Fox News: How Jesse Watters Tried to Intimidate an Abortion Provider and Dox a Child Rape Victim
A condensed overview of 15 hours of Fox News for week ending 7-17-22
I was going to simply focus on 10 hours of Fox News primetime from last week since I also covered day 7 of the January 6th Committee hearings.
Jesse Watters changed my plans. I noticed last week that Twitter exploded with articles and clips about how he handled a story that involved a 10-year-old rape victim who had to cross state lines to get an abortion.
I decided to go back and capture, watch and analyze “Jesse Watters Primetime” since I didn’t want my readers and listeners to be left out on what happened with this story.
I went through every possible detail that I could find about this case to breakdown all the false claims and assumptions Watters made about this tragic situation.
Jesse Watters Primetime for the week ending - 7/17/22
Monday - 7/11/22
Duration of segment - 10 minutes and 40 seconds
Image of the Dr. Bernard used in the segment - 2 minutes or 19% of airtime.
Dr. Bernard was mentioned by name 11 times.
Watters started the week with a breakdown of the story of a 10-year-old rape victim who had to cross state lines to receive a legal abortion.
1:10 minutes into Monday’s segment
Watters slapped a photo of the abortion provider, Dr. Caitlin Bernard, up on his screen. Before the segment was finished he’d use her name 11 times.
Watters then featured a montage of reporters discussing the story on various news outlets.
“The media shoved this story in the face of Pro-life Republican governors,” said Watters.
He then showed a brief exchanged between Dana Bash of CNN and Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota. In the clip Gov. Noem never really answers the question over whether or not she thought the child should have received the abortion.
Then Watters jumps to a point Gov. Noem also made,
“Why isn’t anyone talking about bring a child rapist to justice.”
He then goes into the lengths he claimed Fox News had gone to verify the story.
Without knowing much of anything Watters goes into a series of assumptions, claiming,
“Authorities in Ohio haven’t even begun an investigation into the rape.”
Watters then cited an article from The Washington Post that had similar misgivings about the validity of the account. This was especially something to see as Fox News normally derides the paper as being fake news or the political arm of Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon.
He then claimed Fox News had reached out to the following.
The Governor of Ohio - I’m not sure how his office would know details about a sexual crime committed against a minor
The Attorney General of Ohio - This source was far better to contact but crimes against juveniles and sexual crimes in general are treated differently in the criminal justice system. Great care is taken to shield the identity not just of child victims but also of minor-aged suspects.
All abortion clinics in Ohio - Contacting abortion clinics was a complete waste of time. They couldn’t divulge any information about any patient without violating HIPAA privacy laws. There was no indication based on the details of the story that the mother took her child to an abortion clinic in Ohio. The original story stated the referral for the abortion came from a doctor who specialized in child abuse.
6:00 minutes into Monday’s segment
The photo of the abortion provider, Dr. Bernard, is back up on the screen. Watters then shows a clip of Dr. Bernard from an appearance on MSNBC from the previous week.
Watters then claimed Fox reached out to Dr. Bernard and she basically said,
“I have no information to share about this,” said Bernard.
The Fox News host made a huge leap and claimed the doctor,
“Had a history of not reporting abuse cases to the police,” said Watters.
He did not supply any specifics or give any evidence to this claim.
Watters quoted The Washington Post again to back his insinuations that the story might be bogus.
The next villain in Watters’ segment was the Indianapolis Star, the original source of the story. Watters claimed the paper had been accused of inaccurate reporting in the past without providing any specifics.
Again, a Fox News primetime anchor accused another media outlet of reporting inaccurate information. This is the same network that reached a settlement with the family of Seth Rich after promoting a baseless conspiracy about his death for months.
9:52 minutes into Monday’s segment.
Watters puts the photo of the abortion doctor back on the screen again.
At the conclusion of the segment Watters insinuates that the doctor is somehow covering up the rape, or that the entire story could be a politically motivated hoax.
All told in the ten minute and 40 second segment, the abortion provider appeared on the screen for a total of two minutes or roughly 19% of the airtime.
Tuesday - 7/12/22
During a segment about the border crisis, Fox News personality, Rachel Campos-Duffy made a passing statement.
