News

Deadline News

Shoes Are Falling: News Corp Scandal Keeps Getting Worse

Posted by on July 11, 2011 at 3:42 pm. 6 Comments :

Anyone waiting for the next shoe to drop in the News Corp hacking affair would be wise to seek cover. It’s about to hail footwear. No matter how hard Rupert Murdoch and his minions struggle to hold back the sea, they are continuing to get battered by higher and more powerful waves of corruption. And the tsunami is reaching across the Atlantic to American shores.

News Corp Shoes Falling

Here are a few of the late breaking stories that threaten to being down many of News Corp’s highest ranking officers:

Reports now emerging that News Corp reporters hacked the phones of 9/11 victims.

“…a former New York cop made the 9/11 hacking claim. He alleged he was contacted by News of the World journalists who said they would pay him to retrieve the private phone records of the dead.”

Congress encouraged to investigate News Corp in the U.S.

“The watchdog group Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is calling on Congress to investigate Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. for evidence that the company’s sprawling phone hacking scandal reached the United States.”

[Note: Media Matters has a petition calling on Congress to investigate News Corp. That’s only fair since Fox News has initiated a campaign against Media Matters.]

More News Corp papers engaged in hacking. Plus more high-profile victims.

“British media said Monday that Brown was one of thousands whose personal details — including his bank account and his son’s medical records — were targeted by people working for News International titles including the Sun and the Sunday Times.”

News Corp shareholders are revolting. Company has lost $7 Billion in market cap.

“A group of News Corp. shareholders have sued the company over a phone-hacking scandal at its now-closed News of the World tabloid in London. The lawsuit accuses News Corp. of large-scale governance failures.”

The scandal is reaching into the executive suites of Rupert Murdoch, who may lose his bid for the BSkyB satellite business. Even worse, he may be liable for prosecution under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Murdoch’s man at Dow Jones (parent of the Wall Street Journal), Les Hinton, has been implicated in a cover up. Even conservative British Prime Minister David Cameron called Hinton out saying…

“There is now a large-scale and well-resourced police investigation. Of course, in 2006 we did have a police investigation, but we can now see that it was plainly inadequate. This in itself requires investigation.”

That 2006 investigation was overseen by Hinton who concluded that only one NotW reporter had done anything wrong. Clearly that was untrue. We now know that more than 4,000 people were victims of the hackers. Either Hinton was utterly incompetent or he was deliberately complicit in the cover up. And while Hinton was running Murdoch’s British papers, Rebekah Brooks was the editor of NotW. Brooks was briefly in charge of conducting the most recent inquiry into the scandal, but she has been removed as more speculation arises as to her involvement.

As an illustration of the depraved nature of these weasels, BBC’s Newsnight hosted actor/comedian Steve Coogan who confronted the former deputy features editor of NotW, Paul McMullan. Coogan told McMullan that he was morally bankrupt after McMullan explicitly defended the unlawful practice of hacking into people’s cell phones:

McMullan: I’ve always said that I try to write articles in a truthful way, and what better source of getting the truth is to listen to someone’s messages?

McMullan could also get the truth by breaking into people’s homes and hiding in their closets. He went on to make the ludicrous claim that freedom of the press would be at risk if he were prohibited from invading the privacy of anyone with a phone. And he mocked Coogan for profiting from his celebrity while complaining about having his phone hacked.

Today Rupert Murdoch withdrew his offer to spin off Sky News as a condition to win approval of his acquisition of BSkyB. That condition was key to the bid going forward due to concerns that he would control too much of the British media. By withdrawing the offer he casts the bid back into the Competition Commission for a review that will likely take six months. Murdoch’s purpose is to delay the decision in hopes that the hacking scandal would fade away. But there is now the risk that the Commission will decline approval for the acquisition. This move shows both how cynical and how desperate Murdoch is.

Stay tuned. This thing is getting worse by the hour. And don’t expect to see much about it on Fox News. Roger Ailes must be running scared himself. I wonder why.

How To Be A Media Magnet: Cutting Through The Clutter

Posted by on June 22, 2011 at 11:11 am. 4 Comments :

The state of contemporary journalism is widely regarded as defective by consumers and critics representing a broad diversity of opinion. It seems that the media has no constituency defending its professional lethargy and its reliance on sensationalism and melodrama.

