Sean Hannity has a bone to pick with his counterparts.
During a segment on his show Tuesday night, the Fox News host attacked media “elites” for proclaiming Hillary Clinton the winner of Monday’s presidential debate, when he said many viewers clearly thought otherwise.
Online polls from the Drudge Report, Breitbart News, CNBC and elsewhere showed Donald Trump coming out on top by wide margins, Hannity said, but the mainstream media gave it to the Democratic nominee instead.
Why the divide? According to Hannity, those who champion Clinton are out of touch with ordinary Americans struggling with wage stagnation, unemployment and debt.
“My overpaid friends in the media, well, they have their chauffeur-driven limousines, they like their fine steakhouses and expensive-wine lifestyles,” Hannity said in the eight-minute monologue. “None of them are feeling this, the people you’re watching on TV, and therein lies the contempt.”
The media fired back.
Some were quick to point out that Hannity makes more money than almost any journalist in the country, but there was a bit of disagreement over his exact earnings. (Forbes said he took in $29 million in 2015.)
And others brought up reports from earlier this year that Hannity used his private jet to fly former House speaker Newt Gingrich to meet with Trump as rumors swirled about who the Republican presidential nominee would tap for vice president. Hannity, for what it’s worth, has defended the favor.
In his segment, Hannity spoke of a “disconnect” between the media and the American public, saying trust of journalists was at an all-time low.
Polling supports that. The most recent survey from Gallup shows that fewer people say they trust the media to report the news fairly and accurately than at any point in polling history. Nationwide, 32 percent of respondents said they trust the media “a great deal” or “a fair amount,” down from 53 percent in 1997. Among Republicans, the figure was just 14 percent, down from 41 percent in 1997 and 32 percent last year.
As for Hannity’s elites, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the vast majority of them fall squarely in the middle class. Last year, the median annual salary for a reporter or correspondent was $36,360. For broadcast news analysts, the figure was $65,530, according the BLS.