♪♪ howard: the mostly liberal hosts at "the view" were beating up on fox news when megyn mccain objected -- meghan mccain objected. >> we've never once talked about hunter biden as a hot topic whereas if ivanka or donald trump jr. cough in the wrong direction, there's a reason why fox is killing it in the ratings. it seems like it's rigged every place else. howard: now, meghan, who disclosed that her husband ben domenech recently became a fox

news contributor, they do it from a place of moral righteousness. we stand for truth, justice and the american way. and usually exempt their side from the slightest scrutiny. >> i mean, let's go down the list of the things that are inaccurate on cnn and msnbc, and then we can talk about fairness in the media. howard: now, of course, what i try to do is look at bias and blunders on all sides, and you'll see that on this program. last night "the washington post," new york times and nbc all acknowledged a major blunder in their coverage of rudy giuliani. we'll see how much attention that gets. i'm howard kurtz and this is "mediabuzz." ♪ ♪ howard: "the new york times" bombshell exploded across all the cable news networks. federal investigators were

serving search warrants on rudy giuliani at his manhattan home and office in a criminal probe of his dealings with ukraine. but what the times has now retracted aa long with nbc and the washington post is the allegation that the fbi briefs the former mayor on a russian intelligence operation. earlier the one-time federal prosecutor denounced the search warrants. >> destroyed the evidence. evidence is exculpatory. it proves that the president and i and all of us are innocent. they're the ones who are committing -- it's like projection. they're committing the crimes. >> as boppingers as it was -- bankers as it was, it also makes a tad for sense from giuliani's perspective because the desperate lawyer knew with his prized client out of the who whe house, he would lose up his bulletproof vest. >> now prosecutors want to lock up an icon for a technicality? did rudy giuliani hurt anybody?

no. howard: joining us now, guy benson, host of daily show and podcast for fox news radio and liz claman, host of "the claman countdown" on fox business weekdays at three eastern. guy, "the washington post" was the first to retract this allegation that the fbi had warned rudy giuliani that he was the target of a russian disinformation campaign against joe biden. this came after he denied it. what's the impact on all three news organizations for correcting such a major accusation? >> well, it's a credibility hit again. and, look, if rudy did something wrong or illegal, let's let this process play out, but this is another example of one of the associates of donald trump in the headlines, in the news about some apparent or alleged malfeasance involving russia or ukraine, and you would think based on huge mistakes that have been made in the past on this front, news organizations would be especially sensitive and careful on these questions and

on these matters. and yet this is a huge, glaring mistake that had to be corrected by these three organizations. and, howie, here's a line that stands out to me from the nbc correction. quote: the report was based on a source -- a, not sources, a source -- familiar with the matter. and then was contradicted by a second source. often to go to print you need at least two corroborating sources. it sounds like they went with one person who was supposedly familiar with the matter. i don't know how familiar this person could have been -- howard: yeah, that's the point. >> -- they got the wrong information from them, and my question is at what point do you burn a source and expose who they are? if they give you wrong information and you broadcast or publish that information about a public figure and then you have to go through this embarrassing retraction process, why protect that source? howard: yeah. liz, "the new york times" at first stealth edited its story by modifying the language about the accusation, and then after "the washington post" it ran an

actual correction. rudy giuliani is calling on all three organizations to reveal their source. what's your thought about in this. >> well, that's never going to happen. [laughter] the media definitely, at least the three -- the new "the new yk times," washington post picked it up and, of course, nbc news -- they do have egg on their face about this. i would give them credit for issuing corrections. i wouldn't exactly say it was an outright retraction the, it was a correction at least on "the washington post" page. my morning hard copy of "the new york times" did not have the article at all, howie, so i don't know what that says. but depending -- you know, i'm in jersey. who knows how early i get that. but the fact is, you know, the fact that the media pounced on this story, it should not be a surprise to anybody. the legitimacy of it is such that when you have the feds going into a judge and saying we

need a warrant to go in and seize electronics of anybody, let alone a lawyer who is usually protected by attorney/client privilege, you have to prove that there's some type of legit9 massey to that. -- legitimacy. there's some didn't joe biden get criticized for saying that derek chauvin was guilty? we don't know exactly what doj's investigating rudy giuliani for. we have a lot of leaks about it. >> correct. and, by the way, just to liz's point, my comment in using the word retraction was about this particular claim -- howard: yeah, i agree with that. >> -- they put that in a

