The Washington Independent » Griff Jenkins

The Tea Party Express Will Save America

David Weigel — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:16:46 +0000

I’ve generally ignored the “Tea Party Express,” a project of the Our Country Deserves Better PAC that’s taking a bus across the country to rev up anti-tax protests along the way. I may have made a mistake. One, Fox News is covering it to the hilt, sending fraudster Griff Jenkins along with the tour to provide updates. Two, it’s hilarious. Below are two videos from the Sacramento event that launched the tour.

Here, Lloyd Marcus leads the crowd in a parody of “Theme from ‘New York, New York’” all about “taking our country back in 2010.”

And here’s Marcus singing “God Bless the USA,” with views of the crowd. Take in all of those signs.

Fox News Reporter Groveled to Get Sanford Interview

David Weigel — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:51:07 +0000

South Carolina’s The State newspaper’s expose of emails sent by journalists to Gov. Mark Sanford’s (R-S.C.) office are essential reading. One of the worst offenders in the cache is Griff Jenkins, the color reporter for Fox News, who groveled to Sanford’s staff and attached the way other media were covering the story.

If the Gov does an interview and its exclusive, it will make air on the tv channel and our radio news service all across the country. And I’m not sure if you’ve seen the stuff I do on the channel as a reporter, but I work mostly for our primetime coverage – Oreilly, Hannity, Greta, Beck — so there likely would be primetime coverage as well for some soundbites of the gov dispelling this flap…

Jenkins has a … complicated relationship with journalistic ethics. Back in May, he repeatedly identified himself as a “blogger,” not a reporter for Fox News, in order to get an interview with Janeane Garofalo which then ran on Fox News.

Fox on the Run

David Weigel — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:03:50 +0000

Progressive activist Adam Green confronts Griff Jenkins — a Fox News “color” reporter who’s often assigned to cover left-leaning events in a goofy manner. Last year, he stumbled through a Republican National Convention protest yelling about the First Amendment when no one would talk to him. In April, he promoted the anti-tax “Tea Parties” by putting on a colonial costume. Green ran into him at an ACORN celebration where Jenkins showed up in black tie garb with a mini-red carpet, ostensibly to mock the attendees, so Green asked badgering questions about Fox News policy while Jenkins whined about his lack of media access inside the event.

Train-wreck stuff, but it’s important to add that Jenkins isn’t really a journalist. When he and a Boston radio host did a “gotcha” interview with Janeane Garofalo, Jenkins repeatedly claimed that he was a “blogger” instead of admitting that he worked for Fox, which would have, presumably, gotten a different reaction out of the celebrity he was filming. So no organization’s under any obligation to pretend he’s a real member of the press.

–

TWI is on Twitter. Please follow us here.