{"id":1366,"date":"2009-08-14T19:07:25","date_gmt":"2009-08-15T02:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1366"},"modified":"2009-08-17T01:08:55","modified_gmt":"2009-08-17T08:08:55","slug":"fox-news-major-garrett-really-doesnt-understand-email","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1366","title":{"rendered":"Fox News’ Major Garrett Really Doesn’t Understand Email"},"content":{"rendered":"

At yesterday’s White House press briefing, Major Garrett of Fox News embarrassed himself<\/a> by demonstrating his utter lack of understanding of the Internet and email. Today he is escalating his campaign to make a total ass of himself, and he is doing a magnificent job of it.<\/p>\n

Garrett appeared on Fox News today to announce that he is pursuing White House press secretary Robert Gibbs to find out how emails, allegedly sent from the White House, were received by people who never requested them. He has even filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get to the bottom of this raging controversy. There are some rather simple and entirely innocent answers to this mystery, but Garrett can’t be bothered to investigate them. On his blog today<\/a> he admitted to journalistic negligence that would make a cub reporter cringe.<\/p>\n

“…in every instance so far, e-mailers insist the e-mail(s) they received from the White House was\/were not forwarded. They are positive the e-mails arrived directly from the White House.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“Fox cannot independently verify all of these accounts. Fox can only represent what hundreds of e-mailers have represented to me or to the network.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So Garrett is relying on the accounts of the people who contacted him who said they were “positive”<\/i> the emails came directly from the White House, but he can’t verify a single one. He is satisfied that these people whom he has never met, never questioned, never vetted, are so reliable that he is under no obligation to confirm their assertions. He produces two examples of aggrieved email recipients, one of whom complains, not of an email, but a pop-up ad containing an email from the White House. Of course, a pop-up ad cannot contain an email. It can contain ad, but Garrett didn’t verify this either and, frankly, I’m skeptical.<\/p>\n

Click here to enlarge.<\/a>
\n<\/a>These are the people on whose “positive”<\/i> assertions he was relying when filing his FOIA request. But Garrett is missing an even bigger piece of this puzzle. Apparently he never bothered to look at his very own Fox News blog on which there is a “SHARE”<\/i> feature that permits anyone to send an email from that site to any other email address. And – surprise – WhiteHouse.gov has the very same feature. (see image at left)<\/em><\/p>\n

I don’t know if Garrett is really this clueless about the Internet or if he is deliberately manufacturing a remarkably lame scandal. But before he gets himself in too deep, he may want to get former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens to explain this series of tubes<\/a> to him.
<\/p>\n

For a network\/party that had no problem with the Bush administration actually monitoring and reading their emails, they are sure making a big stink out of something as innocent as a contact list from which they can unsubscribe with a click.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> I’m curious if Garrett’s FOIA request would violate the privacy policy<\/a> of the White House web site. I know that I wouldn’t want my email, or other info that I gave to WhiteHouse.gov, turned over to Fox News.<\/p>\n

Update II:<\/strong> Fox News received a response<\/a> from the White House regarding the mysterious emails:<\/p>\n

“The White House email list is made up of email addresses obtained solely through the White House website. The White House doesn’t purchase, upload or merge from any other list, again, all emails come from the White House website as we have no interest in emailing anyone who does not want to receive an email. If an individual received the email because someone else or a group signed them up or forwarded the email, we hope they were not too inconvenienced. Further, we suggest that they unsubscribe from the list by clicking the link at the bottom of the email or tell whomever forwarded it to them not to forward such information anymore. We are implementing measures to make subscribing to emails clearer, including preventing advocacy organizations from signing people up to our lists without their permission when they deliver petition signatures and other messages on individual’s behalf.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As it turns out, it was third-party organizations who entered the email addresses into the White House system, not some grand conspiracy by Obama and ACORN and Bill Ayres and the Kenyan Consulate. Who knew? Well, everyone but Major Garrett and the fraternity of Foxpods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At yesterday’s White House press briefing, Major Garrett of Fox News embarrassed himself by demonstrating his utter lack of understanding of the Internet and email. Today he is escalating his campaign to make a total ass of himself, and he is doing a magnificent job of it. Garrett appeared on Fox News today to announce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,16],"tags":[33,192,411,622],"class_list":["post-1366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-wankery","tag-fox-news","tag-major-garrett","tag-robert-gibbs","tag-ted-stevens"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-m2","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1363,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1363","url_meta":{"origin":1366,"position":0},"title":"Robert Gibbs Nails Major Garrett Of Fox News","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/13\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Today's White House press briefing contained a bit of dramedy that should serve as a model for how to treat the pseudo-journalists from Fox News. Fox's Major Garrett was concerned about people who claim that they have received emails from presidential advisor David Axelrod despite never having signed up for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1436,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1436","url_meta":{"origin":1366,"position":1},"title":"Fox News Bias: It Is NOT Just Primetime","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/29\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What on earth is it going to take to get rid of this persistent falsehood that Fox is only slanted right in primetime? So much of the recent squabble between the White House and Fox is predicated on this easily refuted premise. If it were only O'Reilly and Hannity spewing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":750,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=750","url_meta":{"origin":1366,"position":2},"title":"Fox’s Major Garrett In Sex Romp With Senator Craig","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/10\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In the fog of hard-fought political wars, the foot soldiers are exposed to stimulating sensations as the campaigns heat up and swirl with emotion. The ups and downs pound furiously as sweaty staffers strain to satisfy insatiable supporters and reporters. One such reporter appears to have succumbed to the siren\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4892,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4892","url_meta":{"origin":1366,"position":3},"title":"Comic Relief: Judicial Watch Reveals White House Bias Against Fox News","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/14\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Judicial Watch describes itself as a \"public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption.\" Today they announced that they have uncovered documents from Obama's Department of the Treasury revealing evidence of an anti-Fox News bias within the White House. Holy moly! What a scoop. Perhaps with a little more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1673,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1673","url_meta":{"origin":1366,"position":4},"title":"Fox News: Nothing But Sestak","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/28\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Anyone with a functioning brain stem is aware of the multitude of problems facing our country and world in these \"interesting\" times. We are currently struggling to deal with what may be the worst man-made environmental catastrophe ever. We are still in the midst of perilous economic conditions. There are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1369,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1369","url_meta":{"origin":1366,"position":5},"title":"The Idiots Of Fox News: Garrett, Sammon, And O’Reilly Edition","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/18\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I know, the headline is redundant. What's more, this list is far from comprehensive. It is just intended to spotlight a few recent examples. I couldn't possibly keep up with them all. For the last Week, Major Garrett has been making it abundantly clear that he is a moron. He\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}