Geraldo Mic Cut? Report Says No One Censored Fox Host For Defending Obama

So did Geraldo have his mic cut?

The rumor goes that Fox News CEO Roger Ailes was fed up with the television host defending the Obama administration in the days before the 2012 election that he ordered Geraldo’s microphone to be shut off.

A new book claims there is truth to the rumor, though that is contradicted by reports from Fox News executives.

The book, The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, is written by Jonathan Alter, a columnist for Bloomberg View and a contributor to Fox News competitor MSNBC. In it there are accounts of the inner workings of Fox News and their opposition to Obama’s policies.

In the book, Alter discusses a November 2, 2012, segment on Fox and Friends in which Geraldo Rivera battled with colleague Eric Bolling, who had accused the Obama administration of lying about the attack. Alter claims that it was too much for Fox News boss Roger Ailes, who came down to the control room and ordered that Geraldo have his mic cut.

Mediaite contradicts that report, saying that Ailes never ordered Geraldo silenced. The report even points to a video of the segment in question, showing that while there is a dip in Rivera’s microphone, at no point is he inaudible. So it is possible he never had his mic cut at all.

As reports swirled early this week, Rivera himself even stepped in to clear up the debate.

Contrary to published accounts no one at Fox News ever either cut my mic or told me what to say But I do advocate cutting Eric Bolling’s mic

— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) May 6, 2013

So what happened, if Geraldo didn’t have his mic cut? Fox News executive vice president of programming, Bill Shine, said he called down to the set of Fox and Friends morning show because Geraldo Rivera and the hosts were getting into too heated of a debate over the Benghazi terror attack and the segment had run its course.