MSNBC. Weigel began appearing on MSNBC in 2009, accepting a position as a paid contributor in June 2010...
has sarcastically referred to these books as "scathing critiques of presidential power." The American Prospect
The American Prospect
The American Prospect is a monthly American political magazine dedicated to American liberalism. Based in Washington, DC, The American Prospect is a journal "of liberal ideas, committed to a just society, an enriched democracy, and effective liberal politics" which focuses on United States politics...
wrote that Sammon "wrote an astonishing four books on the topic of Bush's super-awesomeness."
He is a frequent guest on FoxNews shows like Special Report with Brit Hume
Special Report with Brit Hume
Special Report with Bret Baier is an American television news and political commentary program appearing on Fox News Channel, currently hosted by Bret Baier. It airs live each Monday through Friday at 6:00pm ET. The show focuses on both reporting and analysis of the day's events, with a primary...
, Fox News Sunday
Fox News Sunday
Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace is a public affairs program on the Fox network, hosted by Chris Wallace and airing on Sunday mornings. The show began on April 28, 1996, which predated the launch of Fox News Channel, and usually talks about items similar to Sunday morning talk shows...
, and Hannity & Colmes
Hannity & Colmes
Hannity & Colmes was a live television show on Fox News Channel in the United States, hosted by Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes, who respectively presented a conservative and liberal perspective. The series premiered on October 6, 1996, and the final episode aired on January 9, 2009. It was the...
. On September 13, 2007, Sammon appeared on Special Report and argued that Theodore Olson
Theodore Olson
Theodore Bevry Olson is a former United States Solicitor General, serving from June 2001 to July 2004 under President George W. Bush.- Early life :...
should be confirmed as Attorney General
United States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
"because his wife Barbara
Barbara Olson
Barbara Olson was a lawyer and conservative American television commentator who worked for CNN, Fox News Channel, and several other outlets...
died on 9/11."
On February 27, 2009, Sammon was promoted to vice president of Fox News and Washington managing editor, a position once held by Brit Hume
Brit Hume
Brit Hume is an American television journalist and political commentator.For twenty years he was a correspondent for the American Broadcasting Company, including Chief White House Correspondent. He then spent ten years as the Washington, D.C. managing editor of the Fox News Channel and the anchor...
. New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
magazine reported that Sammon pushed FoxNews' political coverage "further to the right", to the discomfort of the network's reporters. In 2009, the progressive watchdog group Media Matters for America
Media Matters for America
Media Matters for America is a politically progressive media watchdog group which says it is "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Set up as a 501 non-profit organization, MMfA was founded in 2004 by journalist and...
published a selection of internal FoxNews emails, in which Sammon directed the news division to present a skeptical view of the scientific understanding of climate change
Scientific opinion on climate change
The predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth is in an ongoing phase of global warming primarily caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect due to the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases...
.
Obama Cairo Speech
According to Salon.comSalon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
: "Right after Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
finished his well-received 2009 speech
A New Beginning
"A New Beginning" is the name of a speech delivered by United States President Barack Obama on June 4, 2009, from the Major Reception Hall at Cairo University in Cairo, Egypt. Al-Azhar University co-hosted the event...
in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
, Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon did a quick word search on the president’s prepared remarks. When he didn't specifically see the words 'terror' or 'terrorism' or 'terrorist,' Sammon decided that the president was soft of terror, and his interpretation was immediately repeated on Fox, over and over again, on the 'objective' news shows." Sammon sent the following e-mail to Fox News personnel:
In actuality, "Obama had mentioned 9/11, and al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
, and 'violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security.'"
Climate Change memo
On December 8, 2009, Sammon sent a memo to Fox News anchors and reporters telling them to "refrain from asserting that the planet has warmedGlobal warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
(or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies." Critics charged that Sammon was “urging Fox’s supposed ‘straight news’ anchors and reporters to adopt right-wing spin
Spin (public relations)
In public relations, spin is a form of propaganda, achieved through providing an interpretation of an event or campaign to persuade public opinion in favor or against a certain organization or public figure...
when discussing the news,” and that he “want[ed] to make sure that no one on Fox ever admits that global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
is happening,” despite the fact that “the scientific consensus
Scientific opinion on climate change
The predominant scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth is in an ongoing phase of global warming primarily caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect due to the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases...
is that climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
is real and caused by man.”
Public Option Language Use Memo
As Washington managing editor at Fox News Mr. Sammon wrote in a 27 October 2010 memo:Subject: friendly reminder: let's not slip back into calling it the "public option" |
Scripted Socialism Memo
Another leaked memo showed that Sammon gave orders for Fox to cast then-SenatorUnited States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Obama as a socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. "Sammon repeatedly said Obama's remarks were 'tantamount to socialism,' on-air and in a FoxNews.com column, while also sending around a memo noting 'Obama's references to socialism, liberalism, Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
and Marxists' in Dreams From My Father
Dreams from My Father
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance is a memoir by United States President Barack Obama. It was first published in July 1995 as he was preparing to launch his political career, five years after being elected the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review in...
." Some questions asked by Fox journalists, including one from Steve Doocy
Steve Doocy
Stephen James "Steve" Doocy is an American network-television personality on the Fox News Channel, journalist, and a best selling author.-Early life:...
(“Isn’t that what they do in socialist countries?”), were scripted by Sammon in the memo. Sammon later explained the incident as a product of his "rather mischievous speculation about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism, a premise that privately I found rather far-fetched."
External links
- Biography at Fox News
- Profile at SourceWatchSourceWatchSourceWatch is an internet wiki site that is a collaborative project of the liberal Center for Media and Democracy...
- Audio interview with Bill Sammon, radioblogger.com
- Critical review of Sammon's reporting, Rolling Stone magazine