Fox News Under Fire for ‘Embarrassing’ Interview With Reza Aslan

In case you missed it, religious scholar Reza Aslan went on FoxNews.com’s online program “Spirited Debate” on Friday to promote his new book, “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.” Right off the bat, host Lauren Green set the tone for the interview when she asked Aslan: “You’re a Muslim, so why did you write a book about the founder of Christianity?”

Aslan responded, “Well, to be clear, I am a scholar of religions with four degrees, including one in the New Testament, and fluency in biblical Greek, who has been studying the origins of Christianity for two decades, who also just happens to be a Muslim.”

But astonishingly, Green wouldn’t let up on the issue, hammering Aslan the entire time as she attempted to discredit him and confirm her own bias. It’s little wonder then that Green was much maligned on the Internet, with BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski wondering whether it was the “most embarrassing interview” Fox News has ever done and Slate’s Daniel Politi observing that “It’s got plenty of competition but this may just be the single most cringe-worthy, embarrassing interview on Fox News.” A headline on MSNBC asked whether it was the “most forehead-slapping Fox News interview of the year?” while another on The Week explained what made it so “awful.”

Watch the interview below:

— Posted by Tracy Bloom.