Fox 59 News Names New Co-Anchor With Controversial Past

A press release from Fox 59 News glows about its new co-anchor for its Fox59 News at 10 nightly newscast. It doesn't tell you about the controversial recent past Fanchon Stinger occasioned while in a similar position at a Detroit Fox affiliate.  "Fanchon's on-air success speaks for itself, but it's her desire to truly make a positive impact that sets her apart," says News Director Lee Rosenthal. "There's no other person I wanted more as a leader for our newsroom and Central Indiana." Praising her, the press release says, "Stinger, who was a morning anchor and reporter at Fox in Detroit for 11 years, became an advocate for abused children and domestic violence victims."

The press release neglects to report why she left her morning anchor spot at the Fox affiliate in Detroit. Stinger was first suspended and later fired by Fox 2 News after her live-in married boyfriend became embroiled in a bribery scandal involving Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers, wife of U.S. Rep. John Conyers. Her ex-boyfriend, Rayford Jackson, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bribe Conyers with a payment of at least $6,000 in exchange for her support of a $1.2 billion sludge disposal contract. Stinger told a local TV station that she was a victim of her ex-boyfriend's manipulation:

Fanchon told Local 4 that she has not received service of the case. She added that she didn’t know anything about it and she doesn't own a Ferrari.


Stinger lost her job as an anchor after an investigation into Jackson's involvement in a city hall scandal surfaced.

In June, Jackson pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery for supplying former councilwoman Monica Conyers with at least $6,000 to secure her tie-breaking vote in a $1.2 billion controversial sludge disposal contract. Jackson is currently serving five years in prison in upstate New York.

Last year, Stinger told Local 4's Carmen Harlan that she did not have any involvement with Synagro, and that she never did any work for the Houston-based sludge company.

According to Local 4, Stinger is also being sued for an autombile accident in which her ex-boyfriend was involved while driving a $250,000 Ferrari owned by her.

Fellow Detroit area blogger Debbie Schlussel has been very vocal in criticizing Stinger's slanted coverage in favor of the Nation of Islam's Rev. Louis Farrakhan and Muslim issues in general. Schlussel wrote in one blog post a couple of years ago:

A suspended Muslim FOX/NewsCorp anchor and reporter’s boyfriend is a top lieutenant in the Nation of Islam and a close associate of Nation of Islam leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan. Sources say this resulted in the gushing FOX 2 News coverage of NoI and Farrakhan during his 2007 visit to Detroit. Sources also say that the anchor’s co-mingled assets with that boyfriend resulted in biased coverage of the apparent target of bribery by her boyfriend, a Detroit City Councilwoman (Monica Conyers) . . .

Last week, I told you about Fanchon Stinger, the face of FOX News/NewsCorp’s owned-and-operated affiliate, whose Muslim religion affected her reporting and activism on behalf of an anti-Israel, pro-HAMAS/Hezbollah organization . . .

Sources say that Stinger interfered in FOX 2 News coverage, not only of her long-time boyfriend Jackson, but also in the coverage of the Detroit Arab and Muslim communities and the coverage of Farrakhan’s February 2007 appearance in Detroit, at which Stinger’s boyfriend, Rayford Jackson, apparently sat on the dias behind Farrakhan while he spoke . . .

Coverage before and after the Farrakhan event on the FOX 2 Morning Show, which Stinger hosts, was replete with praise for Farrakhan, and again, not a single hint of Farrakhan’s lifetime of bigoted statements and incitement to violence.

And FOX 2 News, during its gushing coverage, ignored racist statements that Farrakhan made during his Detroit visit, as well as a racist, anti-White/pro-Islam speech at the event by Malik Shabazz, and a speech by Omar Al-Bashir, the Muslim President of Sudan who is ethnically cleansing the Blacks from his country. FOX 2 also did not mention Farrakhan’s defense of Iran and its “right” to have nuclear weapons or the singing of the “Black national anthem” instead of the American one.

Fanchon insists she did nothing wrong related to her ex-boyfriend's involvement in the bribery of Conyers. She told the Local 4 station that FBI agents visited her prior to her ex-boyfriend's involvement becoming public and subsequently distanced herself from him. Schlussel notes campaign contributions made to former President Geroge W. Bush's re-election campaign at the same time her ex-boyfriend made similar contributions in apparent violation of Fox News' prohibition on its news employees from making political contributions.  Stinger seems like an odd choice for Fox59 News to hire as a co-anchor in this market, which is decidedly more conservative than her old Detroit stomping grounds. Couldn't the station have found an equally qualified person without such a controversial background?