retraction. but i would say to your question, howie, on this we don't know is the key and operative phrase. we don't know exactly what the details are, the internal intricacies of the case against rudy. is it a fair thing to go after him, are they targeting one side versus another in i believe this investigation started during the bill barr tenure at doj, so that's one piece of countervailing evidence to maybe point the finger that this is political. i just don't want to engage in too much conjecture about how strong the case is here against rudy and whether he's culpable and if this is fair or not because we don't know nearly enough information yet. and i would hope that more people in the media would take that approach as opposed to immediately jumping to the foregone conclusion which has not served them well on this issue set in the past. howard: yeah. this was at the heart of the first trump impeachment trial. having to do with rudy's role in

persuading donald trump to remove to ukraine. look, i used to cover rudy giuliani when he was u.s. attorney in manhattan, liz, and he knows because he went after of the mob and wall street and a lot of -- approved a lot of search warrants, i'm sure, that you can't get a federal judge to approve a search warrant unless you can show there's a likelihood that the person committed the crime. so i don't want to minimize any of this, but e when you get a major part of the story wrong, it does cloud the whole situation. >> you know, in this case and all of these big types of stories, the media climb all over another. we used to joke in the news, first at six, correct at eleven. [laughter] that's not okay when you're dealing with allegations of serious criminal charges here of whether you took some type of money or exchange of information from a foreign hobbyist or some sort of -- lobbyist or some sort of situation which is at least what we can kind of conjure up about the center of this case. i would say, you know, howie,

that this is a very serious situation, and you can't rush to judgment without making sure that you have all of your ducks in a row. and i am sure it's not a great day around the newsrooms of some of these organizations. howard: yeah. right. >> that said, they do get credit for quickly retracting all of this within 24 hours. howard: the question is how many people see the retraction, is it on the air. rudy giuliani is entitled to presumption innocence. let me turn to president biden. it seems to me most of the media is embracing the notion of joe biden as a transthe formational president -- transformational president with only a few journalists taking a critical look at the ramifications of his increasingly costly agenda. your thoughts. >> they like him because they all voted for him, and they want him to succeed. their progressive liberals, and they want him to -- they're

progressive liberals, and they like his agenda. they play favorites, they root for a team, they wear the blue jersey. they'll occasionally be fair to other people, criticize their own team, they'll do it sometimes. that's what this is. and i would like to see more critical coverage or at least questioning of him about the whole premise of this transformational fdr 2.0 thing. this is not the joe biden who ran for president. this is not the joe biden who won his primary by not being that. he wasn't saying we need revolution, let's spend, you know, $10 trillion, $6 trillion -- howard: right, i want to come back to that point, but let me get liz in because there have been a few media liberals and democrats who are questioning the stunning price tag for these three bills, passing $6 trillion. you're the business expert, i mean, the country's already drowning in debt. >> we are, and, by the way,

there was $22 trillion in debt before joe biden did take office. there's $28 trillion now, i checked the debt clock this morning. the associated press, let me just say this to guy, the associated press came out and made this important point about what is infrastructure and what is not. and they said strengthening the right of workers to join unions does not resemble concrete in an underpass. however, you've got to look at the new form of infrastructure. it is not just transportation, roads, bridges, tarmacs at airports. it is expanding broadband into rural areas which is something president trump brought up. it is definitely fixing waste water and drinking water systems in many different municipalities. so there are new expansions to the definition of infrastructure. it is a huge amount of money, but it's not something that the republicans really can go full-throated after because donald trump's infrastructure plan was $3 trillion. that's even more than the -- howard: well, everybody's in

favor of pending money when their guy -- spending money when their guy is in the white house. when we come back, a closer look at coverage of the biden speech to congress, and later former trump spokesman ohio began giddy joins us. ♪ ♪ ♪ when i was younger ♪ you need a financial plan that fits the way you want to live in retirement. a plan that can help grow and protect your money. now or in the future. with an annuity in your plan to help cover essential expenses, you can live the retirement you want. the right financial professional can show you how. this is what an annuity can do. ♪ ♪ if you have... ...moderate to severe psoriasis, ... ...little things... ...can become your big moment. that's why there's otezla.