The past few weeks have provided comprehensive instructions on how to be an utterly frivolous and ineffective news industry. When Americans are desperate for information about pressing issues concerning jobs, the economy, health and Medicare, and national security, they are left wanting as the major news enterprises dump loads of salacious gossip, celebrity gaffes, and lurid tales of criminal miscreants. Just trying to be heard over the caterwaul of crapola that passes for news is an Olympian feat. If it isn’t a lewd lawmaker (Anthony Weiner) flooding the airwaves, it’s a murderous mom (Casey Anthony), one of thousands of murderers, but the only one that seems to garner any attention.

Recent surveys have shown that the media is not covering the issues that the people are most interested in. The audience has made its preference clear: they want substance, not sleaze. But the media tone-deafness was demonstrated exquisitely when all three cable news networks cut away from Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives, after she informed them that she would only be addressing questions regarding jobs and the economy, and not Rep. Weiner. As is becoming routine, a non-news personality summed it up best by playing a video clip of CNN’s Wolf Blitzer expressing his reluctance to cover the titillating trivialities of the day:

Wolf Blitzer: We’ve covered these kinds of stories, It’s not a pleasure for us. It’s not something we look forward to. I’d much rather be discussing economic issues, jobs, the future of Medicare, national security issues, than talking about this.

Jon Stewart: [Incredulously] What’s stopping you?!

In an effort to enhance the public’s access to the stories that actually impact their lives, I am offering this tutorial on how to get appropriate coverage of the critical matters that face our nation. It is not enough to be brilliantly articulate about a position or to make a coherent case for a policy. You must grab the attention away from the media whores and their enablers in the press corps. Here is how to do just that in a handy shareable infographic guide:


Now get out there and make some news.

Andrew Breitbart Is Offended (And Offensive)

Posted by on June 8, 2011 at 2:22 am. 1 Comments :

The New York Times interviewed Andrew Breitbart about the Anthony Weiner affair on Saturday. He attempted to strike a non-partisan tone saying that…

“I am as offended when John Ensign acts like an idiot, when Chris Lee acts like an idiot.”

However, the Times failed to note that Breitbart’s BigGovernment blog did not publish a single story about the travails of either Ensign or Lee. Not one single story. How offended was he?

Compare that to his obsession with Weiner that produced 17 separate stories and consumed every single headline on his masthead (except for the plug for his lame book), and that was four days after the story broke.

Obviously Breitbart was not as offended by the sexcapades of Ensign and Lee as he was about Weiner. He was lying as usual. And as usual the Times, our so-called liberal mainstream media, was clueless and unable to set the record straight. That’s how Breitbart gets away with being a dishonest slug and propagating his horse manure brand of pseudo-journalism.

[This is partially excerpted from an article I wrote for Alternet:
10 Reasons Andrew Breitbart Should Apologize (Or Just Shut Up and Go Away)]

House GOP Lawyer Is News Corp Board Member

Posted by on April 25, 2011 at 6:01 pm. NO Comments :

Earlier this year the White House announced that they would cease to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), believing that it was, in fact, unconstitutional. That stirred up a frenzy of Fox News fury over the audacity of the President refusing to enforce the law of the land. Of course, that utterly dishonest characterization distorted the fact that the administration was only declining to defend constitutional challenges, but would continue to enforce the law.

Not to be appeased, last week, Speaker John Boehner’s office announced that House Republicans would hire their own attorney, for $520 per hour, to litigate the GOP’s support for DOMA. The attorney they hired was former Bush Solicitor General Paul Clement of King & Spaulding.

Now ThinkProgress is reporting that King & Spaulding has dropped the case and Clement has resigned from the firm. King & Spaulding released a statement saying that they “determined that the process used for vetting this engagement was inadequate.” However, speculation is that the firm, which has a strong track record with gay issues, acceded to complaints from gay advocates and concluded that this case was not consistent with its mission.

In the meantime, Clement announced that he would continue to represent Boehner’s pro-DOMA case with his new law firm Bancroft PLLC. Bancroft’s lead partner is Viet D. Dinh, a former high ranking official in the Bush Justice Department. More interesting is that Dinh is also a member of the Board of Directors of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., the parent company of Fox News. This raises the question as to how Fox News will cover this constitutional controversy.

Fox has already taken a radical position with contributor Newt Gingrich warning that Obama could be impeached, saying that “clearly it is a violation of his constitutional oath.” Anchor Megyn Kelly said much the same thing, and contributor Monica Crowley went further, portraying the President as a dictator: “That is Mubarak Obama. You can’t just pick and choose which law you’re gonna enforce.”

