More Proof Fox News Is Not News: The Russia/Greece Mashup

Earlier this week Fox News broadcast a report on protests taking place in Russia. They made a point of noting the violent nature of the demonstrations and included dramatic footage of raging fires and rampaging protesters. The only problem with that is that the video Fox aired was not of the Russian protests. It was from protests that took place in Greece and even included shots of businesses with Greek signs.

This is not an uncommon occurrence on Fox News. There have been some notorious incidents when Fox fouled up, including one where Sean Hannity aired video of a well attended rally that he said was a Tea Party event. However, it was from a different rally entirely, and the real Tea Party gathering actually drew a rather meager crowd. On another occasion Fox News published an ad that accused CNN of failing to report on a Tea Party event, but the photo of the event that Fox used in their ad was taken off the air from CNN’s broadcast.

Also notable is this headline story and image that was featured at the top of the Fox News web site today:

Fox News

What’s wrong with this picture? Once again it is not what Fox says it is. These are not protesters in Russia. They are protesters demonstrating at the Houses of Parliament in London. You would think that all of the English language signs would be a dead giveaway. But apparently Fox is unconcerned that their audience is smart enough to pick up on that.

These amateurish flubs are typical of Fox’s sloppy brand of pseudo-journalism. It demonstrates their lack of seriousness with regard to reporting and informing the public. What’s more, they are aware of the problem. A couple of years ago they distributed a memo to their newsroom warning of the consequences of continued blunders:

“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 will heads be rolling at Fox News? Don’t count on it. Fox doesn’t regard these incidents as mistakes. In fact, they are an integral part of their mandate. A mistake would be if they inadvertently allowed something truthful to get on the air. That would be cause for termination at Fox.

Advertisement:

8 thoughts on “More Proof Fox News Is Not News: The Russia/Greece Mashup

  1. This will help put people off the Occupy Wall Street protests, they’ve been trying to paint them as violent the whole time. This taints them by proxy.

  2. Fox not News is one of the most disgraceful organizations in the world. I would say 80% of what they report is distorted, out of context or complete fabrication. They betray their function as a member of the fourth estate and do a great service to democracy in America with all the misinformation they put out there on a daily basis.

  3. I meant disservice to democracy in America. My bad!

  4. These kinds of things can’t be mistakes. They just can’t be. I bet every single foreign network denied to allow Fox News to air their footage, so they had nothing to show for b roll. Mistake? I honestly doubt it. There’s gotta be more to it than just a gargantuan, massively stupid fuck up. And I bet it has more to do with fox screwing their own chances of cooperation with other news organizations. I mean come on. These can’t just be mistakes……..no one could possibly be that stupid. Cause for these to be fuck ups, it would take a very special kind of stupid.

    • “No one could possibly be that stupid” we are talking about Fox not News, so we know it is definitely possible. But I agree with you this sort of thing happens far too often there as Mark pointed out. This should be an extremely rate thing for a professional news organization, which Fox is not, and I believe, you’re right it is not a mistake. Fox not News is not informing the public and are disgraceful.

  5. This is a very bad sign. You have to ask yourself what other egregious errors are being made in our free market mass media news coverage. Among other issues, it’s embarrassing to have the world see these sloppy, if not deliberate, errors.

    BTW your blog videos do not display in Firefox 8. I have to go to Chrome to see the videos. Can’t find a contact email, so I put this here. I share your content and want to be sure it displays to others when I do so.

    • I’m quite sure there are numerous other examples of “errors” like these. I noted a couple above. And it is embarrassing to anyone who aspires to up[hold journalistic standards – which obviously does not include Fox News.

      FYI: I have tested these videos in multiple browsers and they all play just fine. So feel free to keep sharing (and thanks for that).

Comments are closed.