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Frustrated Old Xenophobes rustratedldenophobes

“ ” I created a TV network for people 55 to dead. Nobody believed it could be done, but I did it. It's for guys who sit on their couch with the remote all day and night. —Roger Ailes[1]

“ ” To be frank, oftentimes this show is critical of Fox. But only because they're terrible. —Jon Stewart, describing the relationship between Fox News and The Daily Show

“ ” Today’s Fox prime-time lineup preaches Today’s Fox prime-time lineup preaches paranoia , attacking processes and institutions vital to our republic and challenging the rule of law —Ralph Peters, retired United States Army lieutenant colonel and former-analyst on Fox News[3]

Fox News Channel, a.k.a. Fucked News, Faux News (by people who don't know how to pronounce 'faux'), Pox News[4], 7ox News[5], "Bullshit Mountain",[6] America's Pravda,[7] and so forth, is an American cable and satellite news channel whose owner, News Corp, perpetrates all sorts of right-wing slants and sensationalist headlines back home.

There's a reason it can't be called "news" in Canada.[dubious] It's entertainment, like the National Enquirer in audiovisual form. Unlike other news organizations, Fox does not have a department of ethics and standards and does not publish ethics guidelines.[8] Fox is generally extremely reluctant to retract fake news that it spreads, such as that about Seth Rich.[8][9]

Ownership [ edit ]

“ ” We We Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we're discovering that we're working for Fox. —David Frum, former American Enterprise Institute fellow, March 2010[10]

Fox News is part of Australian-born American[11] media mogul Rupert Murdoch's empire News Corporation, which also includes The Sun, a similarly-awful newspaper in the United Kingdom that's a great companion to Fox News. The network, similar to its gutter siblings like The Sun and Daily Mail, is also noted for pandering to the lowest common denominator via the Page Three Girls. No, you can look them up yourself. (Warning: NSFW!).

Murdoch isn't easily embarrassed by much, but when the now-defunct News of the World was caught hacking into phones and bribing police, the British Parliament held hearings, forcing Murdoch to distance himself (arguably, to a degree, from his own son). Curiously, his other news outlets in Australia and the US, including Fox, barely acknowledged the sister rag's disaster across the ocean.

In addition to being started by a dude from Australia, NewsCorp's Nº2 shareholder is Alwaleed Bin Talal, a Saudi prince and businessman who also heads the "Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation" (formerly the "Kingdom Foundation").[12][13] In 2010, Fox News reported that the "mosque" to be built next[note 1] to the site of the former World Trade Center was funded by the Kingdom Foundation, an organization they said "funds madrassas all over the world", as a possible link to terrorist motives for the building of the mosque, failing to mention that the guy who funded it is also in business with Murdoch.[14] So, if Fox News was to be judged by its own standards of guilt by association, it would qualify as a terrorist front.

Slogan [ edit ]

"Fair & Balanced" is a trademarked slogan of this agency, originally used in conjunction with "Real Journalism."[note 2]

Slogans previously trotted out include:

" We Report. You Decide. " — Closer to " We Report, You Believe " [note 3] than you'd like to think, and sometimes heard as "We Distort, You Deride" .

" — Closer to " " than you'd like to think, and sometimes heard as . " The Most Powerful Name in News " — You don't need to be trusted or even merit trust, you just need to be powerful to have people believe in you.

" — You don't need to be trusted or even merit trust, you just need to be powerful to have people believe in you. "America's News Headquarters" — Don't go anywhere else, we have all the information you want. (No word on what non-Americans or liberals would use.)

Staffing [ edit ]

Fox News employs people from a large, broad base of the political spectrum, from the sort-of-far-right to the mostly-far-right to the ultra-far-right. Nevertheless, on-air personalities tend to fall into recognizable categories: angry Irish guys, blondes with nice legs, milquetoast liberals, and hawt chix of indeterminate ethnicity.[note 4] Roger Ailes, the former president of Fox News, was Tricky Dick's media advisor;[15] however, he resigned amid widespread accusations of sexual harassment from many different women, suggestive of a culture tolerating sexual harassment at Fox News.