If this is what we have presently with Fox News aggressively asserting its opinion on the matter of equality, what can we expect going forward when the counsel for House Republicans is working for a member of the Board of Directors of News Corp? Clearly, the legal ethics at Fox News is no better than their journalistic ethics.

Watch Out Fox News: FTC Seeks To Halt Fake News Sites

Posted by on April 19, 2011 at 2:19 pm. 5 Comments :

Fox NewsFrom the Federal Trade Commission,
April 19, 2011:

“The Federal Trade Commission is requesting federal courts to temporarily halt the allegedly deceptive tactics of 10 operations using fake news websites […] According to the FTC, the defendants operate websites that are meant to appear as if they belong to legitimate news-gathering
organizations, but in reality the sites are simply advertisements aimed at deceptively enticing consumers…”

Fox News is not one of the ten operations cited in this action, but given the description of the violations, could they be far behind? The FTC is taking aggressive steps toward reigning in deceptive practices that “attempt to portray an objective, journalistic endeavor,” says David Vladeck, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Almost everything about these sites is fake.”

If that is the basis for this action, then Fox News ought to be the next target of the FTC’s investigative unit. They blatantly endeavor to portray themselves as a legitimate news-gathering organization while deliberately deceiving viewers. They employ anchors who openly advocate for political issues and candidates despite claiming to be “fair and balanced,” a slogan that in itself violates the FTC’s truth-in-advertising statutes. In fact, some of their paid contributors are actually candidates themselves.

The Fox network is notorious for making false claims that misinform viewers and produce tangible harm. For instance, they spent weeks promoting heavily edited videos that defamed the community service organization, ACORN. They served as the PR agency for Tea Party interests and events. They disparaged health care reform as socialistic. During that debate a memo from Fox’s Washington managing editor instructed his staff to refrain from using the term “public option” because focus group testing had proven that “government-run” would produce a more negative response.

Even with routine reporting that is objectively factual, Fox purposely manipulated their broadcasts. They reported falsely that President Obama spent $2 billion on an overseas trade mission. They invented stories about the Department of Justice declining to prosecute civil rights cases if the plaintiff was white (and then failed to report that those allegations were proven false by an independent Congressional study). And on more than one occasion their anchor scripts and on-screen charts reversed the numbers for polling to show that the President, or the Democratic position, was disfavored by respondents when the actual poll result was the opposite.

To be clear, the FTC actions in the announcement above were taken in response to complaints levied about companies marketing acai berries for weight loss. But are the allegations really that different? If there is an institutional objection to fake news operations selling dubious nutritional products, wouldn’t it be even more critical to police fake news operations selling lies that could influence legislation and elections that impact millions of lives?

I don’t expect to see the FTC halting fake news operations like Fox any time soon. But it would be nice if they could prohibit the word “news” from being used in conjunction with such an operation. And if phony programs that misrepresent weight loss can be regulated to protect consumers, then why not phony programs that misrepresent news?

Fox News Demonstrates How NOT To Make A Correction

Posted by on April 9, 2011 at 10:23 am. 1 Comments :

Faux PasOn February 24, Fox News published an article by their in-house pseudo-liberal, Juan Williams. Like any good Fox News Democrat (FND), Williams pretended to advance a liberal viewpoint while attacking what he and Fox regard as a liberal target.

That’s standard operating procedure for Fox. What makes this occurrence worse is that Williams badly mangled the facts that were the whole premise of his attack. (Actually, that’s pretty standard for Fox as well). The Williams article began by stating…

“This week The Washington Post released a stunning poll. But the news did not make its front page.” […] “The poll done by The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University was buried in The Post’s Sunday business section…”

As it turns out, the poll in question was actually printed front and center, section A, page 1, of the Sunday Post. Fox was alerted to this glaring error, but they ignored it for nearly six weeks. Finally they posted this correction on April 5:

EDITOR’S NOTE: The results of the poll referred to in this article were in fact reported on the front page of the Feb. 20 editions of the Washington Post. Mr. Williams regrets the oversight to the Post, and maintains the study’s findings deserved more prominent coverage in other media outlets.

Why did Fox take so long to correct the error? Could it be that they wanted to wait until the story became stale so that few would ever see the correction? And why did Williams temper his “regrets” with a defense of his conclusions that were based on his false reporting? He was inappropriately using a correction notice to pursue an argument he had already lost.

On the other hand, Fox News commits errors far worse than this on a daily basis without ever acknowledging them, so I suppose we should be grateful that Fox bothered to issue a correction at all.

