Fox News ends interview after Thomas Ricks criticizes network (+video)

A Fox News Channel interview ended abruptly Monday after an author accused the network of hyping the killing of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, and "operating as a wing of the Republican Party."

The charges were made by Thomas Ricks, a veteran newspaper reporter and author of "The Generals," who was brought on for an interview with anchor Jon Scott about Republican criticism of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's comments about the attacks.

Ricks said he thought the story of the Benghazi attacks was "hyped, by this network especially."

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Scott asked why Ricks would call it hype when four Americans were killed, including the first U.S. ambassador in more than 30 years.

Ricks responded that few people knew how many U.S. security contractors were killed in Iraq and compared that to the attention paid to "what was essentially a small firefight" in Libya.

"I think that the emphasis on Benghazi has been extremely political, partly because Fox was operating as a wing of the Republican Party," Ricks said.

With that, Scott thanked him and turned to a co-anchor, who introduced a commercial.

Ricks told The New York Times that after the interview, a Fox News staffer told him that he had been rude. Ricks said in an e-mail message afterward that he did not think he was being rude. “I thought I was being honest,” he said. “They asked my opinion, and I gave it.”

"When Mr. Ricks ignored the anchor's question, it became clear that his goal was to bring attention to himself and his book," Fox News executive Michael Clemente said in an e-mail to The Hollywood Reporter. "He apologized in our offices afterward but doesn’t have the strength of character to do that publicly."

Ricks responded with an email to The Hollywood Reporter: "Please ask Mr. Clemente what the words of my supposed apology were. I'd be interested to know," he said. "Frankly, I don't remember any such apology."

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Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.