There are further suggestions that women had to put up with unwanted advances or their careers would not advance.[16] There is an allegation that at least one woman was pressured to get other women into positions where they would be vulnerable to harassment as well as to put up with sexual advances from Ailes who was, at the start, roughly twice her age. The victim claimed that this led to severely deteriorated mental health.[17]

Notable (dysfunctional) personalities [ edit ]

Former personalities [ edit ]

News babes [ edit ]

News babe in her natural habitat

In order to capture the lonely hetero male demographic that is too old to either Google for porn or buy Playboy, Fox employs a host of hawt "news babes" (or "anchor babes", not to be confused with "anchor babies"), in a cunning and devious strategy to let their viewers watch the very thing they want to see (those heartless bastards!).

Many of the news babes were former models or have used Fox to bolster their modeling careers. Because the only thing that's expected of them is not to show intellect, agency, or journalistic integrity, but to look good in short skirts and hooker boots while regurgitating wingnut talking points, the news babe phenomenon might in fact be the another case of wingnut welfare, but with sexist seasoning.

“ ” I hired I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings. —Roger Ailes.[54]

It’s been hypothesized that the Fox News anchor women’s skirts rising is directly correlated to rises in ratings, though this would be difficult to objectively prove.[55] Fox is the only network that employs a full-time “image consultant”, and compared to other news networks the amount of makeup used has also been said to be much greater by guests like Liza Mundy.[56][57]

Programming [ edit ]

Fox News' usual programming includes anything containing the words: Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole Smith, celebrity, or other such pointless drivel. Occasionally, they let actual news slip by, but it is always quickly removed. They are also your National Headquarters for uninteresting Southern California car chases.[more detail please]

Mostly, Fox enjoys providing shouting matches about anything that bothers them. Say what you will about Rupert Murdoch, he knows a good business model when he sees it; instead of training journalists and actually shipping them to newsworthy spots, he hires demagogues to scream hysterically for hours on end. Filling airtime with real stories costs much more money than having lunatics rave, and besides, temper tantrums are often morbidly fascinating. During the temporary short periods of relaxation to catch your breath, they occasionally mention some real "news", but quickly change the subject.

Fox News was the first to inform us that Barack Obama is a Muslim sleeper, trained in a radical Islamic madrasa, a co-conspirator of terrorist Bill Ayers, who salutes his wife with a "terrorist fist jab." Fox is still awaiting a Pulitzer for these notable revelations.[58]

Covering international affairs, Fox News finds a way to point out whatever effect it has on the United States. Such as: "Lots of murder and genocide is going on in that small African country, but fortunately, the US has no plans to send soldiers there at all," or: "The Asian stock market crashed today in a total collapse of their economy; as a result the US stock market will likely suffer slightly until the Asians get their act together."

Fox invented the technique of showing one thing on the screen while commenting upon the opposite, such as Sean Hannity repeatedly asserting Rudy Giuliani was winning the 2008 Republican debates, while live polls showed Ron Paul winning.[59] In November 2009, Sean Hannity marveled at the turnout for a conservative political rally while showing footage of another. Fox and Hannity reported long queues for Sarah Palin's book signings, whereas the actual video came from a McCain campaign rally a year earlier.[60]

When a major news story is breaking and the news is injurious to conservatives or Republicans or can't otherwise be avoided, Fox News takes one or more of these strategies:

Remind viewers that President Bill Clinton had fellatio in the White House and "damaged" the Presidency Bring in some sort of reminder of 9/11 and emphasize that the nation is safer from terrorism because of what the Republicans are doing Offer 'proof' President Barack Obama is a radical Muslim/Nazi/communist/socialist/anti-American/n-n-Negro/terrorist/born in Kenya or somewhere else foreign Change the subject by presenting celebrity gossip or covering "breaking news" (Fox News Alert), such as an oil refinery fire in Arkansas, far away from the damaging news on Capitol Hill Blame liberals, leftists, socialists, communists, centrists, progressives, fake Republicans, Democrats, Clintons, France, O.J. Simpson, and/or actual news media Bringing up the Steele Dossier or something about FISA reports, juuust when they're losing you, to give the impression they speak from evidence-based facts When all of the above fail, just go ahead and change the party affiliation (from R to D) of the person who's in trouble (see below)

Flogging wingnut pseudoscience [ edit ]

An astounding 120% polled, mathematics according to Fox news.