Glenn Beck Fundamentally Transforms Into A Fox News Has-Been

Posted by on April 6, 2011 at 1:01 pm. 13 Comments :

It’s been a long time coming. The indisputably most bizarre festival of conspiratorial dementia ever to be broadcast is nearing its end. That’s right – The Glenn Beck Acute Paranoia Revue will “transition off of” Fox News later this year.


The press release:

FOX NEWS AND MERCURY RADIO ARTS ANNOUNCE NEW AGREEMENT(New York, NY) Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Glenn Beck’s production company, are proud to announce that they will work together to develop and produce a variety of television projects for air on the Fox News Channel as well as content for other platforms including Fox News’ digital properties. Glenn intends to transition off of his daily program, the third highest rated in all of cable news, later this year.

Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO of Fox News said, “Glenn Beck is a powerful communicator, a creative entrepreneur and a true success by anybody’s standards. I look forward to continuing to work with him. Glenn Beck said: “I truly believe that America owes a lot to Roger Ailes and Fox News. I cannot repay Roger for the lessons I’ve learned and will continue to learn from him and I look forward to starting this new phase of our partnership.”

Joel Cheatwood, SVP/Development at Fox News, will be joining Mercury Radio Arts effective April 24, 2011. Part of his role as EVP will be to manage the partnership and serve as a liaison with the Fox News Channel. Roger Ailes said: “Joel is a good friend and one of the most talented and creative executives in the business. Over the past four years I have consistently valued his input and advice and that will not stop as we work with him in his new role.” “Glenn Beck” is consistently the third highest rated program on cable news.

For the 27 months that “Glenn Beck” has aired on Fox News, the program has averaged more than 2.2 million total viewers and 563,000 viewers 25-54 years old, numbers normally associated with shows airing in primetime, not at 5pm. “Glenn Beck” has dominated all of its cable news competitors since launch.

Glenn Beck and Fox News are portraying this as an amicable separation with sloppy wet kisses abounding, but a television network doesn’t hack off a healthy limb for no reason. Nor does an egomaniacal wannabe Messiah abandon a broadcast perch with national reach voluntarily. We may never know the details of this severance, but we can be certain that it was not as lovey-dovey as the parties are pretending.

We know that Beck’s audience has been eroding rapidly. The past quarter showed more than a third of his viewers skipped out. What’s more, when he has been on vacation his numbers barely budged, proving that he was not a particularly indispensable component of his own show. He has the distinction of having driven away more than 300 advertisers who refuse to have their products and services associated with his hostile, hateful rhetoric.

From Fox’s perspective, they could air traffic at a Roach Motel and make more money if just half of the prodigal advertisers return. (Plus, the Roach Motel Hour would provide more intelligent content and attract a smarter audience). Fox may also have an incentive to distance themselves from the more extreme meanderings of Beck’s perverse imagination as the 2012 election cycle ramps up. More and more conservative politicians, pundits, and planners have become fearful that Beck’s derangement is scaring voters away.

Not to worry. Beck was prepared for this. He previously advised his congregation that…

“They can take my job and they can take my wealth but that’s okay…even if the powers to be, right now, succeed in making me poor, drum me out, and I’m just a worthless loser…which I’m just about that much above that now…I will only be stronger for it. I will use American ingenuity and my ingenuity to pull myself up, and I will find another way to get my message out on a platform that will be a thousand times more powerful!”

I always wondered why, if he had a platform that was a thousand times more powerful, why wasn’t he already using it? He never mentioned what it was. I suppose we’ll find out now. Last year, in response to a series of health issues, Beck also assured his disciples that…

“Things are changing and there is no bad news here. Because what I am feeling in myself, and what is happening to my physical body, to some extent, and what is happening to me mentally, is not a depression, is not a death. It is a transformation. It is a transcendence. It is a reaching out of the slime and pulling yourself out. So it is not bad news. It is just a transition period.”

Personally, I think that what is happening is the wrath of God. After all, it is written plainly in Deuteronomy 28:27-29 that if you fail to heed God’s law…

27: The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed.
28: The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart.
29: And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee.

So how is that working out? We hardly need to speak of Egypt and how badly Beck botched that. The emerods (or hemorrhoids) he has already had, and it nearly killed him. The potential blindness he announced tearfully last year. The madness is self evident.

And now the third curse attacking his prosperity is upon him as he is cast into the television ether by the Pharisees of Fox. And he shouldn’t rest too comfortably on his radio career either, as in that realm he has lost seven stations in just the first three months of this year – including major markets like New York and Philadelphia.

