Phoenix Fox 10 anchor Kari Lake is under fire for a critical response to her superiors wanting her to delete her Parler social media account. Her remarks were accidentally caught on video. The Emmy-award winning anchor was about to do a Facebook Live with her co-anchor John Hook but didn’t realize the cameras had already started rolling.
Hook told her that management at the station wanted her to hide her Parler account. “I think they just think it’s been branded as a far-right kind of place,” Hook said. “So they don’t want you tied in with anything like that, where you’re going to get blowback from the New Times or whoever it is,” continued Hook.
He was referring to The Phoenix New Times, an alternative weekly known for an obsession with marijuana, sex, obscenity and a hatred of conservatives. The publication is fond of posting articles about pedophiles right next to articles critical of conservatives, as if they’re equally to be shunned.
Lake responded, “F**k them. They’re 20-year-old dopes. That’s a rag for selling marijuana ads.”
“I know,” Hook said. “But then you’re in a position where they’ve gotta explain it or you’ve gotta explain it.”
“I’m reaching people,” Lake said.
On Monday evening after the Facebook Live was broadcast, Lake did not appear in her usual 5 p.m. slot. The station may have fired her.
But Parler is not “far right.” It is billed as the free speech alternative to Twitter. It merely doesn’t censor people over politics like Twitter does. Plenty of people are on the site who decided to leave Twitter due to the bias against conservatives, which is probably why some associate it with the right.
This isn’t the only time Lake has hinted at having conservative views. Last year, she tweeted that the #RedForEd movement, which pushed for more school funding, was really a push to legalize marijuana. She later apologized for the tweet.
It is shocking that Lake would be punished over this mere incident. Just one or two brief remarks alluding to the fact she might be a conservative? It’s no secret that the New Times is a despised publication around town. Two former New Times owners, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, are currently under prosecution for allowing the prostitution of minors on their site Backpage.com. The New Times has long had a reputation for being slimy. New Times Editor Stuart Warner mocked Lake’s use of foul language, admitting, "Her language shows that she could work for New Times."
The reality is, it is very likely that news anchors don’t join Parler without getting permission from the station first. New Times probably pressured Fox 10 about Lake being on Parler.
This sets a bad precedent. It’s dictating that only those on the left can join left-wing sites, and only those on the right can join right-wing sites. And everyone in the media is supposed to be on the left so they can only join left-wing sites.
It’s essentially making it a crime punishable by the forfeiture of your career to talk to people who are right of center. Fox 10 is being intimidated by the left. Lake is merely trying to communicate with people on the right. And this has nothing to do with her use of the f word. News anchors are caught on camera all the time slipping and saying a naughty word, and nothing happens to them. It’s not what she said, it’s where she is saying it, on Parler. If you try to talk to people right of center, then we’re coming for you.
Why won’t Fox 10 stand up for its own people? Are the liberal bosses looking for an excuse to fire her? If she was a liberal who went on some left-wing social media site they wouldn’t care.
It doesn’t make any sense in Arizona. If you’re trying to gain market share in a red state, why don’t you appeal to the middle? Especially since local Fox outlets have some affiliation with conservative Fox News.
Lake’s Parler account is still live. However, she did remove the link to Parler from her Twitter bio. She’s still off the air. Will the station back down and let her back on the air? She was a very popular news anchor. Pandering to the New Times and ignoring the wishes of her viewers will only hurt the station’s popularity. Do they really want to put themselves in the same league as that rag?
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