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Politico reports a sudden development out of Nevada, as Democratic Party organizers there have chosen to cancel a debate they had scheduled in partnership with Fox News Channel.

The report follows:

The Nevada State Democratic Party is pulling out of a presidential debate scheduled for Aug. 14 in Reno, according to Democratic insiders.

The debate was being hosted by Fox News Channel and Fox News Radio, the Nevada State Democratic Party and the Western Majority Project.

Democratic activists have protested that Fox is not a suitable partner for the event.

A Fox spokeswoman didn’t immediately return a call for comment.

This announcement comes two days after Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards announced he would skip the debate in protest of the events affiliation with Fox News. Many liberal activists, including MoveOn.org, describe the channel as a “mouthpiece for the Republican Party” and not a legitimate news source.

Despite this supposed lack of credibility, Fox News is the most watched cable news station in the country, routinely clobbering its competitors MSNBC and CNN in the ratings game.

UPDATE (March 9th; 5:41ET): Though no statement has been made by Fox News since this development, FNC chairman Roger Ailes touched on the issue during an awards ceremony last night. This is what he had to say, from TVNewser:

Recently pressure groups are forcing candidates to conclude that the best strategy for journalists is divide and conquer, to only appear on those networks and venues that give them favorable coverage.

There's a long tradition of news organizations, national and local, sometimes together, sponsoring presidential and other candidate debates. The organizations and the panelists have been the objects of a lot of advice and even pressure as to how these debates should be conducted and what questions should be asked. This pressure has been successfully resisted, but it's being tried again this year with the added wrinkle that candidates are being asked to boycott debates because certain groups wants to approve the sponsoring organizations.

This pressure must be resisted as it has been in the past. Any candidate for high office of either party who believes he can blacklist any news organization is making a terrible mistake about journalists. And any candidate of either party who cannot answer direct, simple, even tough questions from any journalist runs a real risk of losing the voters.

The public knows if a journalist's question is unfair. They also know if a candidate is impeding freedom of speech and free press. If you are afraid of journalists, how will you face the real dangers in the world?