Agreeing with anchor Ted Koppel, Brit Hume talks blurring of journalism lines

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Journalist Ted Koppel calls out media bias against Trump

Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume says his former ABC News colleague Ted Koppel’s comments that the “establishment press” is out to get President Trump are true, and that the blurring of lines separating commentary and coverage is a problem for outlets like the Washington Post and the New York Times.

“I did work with Ted Koppel for many years," Hume said on "Tucker Carlson Tonight." "He’s old-school much as I am. We come out of the same tradition, which is neutrality in news coverage, opinion is reserved for columnists and editorial writers. In broadcast journalism, you have certain commentators, and you have correspondents that cover the news.”

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He added, “Those lines of separation have become increasingly blurred, and in the age of Trump, as Koppel suggested, they’ve gone completely out the window.”

Koppel, the former host of ABC's "Nightline," spoke earlier this month at an event with journalist Marvin Kalb and tackled the topic of Trump’s tempestuous relationship with the press.

“I’m terribly concerned that when you talk about The New York Times these days, when you talk about The Washington Post these days, we’re not talking about The New York Times of 50 years ago. We are not talking about The Washington Post of 50 years ago,” Koppel told the audience. “We’re talking about organizations that I believe have, in fact, decided as organizations that Donald J. Trump is bad for the United States.”

Hume said he believes many journalists today feel an obligation to take down Trump and saw it as their duty to “undo this presidency.”

“Because of the sense among journalists that the election of Donald Trump constituted a national emergency and it was their duty as patriots to resist it and to do all they could to undo this presidency,” Hume said.

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The former host of “Special Report” also cited the Nixon-era Watergate scandal as influential in motivating journalists to showcase the power of the “fourth estate” by targeting Trump.

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“It created an atmosphere where I think journalists want to relive that. And here comes a target even more unpopular than Richard Nixon was in the person of Donald Trump, and they have gone about their business,” Hume said.