( CNN ) -- It was a remarkably short interview by cable news standards . The moment that veteran military reporter Thomas Ricks , in an appearance on Fox News , begin to unload on Fox , he found his segment abruptly ended . Thank you , very much . Nice of you to drop by . Adios , amigo . Some of those who love to dish it out , it seems , are n't very big on taking it . The self-protective shield that some media organizations erect around their companies is hardly limited to Rupert Murdoch 's network . But what happened with Ricks this week is a case study in sidelining a guest who dared challenge the premise of a story . To be sure , anchor Jon Scott was polite and did n't interrupt Ricks , but he could n't have hustled him off the set faster if he had used a vaudeville-style hook . Watch : Should Fox have pulled plug on Tom Ricks for ripping the network ? Ricks , a longtime reporter for the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal , has been making the rounds to talk about his latest book , `` The Generals . '' ( He appeared on `` Reliable Sources '' on Sunday , and I welcomed his criticism of the media . ) Fox , not surprisingly , wanted to focus on an issue that it frames as a scandal : the Obama administration 's handling of the fatal attack on American diplomats in Libya . Watch : Twitter on fire as Chris Brown slimes a female critic . Fox 's angle was clear from Scott 's setup : `` Right now , pressure mounting on the Obama administration over its response to the deadly attack on our consulate in Benghazi . '' But Ricks did n't pull his punches based on the venue . `` I think Benghazi was generally hyped by this network especially , '' he said . Scott pushed back , which he had every right to do : `` When you have four people dead , including the first U.S. ambassador in more than 30 years , how do you call that hype ? '' That 's when Ricks , after explaining the difficulty of determining what happened in a firefight , went for the jugular : `` I think that the emphasis on Benghazi has been extremely political , partly because Fox was operating as a wing of the Republican Party . '' The interview was over , less than 90 seconds after it started . Was Ricks being deliberately provocative ? Perhaps he was , for controversy sells books . And maybe his criticism was overstated . But the fact remains that he was invited as a guest , was asked about the Libya attack and responded in a way that made Fox 's relentless coverage of the controversy part of the story . And that was deemed unacceptable . Watch : Is it time for Chelsea Clinton , gay rights activist , to leave NBC ? Michael Clemente , Fox 's executive vice president , told me that Ricks 's conduct `` felt like a stunt ... That was just bush league , especially for a veteran reporter . '' Ricks was n't answering the anchor 's question , says Clemente , and Scott , feeling `` offended , '' decided that `` I 'm not going to give this guy any more airtime . '' What 's more , Clemente says , Ricks `` apologized '' to a Fox staffer on the way out . Ricks denies this , saying he told the staffer , who accused him of being rude , that he `` might have been a bit snappish '' because he was tired from his book tour . `` This was in no way an apology , '' Ricks told me , `` but rather an explanation of why I jumped a bit when the anchor began the segment with the assertion that pressure on the White House was building , which it most clearly was not . '' As for the interview itself , `` I was not picking a fight with Fox . I was answering their questions . '' Watch : Why Matt Lauer is getting a bum rap on Twitter . Had Scott wanted to argue that his network was right to pound away at the administration 's shifting stories on Libya , and that it was the rest of the media that was underplaying the matter , they could have had a substantive discussion . Instead , it was over before it began . `` You have a point , '' Clemente said . `` It could have been a back-and-forth debate . But that 's just not Jon 's style . Jon is a more traditional anchor-reporter . '' The episode reminded me of an uncomfortable clash in 2010 when Fox anchor Megyn Kelly repeatedly berated Kirsten Powers , a liberal contributor to the network , for challenging her constant harping on a minor scandal involving the New Black Panther Party . Kelly repeatedly interrupted her guest , told Powers she did n't know what she was talking about and at one point threatened to cut her mike . The difference is that Kelly later realized she had gone too far and told me she had apologized to Powers . The anchor , of course , holds the power in such situations . In May , MSNBC 's Tamron Hall was interviewing Tim Carney , a conservative columnist for the Washington Examiner . She asked about Mitt Romney 's testy reaction to a reporter 's question , the day after a report that the candidate had bullied another student in high school , when Carney tried to turn the tables . `` What you 're doing here is a typical media trick , '' he said . `` You hype up a story and justify the second-day coverage of the story . '' Hall began lecturing Carney , saying `` you do n't have to answer a single question and you did n't have to accept the invitation to come on ... You 're kind of in my house here , '' as if he were an unruly dinner guest . As Carney tried to get a word in , Hall kept talking over him : `` You 're irritating me right now ... You 're not gon na come on and insult me , you 're not gon na come on and insult the network when you knew what we were gon na talk about . Done . '' And he was . The anchor went to another guest and Carney had been summarily dismissed for challenging MSNBC 's handling of the story . Watch : Media buzzing as Newt Gingrich says he may run again . What 's at issue here is not that on-air personalities sometimes let their tempers flare ; anyone spending many hours on the air ( including me ) may get a little peevish now and then . It 's an attitude that one 's own organization is so above reproach that a guest 's criticism amounts to insulting behavior . And since anchors pride themselves on their aggressive questioning , they look small and defensive when they shut down the guest . Not everyone fits this description , of course . In fact , Fox 's Bill O'Reilly seems to relish the chance to repeat the swipes of anyone who takes him on , punch back and invite the offender on for a debate ( which many decline ) . Cable news can be a rough arena . But honest debate , even with puglistic guests , ought to be a two-way street . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Howard Kurtz .
A Fox News interview with anchor Thomas Ricks was cut short . He said ` ` " was operating as a puppet of the Republican Party '' Howard Kurtz : Fox acted too self - protectively rather than allow a debate on its role . He says other Fox anchors have turned down guests who question their networks .