“You saw them last week, with this fake story about this 10-year-old and the rape,” said Campos-Duffy.
Wednesday - 7/13/22
Duration of segment - Five minutes 45 seconds
Image of Dr. Bernard on the screen - Three minutes or 52% of airtime
Image of the rape suspect on the screen - 30 seconds
The image of the abortion provider appeared 6 times longer than the rape suspect.
Watters started with a breaking news segment led by Trace Gallagher of Fox News. Gallagher revealed that the rape suspect, Gerson Fuentes, had been arrested, was given a $2 million bond and was an undocumented immigrant.
Gallagher then brought up Dr. Bernard and her name was plastered on the screen again.
“Dr. Caitlin Barnard apparently leaked the girl's story to the Indianapolis Star Tribune during an abortion rights protest, said Gallagher. “Dr. Barnard is now facing a HIPAA violation for sharing the story.”
Gallagher also claimed that Dave Yost, Attorney General of Ohio, cited there was a “Emergency medical” exception for abortions for pregnancies past six weeks.
I’m not sure how this was relevant as it’s not illegal to drive your own daughter past state lines to see a doctor. Yost was also making a leap that the mother wouldn’t have faced backlash from any number of healthcare workers if she tried to get treatment for her daughter in Ohio. How would they know that this case met the medical emergency exception?
Gallagher also included a detail that the Columbus Police were notified of the rape on June 22.
He abruptly switched gears and brought up that Franklin County is a sanctuary jurisdiction and that the suspect’s immigration status had something to do with this crime. He completely negated the fact that the child and her mother might also be undocumented.
After the breaking news segment Watters claimed his coverage of the story is what led to the arrest of the rapist. This is moments after Gallagher revealed the police were notified of the crime on June 22nd. Watters would have no way of knowing why the arrest took as long as it did.
The abortion was performed on June 30th and was also promptly reported to the state of Indiana.
A timeline
June 22, 2022 - Rape reported to police by a confidential referral by Franklin County Children Services after receiving a report from the child’s mother.
June 24, 2022 - The Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade. A federal judge lifted an injunction on a previous Ohio law which immediately restricts abortion to six weeks.
June 29, 2022 - Mother and daughter travel to Indianapolis for a consolation for the child’s abortion.
June 30, 2022 - Legal abortion performed. Records show Dr. Bernard reported the procedure to state officials, as required by law.
July 1, 2022 - Story is reported in the Indianapolis Star
July 2, 2002 - Genetic material taken from abortion for DNA testing.
July 6, 2002 - Child identifies Fuentes as the man who raped her. Police get a search warrant for a DNA sample from Fuentes.
July 8, 2022 - Pres. Joe Biden mentions the case during a speech
July 11, 2022 - Jesse Watters Primetime does first segment on the rape
July 12, 2022 - Warrant served by police, Fuentes arrested for the crime. Fuentes confessed to raping the girl at least twice.
July 13, 2022 - Jesse Watters tries to take credit for the arrest of the alleged rapist.
*At this point there is no public information regarding the DNA in this case. The confession from Fuentes was enough to charge him with the crime.
If this process was already started nearly a month prior, the premise that a primetime show that aired on 7:00 PM EST would lead to an arrest the next day is wholly unbelievable.
Watters then intimates that the suspect’s immigration status may have played a hand in the “cover up.” What cover up is he talking about? The crime was reported, evidence was collected and the man was charged with a crime. Again with any crime involving minors steps were taken to protect the identity of the victim.
2:00 minutes into Wednesday’s segment
Watters goes back to Dr. Bernard. Her image is now framed with the words “Failure to Report.”
He then makes a series of assumptions that the doctor did not report the crime or the abortion.
The second half of the segment is dedicated to the Indiana Attorney General, Todd Rokita. Rokita immediately blames Biden’s immigration policies which is odd again because the mother and her daughter might also be undocumented immigrants and the sexual assault of minors is not unique to any demographic or citizenship status.
3:22 minutes into Wednesday’s segment
Dr. Bernard’s image is put back on the screen again. Rokita goes into a rant of sorts where he claims the abortion provider could be guilty of a number of various crimes and possibly lose her license. He offers no proof whatsoever that the doctor has committed any crime.