“ ” "Oil slicks help keep seals youthful, supple" study finds —The Simpsons, "Mr. Spitz Goes to Washington"[61]

Naturally, Fox absolutely loves the manufactroversies over evolution and global warming. They have even gone so far as to hawk Ken Ham's Creation Museum.[62] Global warming denial is also a favorite.[63] During the breaking of the Climategate "story," VP Bill Sammon sent a memo encouraging anchors to run with the story, writing: "It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies."[64] Steve Milloy, of course, is a constant source of denialism, general anti-environmentalism, and copious amounts of hippie-punching.

In April 2018, Fox promoted the contrasting opinions of conspiracy theorist/Biblical numerologist David Meade and young Earth creationist Jonathan Sarfati, while only briefly mentioned NASA with regard to Planet X/Nibiru.[65][66]

Ad refusals [ edit ]

Fox is known for occasionally refusing advertisements not coinciding with Murdoch's view of what's good for America. For example, in May 2010, Fox refused to air an advert from VoteVets, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, asking for clean energy development to reduce our dependence upon Middle Eastern oil.[67]

Musical interludes [ edit ]

In 2006, Trent Reznor issued a cease and desist to Fox News for using three songs from Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile on air without permission. The songs "La Mer," "The Great Below," and "The Mark Has Been Made" appeared in an episode of War Stories with Oliver North.[68]

Subsequently, Reznor posted to his blog: "Thanks for the Fox News heads-up. A cease and desist has been issued. Fuck Fox Fucking News."[69]

In 2011, Adam Levine of the band Maroon 5 issued a similar cease-and-desist order for playing "Moves like Jagger". He stated on Twitter, "Dear Fox News, don't play our music on your evil fucking channel ever again. Thank you." Fox News anchor Andy Levy replied in a tweet, "Dear @AdamLevine, don't make crappy fucking music ever again. Thank you."[70] So why did they play it in the first place?

Language [ edit ]

Fox News is known to continually pervert the English language in order to further a right-wing agenda. Thus, suicide bombers become, in Fox Newspeak, homicide bombers at the same time the Bush administration was encouraging news outlets to use this term. Don't like political correctness? Fuck you libtards, let's make our own!

Availability [ edit ]

As of January 2020, it is available to 90 million households in the U.S.[71] and to other viewers internationally. Many of the more outrageous or potentially controversial clips, particularly those of their opinion pundits are widely available on YouTube.

Towards the end of 2014, the satellite television company Dish got into a bit of an altercation with Fox's parent company, with Fox claiming that Dish needed to pay them more money to continue airing their channel due to the rising cost of maintaining it. Dish reported that Fox attempted to double their contract rate on the channel, which Dish was willing to meet, but Fox attempted to triple the rate on an unrelated channel that had a contract not set to expire for some time.[72] As a result, Fox News was blacked out on all Dish Network devices for several weeks, causing quite a nasty dip in Fox's ratings,[73] before the two could reach a new deal.[74]

Fox was avaliable in the United Kingdom, via Murdoch's Sky satellite TV service, until 2017, when it was withdrawn.[75] It had very little audience (2,000 viewers a day),[75] and was the target of a number of Ofcom rulings,[75] although its withdrawing may have been related to a Murdoch takeover attempt,[75] even though Sky says it was because of the audience, which for them is due to Fox being made for a US viewership.[75]

Popularity [ edit ]

One thing Fox has been quite effective at doing is securing a dedicated and loyal audience of considerable size, virtually all of them conservative Republicans. Many Fox News viewers consider it to be literally the only reliable source of information in the United States, with Fox News literally being the *only* media outlet out of 30 American media sources a majority of Republicans trusted in a Pew survey on January 24, 2020. [76] It would be laughable if it wasn't so awful for American politics. [77]

Polls [ edit ]

Popularity [ edit ]

A January 2010 survey[78] conducted by Public Policy Polling reveals Fox News as the most trusted name in television, voted tops by three quarters of Republicans and considerably fewer Democrats.

