Fox News Devoted 47 Minutes To CBS' Stale Benghazi Report

On October 28, Fox News devoted more than 47 minutes over the course of 13 total segments to discussing a flawed report by CBS' 60 Minutes on the September 2012 Benghazi attacks.

The Network Devoted 13 Segments Over 11 Shows To Benghazi

Fox News Spent Much Of October 28 Using The 60 Minutes Report To Revive The Benghazi Hoax. During daytime and evening programming on Fox News, show after show used the recent 60 Minutes report to revive Fox's effort to turn the Benghazi attacks into a political scandal for the Obama administration. The network devoted more than 47 minutes over 13 segments to the story on Fox & Friends First, Fox & Friends, American's Newsroom, Happening Now, America's News Headquarters, The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson, The Five, Special Report with Bret Baier, On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, The O'Reilly Factor, and Hannity.

Fox News Used The CBS Report To Prop Up Its Own Flawed Benghazi Reporting. Special Report host Bret Baier and The Five co-host Greg Gutfeld introduced their segments on CBS' Benghazi report by claiming it validated Fox's work on the story:

BAIER: Answers are still hard to come by in the investigation into last fall's Benghazi terror assault. Last night, one of journalism's heavy hitters reaffirmed what we knew and had reported on. Correspondent Adam Housley has the latest from Los Angeles. [Fox News, Special Report, 10/28/13, via Nexis]

GUTFELD: Last night, 60 Minutes revealed that the terrorist attack in Benghazi was a planned sophisticated operation run by al Qaeda against an extremely vulnerable American outpost.

Wow, who knew? This is what's called breaking news to people who can't find FNC on their remote. Check it out. [Fox News, The Five, 10/28/13, via Nexis]

CBS' October 27 Report Echoes Long-Running Conservative Myth About Benghazi. CBS correspondent Lara Logan and producer Max McClellan's year-long investigation forwards the misleading conservative claim that there is a “lingering question” about why the U.S. military didn't came to the aid of  Americans during the Benghazi attacks.  [Media Matters10/28/13]

Fox News Has Used The Benghazi “Scandal” To Attack The Administration In The Past. For more than a year, Fox News has relied on countless falsehoods to forward the narrative that the Benghazi attacks are a political scandal for the Obama administration. [Media Matters7/29/13]

Fox News Not The Only Conservative Outlet To Heap Praise On CBS' Benghazi Report. [Media Matters10/28/13]

Methodology

Media Matters reviewed raw video for day-time programming and Nexis transcripts for evening programming for any discussion of “Benghazi” that was related to the 60 Minutes report. Any full segments or segments with substantial discussion about the Benghazi attacks were then timed for length.

For more on conservative media myths about the September 2012 attack, read The Benghazi Hoax, the new e-book by Media Matters' David Brock and Ari Rabin-Havt.

UPDATE (11/8): The evening of November 7, CBS News pulled its 60 Minutes report following revelations that Dylan Davies, the segment's featured “witness,” may have fabricated his story to CBS -- The New York Times and The Washington Post discovered that he had given a contradictory account to the FBI and his employer about his whereabouts during the Benghazi attacks. The following day, when CBS issued an apology and announced plans to air a correction, Fox News dedicated only one 26-second segment to the story's implosion.