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.

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From the full video posted on the Fox News web site—on which Jenkins is identified as a “Fox News correspondent”:

GAROFALO: What are you doing here?

JENKINS: I’m just a blogger [who] reads blogs. He’s a radio host.

GAROFALO: But what do you do with all those blogs?

This is pretty shameless. It’s one thing if you’re a reporter working undercover in, say, a supermarket that’s putting tainted meat on the shelves, to disguise your identity. But if you’re sticking a camera into a celebrity’s face and she repeatedly asks you if you’re with the media? Anyone from “60 Minutes” on down to TMZ would say where he/she is from, just as most “O’Reilly Factor” producers immediately announce their affiliations, knowing that they’re going to get hostile reactions from their subjects.

Simply put, Jenkins lied and then Fox News edited the lie from their broadcast. Pretty pathetic all around.

UPDATE: Of course, Jenkins might have his reasons for preferring outright lies to admitting his Fox News affiliation:

UPDATE 2: “The O’Reilly Factor” ran part of the interview, too, and identified Jenkins as a “‘Factor’ producer,” something else he did not tell Garofalo.

UPDATE 3: Garofalo talked about this interview with Marc Maron, and it’s clear that she had no idea that Jenkins was a Fox News employee. She said that she was ambushed by “Ken Pittman and his male companion,” who “put a camera in my face.”

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