Soon the talk will turn to who will succeed Beck. Ironically, I came into possession of a leaked Fox News memo on April 1st that sheds some light on this question. And as for Beck’s future, he hysterically floated the idea of his own cable network. Lookout Oprah. I think he would be far better off exploiting his natural gifts as a combined televangelist/infomercial barker. Imagine the possibilities of merging Beck’s smarmy Jimmy Swaggert impersonation with the marketing zing of a ShamWow prayer cloth pitch.

Fox News should know that jettisoning Beck does not absolve them of responsibility for all the brazen disinformation they have been peddling. He was just an hour long island in a sea of red-faced lies. They still have Bill O’Reily, Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly, Steve Doocy, and a battalion of conniving contributors delivering their propaganda. Fox News will be no closer to legitimate journalism after Beck’s departure. But they will be a little less shrill.

Sarah Palin’s Canceled Reality Show Gets Millions In Government Subsidies

Posted by on March 31, 2011 at 12:16 pm. 6 Comments :

Sarah PalinSarah Palin, the Alaskan governor most famous for sinking the GOP’s presidential campaign and quitting half way through her term, is in the midst of yet another controversy. This one pits her against Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller in a Fox News contributor’s cat fight.

It seems that the company that produced “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” was the beneficiary of over a million dollars in tax credits that were made possible by a law that Palin signed while still governor. When news of this got out, many conservatives took Palin to task for the apparent hypocrisy. As a Tea Party leader, and possible Republican candidate for president, Palin has been a vocal advocate of small government, so this legislation should be as repugnant to her as say…funding for NPR.

Chris Moody of the Daily Caller posted an article on the swirling debate amongst conservatives who found Palin’s position to be inconsistent with her public stance. Palin called the article “ludicrous” and accused Moody of “spinning” the story to give a false impression.

Palin: The accusation hinges on the notion that I signed the legislation into law knowing that it would personally benefit me. That’s absurd.

That is absurd. Because that is clearly not what that accusation hinges upon. The accusation addresses the hypocrisy of opposing big government intrusions on the free market except when they are used to advance her television career. And Despite recently declaring that she was through whining about the media, she opens her Facebook defense by saying…

“Goodness, cleaning up the sloppiness of reporters could be a full time job. In response to The Daily Caller’s online inquiry, I gave them a statement that the writer buried on his story’s second page (which most people won’t even notice – I didn’t even notice it)…”

First of all, what does it say about Palin that she didn’t notice the bright red text immediately following the article that said “NEXT PAGE: Read Palin’s full statements on the tax credit.” Is that her idea of “buried?” Is she really so lazy that, in an article about herself, she fails to observe such an obvious link? Secondly, the statement she gave was a lengthy 671 word defense that was 35% longer than the article to which she was responding.

Ironically, I agree with Palin that the state is justified in providing incentives to boost business. Many states offer tax credits for production companies in order to persuade them to bring their projects and checkbooks. The problem here is that Palin doesn’t agree with Palin. She is an adamant evangelist for small government and regards these sort of initiatives as outside the role of the state.

What’s more, the Alaska measure takes into account the likelihood that an out-of-state film production company may not have significant tax liabilities in Alaska, making the tax credits of little value. So they permit the producer to profit by selling his tax credits to other Alaska-based firms. That means that local oil companies or foresters or fisheries can acquire the deductions at a discount and reduce their contributions to Alaska’s treasury. So the visiting producer and some big corporations are benefiting at the expense of Alaska’s citizens.

Nice work, Sarah.

Broadcast Media Ignores Major Fox News Scandal

Posted by on February 28, 2011 at 5:18 pm. 8 Comments :

What does it take to get the attention of the media when a corrosive scandal erupts that they don’t seem to want to cover?

This past week a prominent and powerful public figure was implicated in a searing and salacious controversy. It involves sex, felonious criminal conduct, corporate intrigue, political shenanigans, and personal betrayal. This is either the scoop of the year or the best damn plot of “Days of our Lives” in decades.


The central figure in the controversy happens to be one of the most powerful media executives in the world, Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. It is alleged that Ailes tried to coerce a News Corp colleague, Judith Regan, to lie to federal investigators about her affair with Bernard Kerik, President Bush’s nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security. Ailes wanted to shield his friend Rudy Giuliani, who had sponsored Kerik, from an embarrassing episode as he was attempting to launch a campaign for president. Kerik presently resides in federal prison on tax fraud violations.