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♪ howard: the media practically are giving president biden a standing ovation, the only real debate being whether he's more like fdr or lbj even as defactors wonder if we can afford the $6 trillion on programs he touted to congress. >> the worst attack on our democracy since the civil war. we're on track to ask cut child poverty in america in half this year. [applause] this is the largest jobs plan

since world war ii. >> every single sentence had a very clear point to it, and every line of it had that biden humility in it. >> conservatives need to reject biden's claim that our country's in crisis at all. these only exist in the minds of leftist idealogues who hate america anyway. howard: guy benson, as you noted earlier and as a few journalists elsewhere pointed out, joe biden campaigned on a far more moderate platform. remember, he wasn't bernie, he wasn't elizabeth. if a republican president had done that -- and donald trump was a disruptive president, but he laid out most of what he was going to do in the campaign -- wouldn't the pundits be screaming this is outrageous and this is not what you promised the american people? >> yeah, race to the right, he's appeasing the hard core, red meat base, this is not how he won, the first big lie in the presidency, that type of thing, right? but he didn't face bernie sanders and elizabeth warren, he

beat people like that by differentiating himself from those agendas. and yet i was watching the speech on, what was it, wednesday night, and the economic portions of it, this could have been delivered by a president warren, quite frankly. and so when you run during a pandemic saying i'm not the other guy, i'll take it more seriously, you know, let's get back to normal, we have to heal, we have to work together, bipartisanship is possible, we just have to do it, i know how and then you show up in the presidency and all of a sudden you're looking in the mirror and you see fdr and, you know, aoc is saying i'm pleasantly surprised, he's much less moderate than i thought he was going to be the, i think there should be some feet to the fire here from the media about working with republicans and not redefining bipartisanship to cut republicans in congress out of the equation with. i mean, it's ruled crouse, and it's not what he campaigned on. howard: biden's team would say

we're in the middle of a pandemic and that's the reason for going so big and also, by the way, we invited somebody from the biden white house on this program, we were turned down. that invitation stands. liz, it was a huge headline in politico, world war iii size type, biden just gave the most ideologically ambitious speech of any democratic president in generations, and that's true. but the overall tone of the media is that that's a good thing, he's going to help all these people. i'm seeing less critical analysis. >> the media is way over its skis on the fdr comparison. why? yes, the amount of money is the same, but this is not going to get passed in its current form, howie, no way. and, you know, they had to pass the covid relief plan through reconciliation. this one's different. republicans do want their name attached to some type of infrastructure will. it's going to be -- bill. it's going to be smaller than what biden wants, bigger than what the republicans want, but i think guy's point is very true about how president biden was as a candidate, how he is today. you know, it seems like his mode

now is talk moderate, walk progressive. that said, president trump similarly did the same thing. during the campaign he said rich guys like me are going to pay a lot more in taxes. they did not. they got a big tax cut. as did a lot of the rest of the country. but, again, back to the they all do it, it is interesting to see the reason the media can't get ahead of its skis is because this thing is not going to pass at its current price tag. when you attach the price tag, that's what turns what was president biden, candidate biden's promise of a big infrastructure plan into that progressive, really tax and spend -- howard: well, just briefly, guy, one of the reasons is people forget that roosevelt and lbj had huge democratic majorities on the hill, and biden's got a 5-vote edge in the house and a 50-50 senate, so a little political reality here from the press. >> yeah. i mean, the dems are sort of

acting like they won with big majorities. clearly not the case. but to your point about the rooting interests of the media and the way that they're framing this, there's a reason why they seem to be begging joe manchin every day to change his mind on the filibuster. they can't stop hounding the guy on this issue. it's the only way they can get this huge left-wing agenda through. they understand that's one of the stumbling blocks to the agenda they would like to see pass. so the same question day in and day out, it feels less like journalism, more like lobbying. howard: liz, free preschool, free community college, climate change, it all sounds appealing. you have the tax end of it where president biden -- he did campaign on this saying i will raise corporate taxes, and i will raise taxes on people earning more than $400,000. do you think the media are buying the notion that this is just asking those groups to pay their fair share? >> well, there's no notion, that's exactly what the democrats have said, that the wealthy should pay their fair

share. that is an old line. then it becomes define fair share. well, there may be a hike in capital gains taxes on people making more than a million dollars. so these, by the way, are very popular on both sides of the political spectrum, howie. and i think that's why the gop is in a very tight spot here. they have to thread the needle on saying we need to make it smaller because this'll be a problem, and who doesn't want to come back and say, you know, we fixed the bridge in kentucky? howard: right. there's a pork barrel aspect and also getting someone else to pay the higher taxes. great discussion. guy benson, thank you very much. liz, see you later. up next, a whole bunch of racist tweets targeting tim scott after the senator delivered the republican response to president biden who now says he doesn't disagree. ♪ ♪

