Fox News Suspends Gingrich, Santorum As Contributors

At some point, Fox News Channel was going to have to deal with the fact that it has contributor contracts with several people who may end up running for President, and today that has started:

Fox News announced on Wednesday that is has suspended the television contracts of two potential presidential candidates — Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum — for 60 days at which point they will have to inform the network whether or not they are running for president.

The suspension will remain in place until May 1 at which point their contracts with Fox News will be terminated.

Anchor Bret Baier announced the suspension on the network Wednesday morning, saying that it was the network’s policy.

“This is the announcement that’s being made today,” Baier said. “This does not preclude other announcements that may be made in the future. But that’s what we have today. The 60-day suspension and then by May 1 a determination whether they’re going to run and then those contracts will be terminated

Given that Gingrich’s announcement of a Presidential Exploratory Committee appears to be imminent, and that Santorum has been pretty open about his Presidential ambitions, this isn’t all that surprising. One would suspect similar decisions will need to be made about persons such as Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin should they ever make their intentions clear.

Video:

FILED UNDER: 2012 Election, US Politics, , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Franklin says:

    Alternate headline: Fox News Does Something Right

  2. mantis says:

    Alternate headline: Fox News Does Something Right

    Only because it would cost them down the road if they didn’t. In kind contributions and all.

  3. PJ says:

    I would look really stupid if Gingrich, Palin, Santorum, and Huckabee were massaging their own presidential credentials on Fox News, even Fox News can see that. It looks a lot better if everyone else on Fox News do that.

    But I got two questions, are there any Republican 2012 presidential hopefuls who aren’t contributors for Fox News? And when those who are have left, will there be any people left on Fox News?

  4. michael reynolds says:

    It’s so cute, these intermittent efforts by Fox to look like they aren’t the headquarters of the Republican party.

  5. Kylopod says:

    >are there any Republican 2012 presidential hopefuls who aren’t contributors for Fox News?

    Romney, most notably.

  6. wr says:

    PJ — I don’t think that clown from Louisiana is a Fox contributor. Although I assume he’s “running for president” to get a job with them.

  7. PJ says:

    The part was more of a joke, but really, has there ever a “news” network that were paying at least four people looking at becoming presidential candidates as contributers? Two who had their own shows?