Kari had a bad habit (as did her broadcast partner John Hook, but with less vitriol) of commenting on a lot of stories that one or the other read. They are far from the only news anchors to do this -- the Meredith stations are notorious for commenting on stories as well, but they avoid politics. But Kari has been caught several times on-air commenting on political stories when she should not have, and being nasty about it. This is not appropriate for a news anchor, and I believe that is why she was sent home.
Bill Close (speaking of Channel 10) was about as conservative as any Phoenix anchor ever has been, but he kept his opinions to himself. Granted, he was from a generation long past, but he kept it professional on-air.
That's something that is becoming harder to find. Back in those generations long past, you had no idea the political leanings of an anchor or journalist, unless they were doing a commentary (and as said before, those were clearly labeled). Otherwise, you could guess, but never know for sure.
Then along comes the narrative that all the "mainstream media" is biased, but what a lot of people seem to have missed is, that was more marketing than truth. Yes, the New York Times opinions page leaned liberal, but the news part of the paper was the gold standard for objective print journalism. The TV news networks? Again, you could guess, but the reporters and anchors kept their opinions to themselves, because that was the professional thing to do.
Well if you're gonna start a network to compete with those behemoths? You need an angle. Fox's angle was that they were some upstart taking on the "mainstream media" (which was hopelessly liberal) and they were going to give you news that was "fair and balanced." If you have to
say you're fair and balanced....
It was successful. They (along with talk radio) created an alternate universe where
they were the only unbiased outlets, and everyone else was loony left. In addition, they blurred the lines between what was news and what was commentary, with stuff like O'Reilly's "No Spin Zone" (which was 100 percent spin), and making it very clear that they were the alternative to "the liberal media," essentially saying "we say we're unbiased, but we're really just biased towards what you think." Now people don't just know the bias of their favorite "news" outlet, they
want them to be biased. It can't just give you the news, it has to confirm your opinion and/or tell you what to think about the news.
That seems to be at the center of Lake's beef or Fox 10's beef with her. Her statement, coupled with her previous comments indicate that she wants to be one of those "journalists" that can and does clearly state their opinion, but the folks in charge at KSAZ said "no Kari, your job is to read the news, not be the next Sean Hannity."