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♪ howard: when senator tim delivered the gop response to president biden's speech to

congress, he spoke frankly about racism and discrimination. >> hear me clearly. america is not a racist country. i get called uncle tom and the n-word by progressives, by liberals. howard: well, some left-wingers twisted that reference into uncle tim, a slur that was actually trending on twitter. for instance, former msnbc quoted it. after some heated debate on cable news. >> his audience, to me, appeared to be conservative, white republicans who are angry over certain things. i am shocked and a bit embarrassed for him. >> a black conservative like tim scott is the democratic worst nightmare. why? because it debunked the race card issue. >> the left is, they have doubled down that they're going to not attack my policies, but

they are literally attacking the color of my skin. howard: joining us now, kevin corke, a white house correspondent for fox news. and, kevin, to me, these uncle tim tweets were utterly racist, and i don't understand why twitter waited 11 hours to reduce their visibility by taking them off the trending label. what's your take on the whole situation? >> reporter: well, as an active user of twitter, i think it's fair to suggest that had this been another candidate or another party member, i don't think there's any question this would not have taken 11 hours, in fact, i'm almost certain this would have been down probably within an hour, and that speaks to what we're seeing in the country writ large. i think what really happens when people use the expression uncle this, what they're really suggesting is that dissent of political thought is i somehow dangerous or somehow pollyannaish, and i don't think that's what the senator was saying. he said this country's not

racist. we heard kamala harris, the vice president are, say as much, joe biden too. but what really happens too often, i think, in conversation now especially in media is they will use words used by, say, someone on the right and then use it as a cudgel even if those same words are used by someone on the left. howard: let me play for our audience -- you're right, kamala harris on good morning america, and president biden was asked about craig melvin about the remarks, and here's what he said. >> he said among other things, america isn't racist. is it? >> i don't think america's racist, but i think the overhang from if all of the jim crow and before that slavery have had a cost, and we have to deal with it. howard: tim scott said on cbs this morning i'm glad biden and harris agree with me. why were his remarks so incendiary? >> again, because he's got that r before his name.

let's use joe biden's words previously when he said they're going to put y'all back in chains. if a republican had said that, he would have been vilified, yet if joe biden says it, it gets a passive look by the media. again, i think in the case of senator scott, because he is a republican, he will be viewed through a different lens is my expectation as i watch the way the media handles democrats and republicans. this doesn't surprise me. i think the disheartening part of it all, howie, is i think you're seeing more, let's just say framing by reporters instead of simply telling the facts. howard: the criticism from liberals like nbc's joy reid, do you think they don't like a black conservative helping to shape the debate? >> yeah. i think leo probably was right, there's danger if you think about it. if you're a democrat, you don't want sort of a splintered political thought among blacks because their so -- they're so

needed by the party. that's one way to look at it. i don't think you'll see any let up on this, unfortunately. howard: kevin corke, thanks so much. next on "mediabuzz," donald trump goes after his successor on mass vaccines and a whole lot more. hogan gidley is on deck. ♪♪ we made usaa insurance for members like martin. an air force veteran made of doing what's right, not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage.

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don't have to wear masks outdoors, but in a today show interview he said this: -- >> the president of the united states outside with a mask on? >> look, you and i took our masks off when i came in. look at the distance we are. if we were, in fact, talking close, i'd have my mask on even though we have both been vaccinated. so it's a small precaution to take that has a profound impact. howard: joining us now from palm beach, hogan gidley, former white house deputy press secretary, also trump campaign spokesman. biden says, well, it's different when you're president because people are always coming up to you. there's been some critical coverage on the left that biden might be discouraging people from getting vaccinated by constantly wearing masks. is he sending the wrong message? >> absolutely. what do you think the american people are going to walk away with when the president of the united states wears a mask outside alone on his way the a podium in which he's going to