“ ” A generation ago you would have expected Americans to place their trust in the most neutral and unbiased conveyors of news. But the media landscape has really changed and now they’re turning more toward the outlets that tell them what they want to hear. —Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling

Somehow, despite their higher-than-everyone-else ratings, everyone else is labeled as the "mainstream media".

Reliability [ edit ]

Popularity does not translate into integrity or knowledge. A December 2010 University of Maryland study showed Fox News viewers aren't merely the most uninformed, but the most misinformed.[79]

As of 26 August 2015, 58% of Fox's rated statements at PolitiFact rated Mostly False or worse, with 29% of all statements rating False outright.[80]

A November 2011 Fairleigh Dickinson University study found similar results, that people who watched no news were better informed than those who watched Fox News. Fox viewers were much more likely "to believe false information about politics."[81] The study also revealed Fox News fans had a poor grasp of situations in the Middle East.[82]

Political involvement [ edit ]

George W. Bush White House communications director Nicole Wallace credited Hannity and El Rushbo with shaping Republican strategy.[83]

Republican Governors donations [ edit ]

In August 2010, Fox News Corp continued its 'fair and balanced' doctrine, donating $1 million to the Republican Governors Association.[84] Bloomberg News reports Fox News Corp is the largest corporate donor to the RGA.[85][86]

Tea Party [ edit ]

Throughout the 2009-2010 congressional campaign season, Fox News Corp strongly backed and at times took credit for the Tea Party movement, showcasing Sarah Palin and often backing fringe candidates such as Christine O'Donnell[87][88] and Sharron Angle,[89][90] as well as lunatic figures such as Michelle Bachmann. They've also been notorious for racist and sexist slurs hurled at politicians such as president Barack Obama, House member Nancy Pelosi, and congressman Maxine Waters.

Fox News took out full-page ads in the Washington Post, the New York Post, and the Wall Street Journal.[91][92] In promoting the Tea Party, Fox often took the false approach that mainstream news ignored this important news story, crafting prominent headlines reading, "How did ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN miss this story?"[93][94] This blatant attempt at smearing the media offended a lot of hard-working and real journalists.

Gabrielle Giffords shooting [ edit ]

Fox backed away from self-criticism in the 8 January 2011 shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, in which six others were killed, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl. In repudiating responsibility for rhetoric, Sean Hannity implied liberals were at fault, because of course he did. On 12 January, Sarah Palin issued a “blood libel” video statement, denying her Giffords-in-the-crosshairs attacks could be at fault while implying she (Palin) was the real victim.[95]

Meanwhile, Fox cancelled a planned appearance of Joan Rivers who partially blamed the Arizona shootings on Palin and referred to Sarah as "stupid and a threat."[96] Fox naturally denied cancellation, insisting it wasn't censorship but a 'mistake', immediately refuted by Joan's daughter Melissa Rivers and a Rivers producer and respresentative.[97]

Criticism [ edit ]

Fox News has been the subject of a variety of criticisms.

Conspiracy theories [ edit ]

Fox News has been known to support many conspiracy theories about subjects such as Benghazi, the IRS, Jonathan Gruber, Obamacare, deep state,[98] and many others, to the point of idiots citing them.[99]

Fox has been sued for spreading defamatory information from conspiracy theories,[100] but has also been happy to (rightly) claim that YouTube also spreads conspiracy theories.[101]

Disguised opinion [ edit ]

In lieu of sourcing, Fox News uses phrases like "some say…" or "someone asked…" to obscure editorial manipulation and opinion-casting. 'Some' have called it (wink) empty calories of journalism.[102]

Their inclination towards being a comedy show is heightened by their ridiculous opinion debates, where they all sit around a table, spouting out rubbish propaganda that conservatives have paid them to say. They have also contradicted their own reporters when they find the news not to their liking. They then try to think of a way to disguise this travesty of a debate into a legitimate one by inviting a guest, who then debunks them before they cut him/her off. This is a regular occurrence in the Fox News network - conservative propaganda, ignoring stories that hurt the Republican party, and if they can somehow squeeze it in - bash President Obama and sing songs of Trump. One could call Fox News a comedy show, but one of poor, unintentional humour.

