Update:Liberal Analyst Found Out Through ‘Google Alert’ That Fox News Fired Him

By Ben Armbruster Last Friday, during a News Corp. shareholders meeting, Chairman Rupert Murdoch was asked why Fox News would hire liberal analyst Marc Lamont Hill, who, the questioner said, has a “reputation of defending cop killers and racists.” Murdoch reportedly replied that Hill had already been fired. While both Fox and Hill were initially tight-lipped about Murdoch’s reported comment, Mediaite later confirmed that Hill had indeed been fired by the network.

A asked “what happened” during a recent interview with conservative radio host Steve Malzberg(R-low level right wing tool), Hill said that he has no idea why he was fired. “I don’t have a lot of information because I wasn’t given a lot of information.” In fact, Hill said he found out from a “Google alert” that Fox let him go:

HILL: Yeah I mean it’s an interesting thing. I wish I could give you a great deal of information that I don’t have a lot of information because I wasn’t given a lot of information. To date, Fox News Channel hasn’t given me any information as to why. … I’m just a little puzzled. [...]

MALZBERG: First of all, you told me you found out when you got a Google alert, so I mean, did anybody eventually call you from Fox and tell you that you were fired?

HILL: Yeah I eventually – I got a Google alert at 11 o’clock [a.m.] that it had been announced that I’d been fired. After that, I guess someone followed up later in the day, you know because I was sort of trying to figure out what was going on. … I found out that it was true but other than that I don’t have any other information. … I haven’t had any thorough conversation with anyone.

Listen here:

Indeed, shortly after reports surfaced of Hill’s dismissal, he tweeted (which has since been deleted), “You ever had anyone break up with you by text?” So why did Fox News fire Hill? While Fox never responded to inquiries from ThinkProgress, Hill told Malzberg that “people can certainly look on the internet and Google and see all sorts of stories and information” as to why he was fired.

Right-wing propagandist Cliff Kincaid, who works for “Accuracy in Media,” has been on a crusade to try to get Hill fired from the network because, as Kincaid has said, Hill is a “left wing cop-killer apologist.” In a celebratory note after Murdoch’s announcement, Kincaid noted that he had in fact asked about Hill during last week’s News Corp. meeting and criticized Fox for not doing “elementary analysis” of Hill before they hired him. During his interview with Malzberg, Hill called Kincaid’s charges “unfair misrepresentations.”

In the segment, Hill also commented about the recent spat between the White House and Fox News. “Is Fox News a right-leaning organization? No doubt about it,” Hill said. But he later added that he doesn’t yet “feel comfortable” commenting on whether Fox News is an “arm” of the Republican Party.

Fox News FIRES Marc Lamont Hill, Liberal Analyst

By Danny Shea

Liberal Fox News analyst Dr. Marc Lamont Hill has been fired, News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch revealed at a shareholder's meeting Friday.

Murdoch made the announcement after being asked about Hill's "reputation of defending cop killers and racists."

"Relax, y'all. Don't believe the internet rumors," Lamont Hill tweeted earlier today, but he would later confirm the news to the Huffington Post, saying, "I am no longer employed by Fox News and grateful for the opportunity and I have nothing bad to say."

Lamont Hill's credibility as a commentator had been called into question by David Horowitz last month:

I find [O'Reilly's] continued promotion of Professor Marc Lamont Hill an embarrassment to his own standards and an insult to the intelligence of African Americans particularly and his entire audience generally. Tonight he interviewed Hill for an entire segment on the subject of Iran, as though Hill had anything intelligent to say on the subject. Mr. Hill do you think we should give Iran three months or six months to let the UN inspectors in? How would Marc Lamont Hill know? How would he even be in a position to make an intelligent speculation? By his own account, Hill is an expert on "hip-hop culture," i.e., rap music. His academic degree is in education. What are his views on foreign policy worth, unless putting him on was designed to show up the shallow views of the left?

Since then, as the Hollywood Reporter reports, Lamont Hill "has been the target of increasing criticism on the blogosphere for alleged sympathies to controversial figures including Assata Shakur and Mumia Abu-Jamal." He also defended Van Jones on Fox News' "On the Record with Greta van Susteren."

Lamont Hill did appear on "The O'Reilly Factor" as recently as last week, embedded below:

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/16/fox-news-fires-marc-lamon_n_324207.html