tell you the cdc says when you're outside alone, you don't need to wear a mask if you've been advantage cityuated? not to mention -- advantage -- vaccinated? if you've been vaccinated, if you are indoors, if you are socially distanced, you do not need to wear a mask. everyone in there put a mask on. that means one of two things. either, one, the vaccine doesn't work or, two, our democrat leaders aren't following the science. either way, it ain't good. now, we all know the vaccine works, it's a medical miracle because of donald trump and operation warp speed and what he was able to accomplish. but the left does this virtue signaling that if i put a face covering over my face, i'm somehow better than you. but we all know when they think no one's watching, the pretension comes down. arrogance is gone, and nancy pelosi can open up a hair salon, john kerry can take his max on at a plane -- mask off on a

plane. they all know it's a total joke. howard: i've said many times president trump deserves a lot of credit for operation warp speed, but he brought this up when he called in to maria bartiromo's fox business show. >> unfortunately, mr. president, this administration is blaming you and your administration x they refuse to give you any credit for many of the accomplishments -- >> obviously, they're very ungracious people. i did the vaccine. they like to take the vaccine, but even the fake news isn't giving them credit for that. howard: but when the president says things like that, doesn't it give the um presentation that he's always looking -- impression that he's always looking backwards? >> once again, donald trump is a counterpuncher. and what happens is they attacked him and said this country had no vaccine, had no plan. this was all in place when joe biden took office, okay?

so the media continues to look back, and they continue to try and attack our administration when this president did something that no one else in history was ever able to accomplish. in less than a year, he developed and distributed a vaccine for a brand new, unforeseen, unprecedented virus. joe biden got the vaccine before he was sworn into office. howard: right. >> thanks to donald trump. and the media still won't give him credit for it. and joe biden in his speech to congress could have done the only bipartisan thing he's tried to do since being president, he could have said and thanks to donald trump for setting up operation warp speed, using the military to get the vaccine out to the american people. i got it, i appreciate it, everyone should go out and get it, but joe biden do that because he's going to -- can't do that because he's going to plagiarize and lie for the next four years. howard: we spoke about "the washington post," new york times, nbc running a correction,

that the fbi warned rudy giuliani he was the target of a russian disinformation campaign. do these corrections call into question, in your view, their reporting on the overall subject? >> oh, absolutely. but this is nothing new. these mistakes that the media always make, have you noticed they never are in republicans' favor? it's always against us, they have to come out and issue the correction much later? it's the old adage, i'm going to butcher it, but a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth puts on its pants? they know once that's in the ether, it's very difficult to change. they don't have the journalistic standard to use double sourcing or someone who's willing to go on the record. no, they'll take that shady source and run something to get it first, not to get it right, if it hurts republicans. we've seen this time and time again whether it's russia or somebody like tony bobulinski who you guys on fox featured who kale out at great potential peril to himself and his family

on the record and said i know these things about joe biden. i was in the meetings. he knows about the dealings with hunter biden and china, and the media said, no, that's debunked. they had the laptops with the e-mails and the text messages. today don't care. the media refuse to cover that because they'd rather use these sources who don't have the guts or the courage to come forward and say i'll say this on the record. we do, and they still won't cover the story. howe hu in this case the sources were flat wrong about rudy. i want to get your take on the overall coverage of president biden's first 100 days, the $6 trillion in spending, but i also need to bring this up which is during the campaign donald trump said that the stock market would crash if joe biden was elected. that was his words. actually, it's off to the best start since fdr, so at least on that point was the former president wrong? >> he was not. donald trump rebuilt this economy once, a pandemic came from china, hit the globe, it hurt our economy.

he rebuilt the economy again. we gave joe biden the keys to a ferrari, and now he's turned it, and he's heading straight into a ditch as fast as that car will go. the american people are going to be in a world of hurt when joe biden's policies take effect. that's what donald trump was talking about. because we know when you have record high employment for african-american, asian-american, hispanic-americans, women, more jobs than there were people to fill them, you have low taxes, lower regulation, corporate tax rates that brought businesses back into this country, if you do the opposite, it's going to have the opposite effect, and that's what joe biden is proposing. howard: i understand. >> trillions of dollars in spending, it's going to hurt the american people, and they know it. howard: the stock market since january 20th is up about 10%. hogan gidley, thanks so much for being here. >> thanks so much, howie. howard: "usa today" lets stacey abrams flout the rules and why a

reporter quits "the new york post." stay with us. muck. ♪ l is scotts turf builder rapid grass. it grows two times faster than seed alone for full, green grass. everything else just seems... slow. it's lawn season. let's get to the yard. good boy! [laughs] ♪ hold my pouch. ♪ trust us, us kids are ready to take things into our own hands. don't think so? hold my pouch.

