So far anyone has been able to determine (including Fox) the events depicted in the video were limited to the two people caught up in the sting. Of course, everyone from Glenn Beck to Sean Hannity implied that the the video documented what they alleged was the rampant corruption of the entire ACORN organization. The facts, however, reveal just the opposite. One fact that Fox News neglected to report (so that their audience could decide) was that the sting operation attempted to snare at least three other ACORN offices but came up empty. The phony journalists (James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles) who sought to entrap ACORN just kept running the scam until they got a bite. Nothing wrong with that, really. The problem is that they didn’t report that most of their targets proved to be honest and uncorruptable. They deliberately left the false impression that all of ACORN was a sewer of sleazeballs.<\/p>\n
It should be noted that O’Keefe and Giles are not journalists, but conservative activists. O’Keefe has plotted scams aimed at Planned Parenthood, and Giles is a Yaffie (a member of the uber-rightist Young Americas Foundation). Also, despite the pathetic behavior of the two women in the video, no actual crime took place. There is no reason to assume that more senior ACORN officials would not have been appalled by this and turned in these women themselves if the episode had progressed up the chain of authority. Indeed, that has been the norm within ACORN.<\/p>\n
It is standard procedure at Fox to misrepresent news events, that is, when they aren’t inventing them entirely. Just yesterday, Fox News ran another ACORN story<\/a> under an intentionally misleading headline that read “ACORN INSULT.”<\/em> So did the Fox Nation, whose version of the same story said “Arrest Warrants Issued for 11 ACORN Workers.”<\/em> But what actually happened was that ACORN had discovered evidence of fraud and reported it to the state attorney’s office. So while Fox portrayed ACORN as crooked, it was ACORN who turned in their own people and were praised by law enforcement for their diligence. <\/p>\n When Fox News goes out if its way to create scandals based on intellectually dishonest conclusions that everyone in an enterprise is guilty if anyone in it commits a crime, they are leaving themselves wide open. Following the Fox model of culpability it would be easy to declare Fox News guilty of numerous abhorrent crimes.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Fox News producer Aaron Bruns was arrested for trafficking<\/a> in child pornography. Another Fox Newser, Don Broderick, committed hit-and-run<\/a> on a bicyclist. Fox News contributor Dick Morris was famously caught with a hooker<\/a>, whom he let listen in on phone calls with the White House. And Bill O’Reilly himself was the subject of a sexual harassment case<\/a> that he settled privately for millions of dollars.<\/p>\n With evidence like this it is pretty clear that Fox News is a venal criminal enterprise, steeped in the most repulsive sorts of violence and sexual assaults. That is, if we use the Fox criteria for establishing guilt. And while ACORN fired their offending employees, three of the four Fox felons above still report there for work.<\/p>\n This is all reminiscent of another case where Beck accused ACORN of having a criminal culture because a few employees were found to have filled out forms improperly. Beck analogized that no one would ever eat at Burger King if it were found that BK employees were as criminally prone as he alleged ACORN’s were. Unfortunately for Beck, it was easy to show that Burger King employees were indeed a rather lawless bunch<\/a> that made ACORN look like a Sunday school.<\/p>\n Therein lies the fallacy of this variety of guilt by association. Burger King, ACORN, and even Fox News, have thousands of employees. And since they are, for the most part, human, some of them will behave poorly. That does not mean that the rest of the enterprise is similarly prone to misbehavior. Unless, of course, you’re Fox News and it is your intention to slander your political enemies. Fox News, and the whole of the Rupert Murdoch empire, is by design a vicious smear machine and ought not to be taken seriously by anyone interested in the truth.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The big story on Fox News yesterday was the undercover video of ACORN employees improperly advising a couple of conservative activists, posing as a pimp and a prostitute, on how to deceive the IRS and acquire funds to operate their illegal business. The video was featured throughout the day on just about every program on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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}},"categories":[1],"tags":[414,26,33,44],"class_list":["post-1396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-acorn","tag-bill-oreilly","tag-fox-news","tag-glenn-beck"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-mw","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1392,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1392","url_meta":{"origin":1396,"position":0},"title":"Fox News Insults ACORN With Blatantly False Headline","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/9\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Fox News is reporting its distinctly dishonest version of a story concerning voter registration fraud in Miami. The article on the Fox News home page features a blaring headline and photo that declares an \"ACORN INSULT\" has been made against the late Paul Newman in commission of voter fraud. Clicking\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":1401,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1401","url_meta":{"origin":1396,"position":1},"title":"Fox Nation News Priorities: An ACORN Obsession","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/16\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Our nation is facing some formidable problems in these turbulent days. We have an economy that is struggling to recover from the worst meltdown in decades. We are engaged in two wars and at least two other diplomatic crises that threaten to escalate. Our environment is being assaulted by toxins\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":1490,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1490","url_meta":{"origin":1396,"position":2},"title":"Study: ACORN Did Nothing Illegal – Fox News: So What?","author":"Mark NC","date":"12\/13\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Last summer Fox News participated in a media frenzy surrounding some sensationalistic videos produced by conservative activists and promoted by right-wing propaganda outlets. The ACORN representatives in the videos appeared to counsel a couple of cartoonish characters posing as a pimp and a prostitute on how to apply for loans\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":1411,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1411","url_meta":{"origin":1396,"position":3},"title":"Fox News Is Soliciting Donations For ACORN Foe Hannah Giles","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/25\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In yet another example of the interconnectedness of Fox News to blatantly partisan political activities, a \"news\" link on the Fox Nation website actually goes to a defense fund donation page for ACORN foe, Hannah Giles. You may recall that Giles is the YAFfie who dressed up as a hooker\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":1086,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1086","url_meta":{"origin":1396,"position":4},"title":"Fox News: All ACORN All The Time","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/10\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In these last few weeks of the 2008 election, it is apparent that John McCain's campaign has rolled completely off the tracks. His poll numbers are mirroring the collapsing trends of the Dow Jones (a Rupert Murdoch enterprise). Desperation has set in that is represented by his pathetic attempts to\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":7265,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=7265","url_meta":{"origin":1396,"position":5},"title":"Fox Nation Revives ACORN Phobia While Mitt Romney Hires Corrupt Consultant","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/8\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been two years since ACORN closed up shop after being falsely accused of voter fraud. But right-wing obsessives refuse to abandon their neuroses once they latch onto them. Never mind the fact that ACORN was exonerated by numerous independent investigations and that the only criminal conviction to result from\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396","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=1396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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