He then takes an incredibly bizarre turn and brings up Marxism,
“This is a horrible, horrible scene caused caused by Marxists and socialists and those in the White House who don't who want lawlessness at the border,” said Rokita. “And then this girl was politicized, politicized for the gain of killing more babies. Right? That was the goal.”
The segment ends with Rokita vowing to seek justice against the abortion provider. The abortion Dr. Bernard performed was completely legal. It was also most likely administered via medication given that the child was only six weeks pregnant.
Thursday
Duration of segment - 4 minutes
Dr. Bernard’s image is not used.
An image of the alleged rape suspect is on the screen for most of the segment.
Watters opened his segment with a montage of other reporters commenting on the arrest of the suspect then expressed his outrage that the no one mentioned the man’s immigration status.
Watters then quotes Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post who discovered Fuentes had emigrated to the U.S. seven years ago. Watters then shows an image of former President Barack Obama and decides to blame Biden anyway since Biden was the Vice President at the time.
Watters then brought up two unrelated crimes where he claimed Darrell Brooks Jr., the man who drove into a parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin was a “Black nationalist.” This is despite authorities stating there was no political motivation to the crime.
Watters then claimed Frank James, a man who shot several people on the New York City subway had racial motivations in his attack. Watters left out of course that James seemed to hate all racial groups, including his own.
Both of these cases were supposed to represent how other media companies left out details in other crimes out of a sense of wokeness.
The next pivot was to an archived clip of former President Donald J. Trump’s infamous speech, at the start of his 2016 presidential campaign, about how undocumented immigrants were rapists.
“They’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people,” said Trump.
I noticed that Watters edited a slight portion of the original quote that included the word Mexico. The alleged rapist in this case is from Guatemala.
Then in the most depressing turn that even I didn’t even see coming, Watters used a media clip from the Spanish language network Telemundo where a reporter accosted the mother of the rape victim, through a crack in her door. Although the entire exchange was in Spanish, a translation revealed that the mother defended the alleged rape suspect.
Sadly this is not that uncommon as the suspect shared the address with the mother and was most likely her intimate partner. She could very well still be manipulated by this man and deep in denial of how her daughter was abused.
There was no reason any reporter should have tracked her down as revealing the mother’s identity could easily reveal the daughter’s and both of them might also be undocumented immigrants.
The Telemundo reporter then revealed that the mother did not file charges against the suspect. This alone could have caused the delay in reporting the rape and then arresting, questioning and charging any suspect.
Watters did not break this case.
This is how Watters ended the segment on this absolute horror show he thrust upon his audience,
“So the question is, do they have the right guy? Or is the mother covering it up? And what's her immigration status? That we don't know? But also doesn't make any sense is why is this 10-year-old girl? Why did she even cross state lines for an abortion when Ohio could have illegally terminated the pregnancy due to a medical exemption? She wasn't forced. She didn't ever need to go to Indiana. Why does the story keep changing? And why doesn’t it make any sense?”
The story actually didn’t change. A 10-year-old rape victim was given a legal abortion in a neighboring state. That core part of the story remained the same. More details fleshed it out, but absolutely nothing about the original reporting changed.
This was not journalism. This was an attempt to gaslight and mislead the Fox News audience, while intimidating a doctor who provided a legal abortion to a minor aged victim.
There will be more stories like this. Last year there were 52 reported abortions performed on girls under the age of 15 in Ohio. That’s about one a week, in only one state.
What Watters might not have realized is that even the most ardent supporters of abortion bans still want exceptions for 4th grade rape victims. In a recent Pew poll 73% of Americans think there should be an exception for rape and incest victims. Watters treatment of this story was irresponsible and reckless.
Jesse Watters got his start while working for Bill O’Reilly. Watters’ main job was to interview people on the street and obnoxiously accost various politicians and other public figures. He’s best known for a racist segment filmed in Chinatown.
I have no faith that Fox will steer clear of future stories like this one. I would hope that basic human decency would prevent them from nearly doxxing a 10-year-old rape victim but there seems to be no bottom.
Coming up…
The next thing on my schedule is the coverage of the January 6th Committee Hearing which is currently scheduled for Thursday night. I should have the podcast/newsletter ready for that on Friday.