♪ na na na na ♪ na na na na... ♪ hey hey hey. ♪ goodbye. ♪ na na na na... ♪ hey hey hey. ♪ goodbye. ♪ na na na na ♪ na na na na... the world's first six-function multipro tailgate. available on the gmc sierra. howard: "usa today" ran an opinion coluy stacey abrams, the georgia democratic activist, defending the national criticism of major league baseball as it was about to pull the all-star game from atlanta, but a week later the paper allowed abrams to challenge the boycott.

steve krakauer, how does "usa today" let stacey abrams change her position, go back and teleedit this piece -- stealth edit this piece and not tell readers about it? >> yeah. this was a weird one. we often see, and you mentioned a couple of these corrections with stories about rudy and others where if there's a fact missing, edits happen, and often there's a little, you know, appended correction or note from the editor. very rarely does that happen with opinion columns, even more rare, i don't know if i've seen it with someone who doesn't work for "usa today" the to do this. this was such a strange one because if you read the original column, it was this great exercise in kind of fence sitting. if you wanted to find, you know, information about an argument for why major league baseball should leave georgia, it was in there. if you wanted to find why they shouldn't boycott, it was in there. howard: right, let me just -- >> go ahead. hu howe i just wanted to mention that the parent company said we

regret the oversight, i it won't happen again. it shouldn't have happened in the first place, but let me move on to this. new york post published a false front page story charged that kamala harris' book was being given illegally to unaccompanied minors at the border. no i the reporter -- now the reporter has resigned tweeting an incorrect story i was ordered to write in which i failed to push back hard enough against was my breaking point. the paper says "the new york post" does not order reporters to publish factually correct information. in this case, the story was amended as soon as it came to the editor's attention it was inaccurate. how does this back and forth reflect on "the new york post" especially with the reporter saying i was ordered to do it? >> yeah, the whole internal politics is playing out on twitter, and that furthers the story. look, we saw this a lot during

the trump err rah in certain cases. you start with this premise, and in this case you've got a story like kamala harris isn't theoretically in charge of the border, she's not going to the border, then there's this picture from reuters of her book with a backpack next to it, somehow that transforms into their handing it out to every kid and it's on the cover of "the new york post." it's just an exercise of this overreach when it comes to this issue, and it really does reflect poorly. obviously, it's good "the new york post" corrected it, it's only -- more of a headache the reporter saying she was forced to do this. howard: there's another story that the biden climate change plan would have to cut meat consumption. this grew out of a purely specklative piece in the daily mail. some republican members of congress picked it up, and to your point, this stuff spreads like wildfire. >> exactly. this came from a study at the

university of michigan about what may need to be done. that was sort of, you know, very loosely tied in this daily mail piece, and then the it just got, you know, the ball just started going and the snowball effect, all of a sudden it's in the biden plan when it really could have used a little bit of stepping back and thinking about something before putting out a tweet or another story that furthers this fault narrative. howard: right. both the kamala book story and the meat story were picked up by a number of fox news programs, and they pointed out a graphic in the script incorrectly implied this was part of biden's plan for dealing with climate change, that is not the case. what is your analysis of the way these stories spread not just on fox, but elsewhere? >> yeah. look, it's a symptom of our time, i think. things are moving so fast, a lot of times these stories bubble up, particularly the kamala

harris book story. it feels like it's this great self-con taping little segment -- contain thing little segment, and all of a sudden it's out there, and before anyone can say, wait a second, is this really true? we saw this during the trump era at all on a lot of different news outlets that really do know better x. it's this crying wolf effect. the next time there's a story and it is true, there's this little thought in the back of people's mind, oh, wait a second, they got the last one wrong, let's hold back on it. that's really unnecessary. howard: the stories are buzzy, click bait, and you ought to go back to the original source and say is this a fact and what's the ed. all right -- the evidence. cnn business has launched an internal investigation into the treatment of women and workplace culture at that unit. this is according to business insider being overseen by at&t. how serious is that? >> yeah, it's potentially serious. we don't know. it seems like a story that's really in the infancy here.

