“Think of it this way. Trump is more like a rival media organization than a story Fox is covering,” the professor explained. “He’s infiltrated Fox and replaced part of it with the Trump Show.”

“Hannity’s program is the best example of that. Management has permitted it because it’s valuable to have the Trump Show running on your network,” Rosen continued. “So from that point of view it makes perfect sense that an editorial directive sent out by Fox doesn’t apply to the programming that another media company — Trump — is responsible for.”

A Fox News host who spoke with Business Insider on the condition on anonymity seemed to agree with the sentiment, characterizing Hannity’s show as “an extension” of the Trump apparatus.

“I imagine that he is wanting to be helpful to Donald Trump as an extension of the campaign,” the host said when asked about Hannity’s refusal to stop citing the unscientific polls, “but if Hillary Clinton had won any of those online polls, he probably would not have touted them.”