Graphics [ edit ]

How to Lie With Statistics...[103]. According to this graph, 6,000,000 / 7,066,000 = 84.9% 33% Looks like someone read.... According to this graph, 6,000,000 / 7,066,000 =33%

Fox News exploits the mathematical illiteracy of the public by using graphs distorted beyond what mere incompetence could explain. In many cases, their figures don't add up and in others, numbers are graphically misrepresented - as people rarely examine the traits of the graph such as scaling, numbers on the X and Y axis, and proportions of the pieces of the graph.[104]

Fox Nation [ edit ]

In April of 2009, Media Matters began documenting Fox Nation's false and blatantly biased stories. After one year, their laundry list of the most extreme examples contained approximately 425 entries.[105]

Transphobia and homophobia [ edit ]

“ ” I don't do what Bradley Manning wants me to do. —Fox News host Gregg Jarrett defending his decision to continue referring to US Army Pvt. Chelsea E. Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning, as a man, [2]

Fox News has long been criticized for transphobic and homophobic bias.

Outfoxed [ edit ]

The documentary Outfoxed examines the biases and internal pressures at Fox News and their network outlets.[106]

Bill O Reilly Bias and Hypocrisy Exposed Boulder High School Incident [107] Bill invited 2 high school kids to have a discussion on an incident which happened in school which Fox News tried to use to their advantage. However, in the on course of the debate, Bill realized that Jesse Lange, one of the 2 students, was completely deconstructing Fox News' false reporting. In a desperate attempt to try and look credible, O'Reilly took a quote out of context, and tried to interrupt Jesse when he realized that he was being outclassed on live TV. Jesse Lange then pointed out O'Reilly's hypocrisy by taking a quote from his book, and was willing to read the whole paragraph, but Bill hastily stopped the debate and said the quote was out of context, even when Lange said that he would read the entire paragraph.

Bill then went so low as to call Lange a pinhead, when he realized that what very little credibility he had was completely shattered by an intelligent high school student.

Further wingnut welfare [ edit ]

Besides its stable of news babes, Fox keeps a large number of other wingnuts on its dole. The two most egregious examples are the former GOP convicts it employs, Oliver North, an architect of the Iran-Contra affair, and G. Gordon Liddy, one of the Watergate plumbers. (Bets on when Tom DeLay gets hired?) Then there are the "analysts" like Frank Luntz and Karl Rove. Don't forget your Steve Milloy-type corporate shills either.

Wikipedia [ edit ]

Wikipedia dedicates an entire article to Fox News distortions and questionable acts.[108] It is 88 kilobytes, about 10,000 words long, while the main article is only around 64 kb, and 8000 words long. Their "Fox News" article is so controversial they had to semi-protect it. Constant changes to this article were found to have been made from a IP address located in a Fox News office.

Media Matters [ edit ]

Media Matters reports instances in which Fox News altered images of people, places, and things to influence viewers. [109] They even have subcategories for individual programs and personalities.

The party switch [ edit ]

One of the more interesting Fox Techniques involves the fairly consistent "party switch" from Republican (R) to Democrat (D) when a prominent GOP member is caught up in a public scandal. The following is a list of various examples of such (see here for screen captures of each):

Mark Foley - A Republican member of the House of Representatives from Florida, Foley was alleged to have sent sexually inappropriate messages via email and text messages to teenage male pages. Ironically, he also introduced the "Child Modeling Exploitation prevention Act of 2002". In several interviews, Fox News tagged him as a (D), or Democrat, on their subtitles. [110]

John McCain - Seen by many as a more moderate Republican during and following the 2004 Republican primaries, Fox News also labeled him a (D).