there's a lot more details to come out. i'm conning to do some -- continuing to do some reporting to find out more. it's a single unit within the larger, broader company of cnn, and we'll see. there was a big me too reckoning that really saw itself among pretty much every single newsroom about four years ago, and we didn't really see much about it. is this the part of that story, we don't know yet, but it's something to watch and see what the result ares might be. howard: right. and some women are reported as saying they don't get the full support or the same level of pay. you're right. steve krakauer, thanks for joining us. still to come, why ratings for the oscars are in the toilet, and an uproar at simon and simon & schuster. time for ache and burn! over-the-counter eye drops typically work by lubricating your eyes and may provide temporary relief. those probably won't touch me. xiidra works differently, targeting inflammation that can cause dry eye disease.

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♪ howard: the ratings for the oscars absolutely plummeted to fewer than 10 million viewers. that's a plunge of nearly 60% for a program that began with this bit of wokeness by one host, regina king. [applause] >> i know that a lot of you people at home want to reach for your remotes when you feel like is preaching to you, but as the mother of a black son, i know the fear that so many live with. howe preaching. -- howard: hollywood preaching. was it that the show that was so weird and disjointed with no host, no enve loips and talking about movies that almost no one saw because of the pandemic? >> no viewers. this is a couple of things. number one, let's just get this off the way. with the adoption of netflix and hbo max and disney plus, howie, i cover this every day on my fox business show, the traditional networks are just not getting those kinds of eyeballs.

i would say though for a show that promises to focus on the greatest entertainment of the year, it was completely devoid of entertainment. [laughter] and part of that, number one, is that they didn't start with a comic. if ever there was a year where we needed to hear from a bily crystal or a whoopi goldberg or ellen degeneres being self-depracatinging, it was this year. that was a real misstep, i think. i would say that the original beginning with regina king walking through union station, it was kind of hip, this is cool. and then the whole thing was after a while, i felt like i'm turning to forensic files. howard: i lasted about an hour. more than 200 simon and schuster staffers signing a petition saying the company shouldn't publish mike pence's book because it's legitimizing bigotry. ceo jonathan karp said we come to work each day to publish, not cancel. this is the latest culture war,

cancel culture front. >> yeah. and it's odd that it would go to the heart of book publishing. book publishing historically has been all about first amendment, presenting all different kinds of robust ideas in book form. and, you know, you never want to start banning books or saying we're not going to publish anybody from any administration. i mean, mike pence's would be a memoir, and you're looking at it through the prism of a point in history. so, therefore, i would say, sure, you know, of course you don't want to tart canceling that. -- start canceling that. i would understand employees would not want to, you know, push forth on a book that's about hate speech, that has hate speech in it or something like that, but this is a very worrisome trend, and i applaud the ceo for that. howard: yeah. simon & schuster did cancel senator josh hawley's book, but the people who are protesting are saying don't publish a book by anybody associated with

donald trump or his administration. isn't that kind of narrow-mindedness ultimately bad for business? >> kind of narrow minded? again, i go back to the fact that it is really important for the publishing industry to keep a very broad scope when it comes to this. however, it almost feels like we're now shifting toward what cable news has already done, and that is sort of let's go into our progressive, you know, or far-right corners. there are now conservative publishers. so there are many areas where a mike pence could go, but you don't want to be that book company that goes down that road because it is a very slippery slope. howard: indeed. liz, thanks for sticking around. always great to see you, thank you. and that is it for this edition of "mediabuzz." i'm howard kurtz. we hope you like our facebook page, we post my daily columns there. and let's continue the conversation on twitter @howardkurtz. you can subscribe to buzz meter

on social media, try to have a little fun, no commercial breaks. all right. you know what i say here, we're back here next sunday. you know the time, 11 eastern. we hope you will join us then for the latest buzz. ♪ ♪

eric: well, katlyn jenner is stirring controversy with her views on transgender athletes. the candidate for california govern for reveals she does not support trans girls born as boys competing on all female sports teams. president biden doing away with continuing to build the border wall as two democratic senators from a border state say the administration is not doing enough to solve the my grant crisis. welcome to fox news live. i'm eric shawn. hi, arthel. arthel: