Blog For Arizona

Faux News: New Low

Josh Marshall of TPM blog noticed a very odd story on Fox News' website this morning. Purporting to be coverage of Kerry's post-debate rally, it attributed to Kerry quotes which sounded like a Freeper's parody of Kerry, including quotes like:

"Didn't my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!"

"Women should like me! I do manicures,"

"I'm metrosexual -- he's a cowboy,"

Unsurprisingly, the story was pulled as soon as someone complained. The picture above is a screen capture of the site at the time. Fox now claims that the reporter, Carl Cameron, was simply joking around and it got out of hand and that's he's been reprimanded. Mind you, this is the same wingnut reporter who was revealed to have interviewed candidate Bush while his wife was working on his campaign without disclosing this fact by the film OutFoxed.

Fox today released a statement on the false Kerry quotes applogizing for the incident, but not metioning the reporters name.

I think someone who is so biased as to produce and disseminate fabricated quotes which question one of the Candidate's sexuality and ridicules him in such a base and juvenile manner, he should perhaps not be covering that campaign for a major news network. I think most people would agree it would now be impossible for Cameron to cover the Kerry campaign, and it is equally impossible for Fox to claim that Cameron could cover Bush with anything approaching Fox's high standard of objectivity and impartiality.

Perhaps you would like to know where to direct your complaint?

afterhours@foxnews.com, atlarge@foxnews.com, brian.wilson@foxnews.com, brit.hume@foxnews.com, bullsandbears@foxnews.com, cash@foxnews.com, cavuto@foxnews.com, collins.spencer@foxnews.com, comments@foxnews.com, dayside@foxnews.com, forbes@foxnews.com, friends@foxnews.com, foxmagazine@foxnews.com, feedback@foxnews.com, fns@foxnews.com, newswatch@foxnews.com, foxreport@foxnews.com, Colmes@foxnews.com, Hannity@foxnews.com, heartland@foxnews.com, james.rosen@foxnews.com, jim.angle@foxnews.com, major.garrett@foxnews.com, molly.henneberg@foxnews.com, ontherecord@foxnews.com, special@foxnews.com, studiob@foxnews.com, beltway@foxnews.com, myword@foxnews.com, oreilly@foxnews.com, viewerservices@foxnews.com, warstories@foxnews.com, wendell.goler@foxnews.com, cavuto@foxnews.com

That should do the trick.

Perhaps this event will highlight to people how seriously degraded our media has become. Don't forget to write your Congresscritters. A reporter puts libelous quotes in the mouth of Presidential candidate a month before the election and gets a pass for it. Where is this reporter's mea culpa? I'll say this, at least when Dan Rather got duped as to the now famous memos, not caught fabricating the facts like Cameron, he was man enough to stand before America and take the rap. And at least when CBS made a mistake they had the integrity and guts to live up to it.

Lastest Update: Fox News' just announced they are changing their slogan to "We Lie. Then Deny."

From the Management The announcement about Fox slogan was an unfortunate joke that got out of hand. We appologize for any confusion it may have caused. Fox News will be retaining the slogan "We report. No, really... stop laughing!"

posted by Michael Bryan @ 10/01/2004 02:46:00 PM