Secret Service detains reporter who asked Gingrich about Fox News

The United States Secret Service detained a North Carolina reporter over the weekend after he asked Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich about recent comments that were critical of Fox News.

During a private campaign event at Wesley College in Delaware last week, the former House Speaker had asserted that News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch had personally turned Fox News against him.

“I think Fox has been for Romney all the way through,” Gingrich opined. “In our experience, Callista and I both believe CNN is less biased than FOX this year. We are more likely to get neutral coverage out of CNN than we are of Fox, and we’re more likely to get distortion out of Fox. That’s just a fact.”

Fox News chief Roger Ailes later told an audience at the University of North Carolina (UNC) that Gingrich was "trying to get a job at CNN because he knows he isn’t going to get to come back to Fox News."

The Daily Tarheel's Memet Walker hoped to get a reaction from the candidate when he sat down with him in Greensboro, North Carolina on Saturday.

"His aide gave no preconditions; no topics were off limits," Walker wrote. "That’s why I was so surprised when, before I had finished asking my first question, that same aide cut the interview short and prompted Secret Service to grab and briefly detain me as the former speaker was led away."

The reporter explained that he had been detained after questioning the candidate about Ailes.

"But before I even had a chance on Saturday to relay Ailes’ comments, his aide pressed his hands against me, and several Secret Service agents stopped me in my tracks," Walker recalled.

"You’re not asking that," the aide reportedly said. "You’re done."

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