Fox News' media criticism show ignores Napolitano's 9-11 conspiracy remarks

Fox News Watch, the channel's purported media criticism show, kept silent this week about Fox host Andrew Napolitano's recent remarks that he believed the government lied about the attacks on 9-11.

As Media Matters has documented, numerous liberals and conservatives have criticized Fox News for giving a platform to someone like Napolitano who subscribes to 9-11 conspiracy theories. Indeed, CNN.com noted that Media Matters and the conservative Media Research Center - two groups that rarely agree on anything - both criticized Napolitano and Fox News. Non-Napolitano critical punditry from MRC, by the way, is regularly cited on Fox News Watch.

Still, that wasn't enough for the show to mention Napolitano's remarks. (Napolitano was briefly mentioned in passing when discussing the separate topic of WikiLeaks). The exclusion isn't surprising: Fox News hosts -- who previously devoted countless segments to attacking 9-11 conspiracy theorists -- have been conspicuously silent about Napolitano. And Fox News Watch has a history of avoiding segments on Fox News' own ethical problems (though panelists will occasionally bring up a Fox-centric issue, unprompted).

Of course, if Napolitano were a host and “senior legal analyst” for a competing cable channel, you can bet the house that Fox News would pounce on his remarks.