Can you just imagine what would have happened if the head of CNN or CBS had been the subject of such assertions? First of all, Fox News would have made it their lead story at the top of every hour. It would have been repeated ad nauseum with remotes from the network’s offices. Their primetime pundits would have spun it into a conspiracy that enveloped President Obama, George Soros, Muslim radicals, and protesters from Egypt to Wisconsin.

Instead, there has been a virtual blackout on the broadcast news networks. Not a single one has done a story about Ailes and the newly uncovered legal documents that contain sworn testimony as to his behavior. Of course, I wouldn’t have expected any reports from the Fox News Channel or Fox Business Network as their corporate mission is to lie and obfuscate even when the story doesn’t involve their leader. But what’s the problem with CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC? How is it possible that someone with the public profile of Roger Ailes is getting a free pass by every major television network? Does Ailes have compromising photos of his counterparts at the other networks? Or are they just frightened little hacks with no journalistic integrity whatsoever?

This is not an insignificant story. And it isn’t just the criminal allegations that define its importance. Ailes is still the chief executive of the network despite his apparent attempts to intervene on behalf of a political pal. So this goes straight to the question of his fitness to run a news enterprise and to be fair and balanced while doing so. In recent weeks leaked memos have revealed the institutional bias of Fox News. There has been documentary evidence that Fox is indeed the PR arm of the GOP, just as most objective analysts had already surmised. And the Ailes affair puts an exclamation point on that.

So what’s wrong with the other broadcast news organizations? Why are they protecting Ailes? If the situation were reversed Ailes would be pummeling them. In fact, Fox News already pummels their competitors on a nightly basis without even having a scandal as a starting point. This is a competitiveness issue. Can anyone imagine that if Reebok discovered that the CEO of Nike had approved harmful materials for use in his footwear products, that Reebok would keep its mouth shut? Yet that’s what Fox’s competitors are doing now, and have been doing for years.

First and foremost, the other networks have an obligation to inform the public, and they are failing utterly in that. But, shockingly, they aren’t even willing to advance the truth when it would benefit them competitively against the biggest player on the cable field. Do they want to always be also-rans behind Fox News? That suggests either some dastardly compact has been drawn up surrendering the lead to Fox, or an Olympian dose of incompetence.

Tell the networks to do their job and report this news now!
Contact: [ CNN ] [ ABC ] [ CBS ] [ NBC/MSNBC ]

Zero Tolerance? Fox News Foxed Up Again

Posted by on February 23, 2011 at 10:25 am. 3 Comments :

Fox News Faux PasIs there a more incompetent news network on the air than Fox News? This is an operation that has screwed up so often that the management had to issue a memo warning employees to stop screwing up. Apparently it didn’t do much good because the “errors” are still rampant.

This morning on Fox and Friends, Brian Kilmeade sought to slam down a Democratic guest who asserted that the public was standing with the unions against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

In rebuttal Kilmeade referenced a poll in USA Today that showed that 61% of respondents favored legislation that would strip unions of their collective bargaining rights. He also presented the graphic to the left to illustrate his point.

There’s just one problem with that. The numbers are the reverse of what was shown and said. In reality, 61% oppose stripping unions of their collective bargaining rights. Forty-four minutes later, in the final minute of the program, Kilmeade apologized for the error and displayed a corrected version of the poll graphic. However, this was not a typo. During the debate Kilmeade was ready to rebut the Democrat with what he said were the poll results. So he had the same numbers as the botched graphic in his program notes. Kilmeade was able to falsely argue that the public was behind the governor during the debate segment, but the correction came at the end of the show with no further discussion.

Isn’t it odd how every time Fox News makes a mistake like this it favors their right-wing slant? Numbers are reversed; criminal Republicans are identified as Democrats; maps are mislabeled. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.

The brass at Fox News, however, is not amused. After a spate of embarrassing errors over the past couple of years, a memo was issued to all employees warning that there would be a “Zero Tolerance” policy for such shoddy performance:

“Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the ‘mistake chain,’ and those who supervise them. That may include warning letters to personnel files, suspensions, and other possible actions up to and including termination.”

So who is going to get the axe over this one? If I were a Fox News employee I wouldn’t be too nervous. There have been numerous foul ups like this since the memo went out and no known repercussions for any of them. Apparently the memo was just window dressing to make it appear as if Fox was taking steps to forestall these mistakes. But with no follow through it can only be assumed that they weren’t mistakes to begin with.

This is policy at Fox News. They deliberately disinform viewers during lengthy “news” segments, then issue brief corrections later in the day, far removed from the original discussion. And sadly, their peers at other networks continue to defend them as a news enterprise.