Fox News Confirms Arrest/No Arrest Of Boston Marathon Bomber

It is well known that Fox News is an unreliable network for anyone interested in factual representations of current events. They will unabashedly lie in order to advance the ideological agenda of their political and corporate allies. And yet, it is still unsettling when something like this happens:

Fox News

Within the space of about half an hour, Fox News vividly demonstrated that their issuance of a “confirmation” is of no value whatsoever. After announcing that an arrest had been made in the Boston Marathon bombing, Megyn Kelly repeatedly assured her viewers that the information she was reporting had been verified by multiple sources. But it didn’t take long before the bottom fell out of her assurances.

To be fair, CNN also misreported the story and had to make an embarrassing retraction. The only cable news network that applied the rigorous standards of journalism and refrained from jumping on the erroneous story was MSNBC. Pete Williams, NBC’s justice correspondent, and NBC anchor Brian Williams, both made appearances to refute the reports that were coming out of other news outlets.

Will these people never learn? A few months ago both CNN and Fox (also Megyn Kelly’s show) misreported the Supreme Court decision on ObamaCare. And again, only MSNBC got the ruling right. On that occasion CNN acknowledged their mistake and apologized to viewers. Fox refused to do either, claiming that their analysis was justifiable at the time because they believed it was correct and, therefore, there was nothing for which to apologize. I know…it’s crazy.

Nevertheless, a prolonged discussion took place in the media about the pressure to be first butting up against the responsibility to be right. And despite the universal agreement that accuracy is the measure by which news enterprises will be judged, they continue to fall short of the professional standards they profess to hold.

News organizations can be forgiven for making mistakes from time to time because they are staffed by people and people are not perfect. But they ought ot learn from their mistakes and they ought to demonstrate that they care about the product they produce. At least CNN respects their audience enough to show some remorse. Fox News doesn’t have that kind of class. In fact, their routine abuse of their audience via fabrications and distortions suggest that Fox couldn’t care less what their viewers think they know. From Fox’s perspective, the more confused their viewers are, the easier it is for Fox to continue to deceive them.

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14 thoughts on “Fox News Confirms Arrest/No Arrest Of Boston Marathon Bomber

  1. Or……………instead of a willful strategy to deceive as part of its long term strategy to take over the world, maybe their sources just suck. Not everything is an evil plot.

    News organizations should err on the side of caution, and not be obsessed with being first. None of the networks has been immune over the years. Kudos to MSNBC for showing restraint and getting it right. And I suppose CBS and ABC did, too.

    In cases like this, those who got it wrong should evaluate what happened and take steps to avoid repeating the mistake. And there’s nothing wrong with stating that your sources didn’t pan out and apologize. FOX has a way to go in that area. How did Megan Kelly explain all this? You didn’t mention that.

  2. Somehow, ‘I told you so’ just doesn’t do this justice.

    Is it any wonder fox viewers don’t know anything? Fox doesn’t know anything so how could their viewers? And shame on you, Mark, and your ‘liberal bias’, for bringing all this to light. Don’t you know they were only trying to be “fair and balanced”…you know, both sides…there was and then there wasn’t an arrest. See how that works?

    Mushrooms…feed ’em shit and keep ’em in the dark.

  3. Megyn Kelly is pathetic. To be fair though, I’m sure, she only reads what is given to her, so in her mind she has nothing to apologize for furthermore, no one handed her an apology to read on air. Fox will never apologize for anything they get wrong it would be a horrible precedent for them to set because they would spend half their day reporting so-called news and the other half apologizing for what they reported.

    • Megyn Kelly is a first-rate news anchor, pure and simple.

  4. Finally!! Everything’s gonna be fine folks!! Mitt Romney and Wolf Blitzer are talking about god, it’ll all be ok!!

    Where’s a bitchslapping service when you need one?? I mean…goddammit….just….goddammit.

    • I saw that. Where is the “news” value of Mitt Romney’s faith in God?

      But if you think that was bad, there is an op-ed on Foxnews.com by Erick Erickson where he goes on interminably about his life of tribulation. But it all worked out OK for him and therefore the world is perfect and God’s plan is working. He should try to tell that to the parents of the Sandy Hook children for whom things didn’t have a fairy tale ending.

      • The biggest pillar of conservatism, me and mine are doing ok, therefore everything else everybody else cares about is total bullshit. I got mine so fuck you I don’t care.

        The conservative’s triangle of world outlook:
        1. Keep cutting my taxes
        2. Stay away from my guns
        3. Fuck off

        • It’s a pretty narrow view of the world.

  5. Yesterday, April 18, 2013, the Fox News Corps owned New York Post reported that the police in Boston were looking for two suspects who were photographed on video. But the police did not say which ones at the time, so the Post apparently just randomly picked out two bystanders in the picture and said these were the suspects. One of the unlucky men went on Facebook, and the other turned himself in to the police to declare themselves innocent. The Post defended themselves by saying that they never called the two guys “Suspects”.

    And today, April 19, 2013, the Post had ran a headline saying that the suspects had been ARRESTED. At the time that I am writing this, one bomber has been been killed by the cops and the other is on the run.

    It would seem that even in maters that are in fact Nonpolitical, The Fox News Corp cannot get their story straight. Maybe they just can’t help themselves?

  6. Here we go with yet another idiotic and dishonest screed from Mark against Fox News about the erroneous reporting. Mark very quickly skimmed over the fact that CNN was the first network to air this false report. CNN blew it; Fox News also blew it. They have since corrected the reporting on this story.

    “The only network that got this right was MSNBC…”

    You are completely ignoring the fact that, immediately after the bombing, the MSNBC half-wits Martin Bashir and Chris Matthews started speculating that the bombing was committed by right-wing vigilante groups. Yet another reminder that MSNBC has utterly no credibility. And it shows in the ratings. Fox News destroyed MSNBC by a 3-to-1 margin over the past several days.

    “…they need to learn from their mistakes…”

    That’s MSNBC for you – the network that did everything in their power to partially blame the Gabby Giffords shooting on Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. We saw how well that went for them. I believe that, to this day, Chris Matthews still thinks Palin/Beck were partially to blame.

    You can run, but you can’t hide. Your dishonesty and hypocrisy will be exposed again and again.

    • My “dishonesty and hypocrisy will be exposed again and again.”

      I’m so glad you come here so often to put me in my place…er…embarrass yourself with nonsense comments. Don’t ever stop.

      • Didn’t refute a single point that I made. That figures.

        • Scott, You forget that Mark’s raison d’être is not to present media bias, inaccuracy or outright lies when they occur. It is his mission in life to ignore those incidents from the Left and point them out when they occur from the Right. Moreover, he frames everything within a frame work of an evil empire looking to take over the world. And whoever might include FOX as a source of news is ignorant, racist and all around bad people.

          He won’t refute what you said about MSNBC because he would either have to admit they, too, have some issues or spin it so much that even his head would spin on that 100 mph merry-go-round. Instead, he will maintain his equilibrium and ignore the essence of what you said.

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