Whitehouse / Chafee - During the pivotal 2006 Senate election in Rhode Island, eventual victor Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse was polling 10+ percentage points over the incumbent Lincoln Chafee. Fox News reported that Whitehouse (R) was leading Chafee (D) by 11 points (see above link for screen capture).

Ted Stevens - Prior to the 2008 Senate elections, this Senator from Alaska was facing charges of failing to disclose benefits received. Fox News labeled him a (D).

Mark Sanford - The Republican Governor of South Carolina in 2009 was dramatically found to be having an affair with an Argentinian woman after a week in which his whereabouts were unknown. During his press conference in which he admitted his affair, Fox News identified him as a (D).

Missouri governor Eric Grietens was indicted on invasion of privacy in early 2018. While he was a Democrat until 2015, he switched parties and ran for governor as a Republican, but FOX decided to pretend the latter few years never happened, and identified him as a (D).

Foxual revisionism [ edit ]

Fox has notoriously edited crowds at staged events to inflate the appearance of large numbers that attended Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Tea Party 'events'. Writer James Hibberd shows a "fun gotcha" how Fox photoshops (or videoshops) footage to exaggerate crowd number sizes for their reality program Master Chef.

Chris Wallace interviewed Jon Stewart on his show Fox News Sunday, where Stewart gave a pretty decent spanking to Fox News and Wallace. However, when it was broadcast Fox had deleted out 10 minutes of the 24 minute interview including all the embarrassing bits.[111][112]

Not to be deterred by revisionism, the following Tuesday Stewart used the predominant theme "Fox News doesn't lie" in the edited interview, and listed dozens of Fox lies.[113] Wallace's response to the editing and lies pointed out by Stewart was to apologize for saying Fox News provided the other side of the story instead of the full story...or as Stewart paraphrased "That's your 'setting the record straight'? 'I accidentally told the truth and now I wish I could take it back'?"[114]

Alleged racism [ edit ]

In 2008 a former employee named Harmeen Jones complained of daily racism against him and others, to which he was fired. These comments concerned African-Americans, Arabs, Muslims, Hispanics, women, and Jews. Said employee proceeded to sue Fox News. Harmeen also claims he was often told "you look like a gangster" or "like you're ready to shoot someone" and that he was advised by other minorities to keep his head down. [115]

In February 2015, Fox News embedded an Islamic State propaganda video in its entirety of captured Jordanian pilot Muadh al-Kasasbeh being burned to death, including the (untranslated) ISIS propaganda narrative. Jack Nance, an expert on Islamic extremism including ISIS, stated,[116]

“ ” [Fox News] are literally — literally — working for [Fox News] are literally — literally — working for al-Qaida and ISIS’s media arm. They might as well start sending them royalty checks.

Quotes about Fox News [ edit ]

“ ” You know what a Fox News should give you? Real news! You know what a fake news show onshould give you? —Lewis Black (speaking about The 1/2 Hour News Hour)

“ ” Fox tends to lean more to the right than a man who's just had his right leg blown off. —Charlie Brooker, Newswipe

“ ” Understand, this is an adjunct of the Republican Party.[106] Understand, this is an adjunct of the Republican Party. — then Congressman (now Senator) Bernie Sanders, VT (I), Outfoxed

“ ” The Republicans should be paying Fox News. —Jon Stewart, after Fox NewsCorp donated $1 million to Republican party

“ ” They can go fuck themselves. (Also reported as "They can go fox themselves.") —Joan Rivers, after Fox canceled her appearance, then lied about it, following criticism of Sarah Palin

“ ” They're getting somebody who tells the other side of the story. —Chris Wallace in response to Jon Stewart asking if Fox News is as ideologically neutral as most of the mainstream media

“ ” That to Fox, any editorial view that doesn't favor conservatism is elitist, but favoring conservatism is justified because it needs to be protected against liberal biases. And if you question this logic, it only proves how right they are. —Jon Stewart's depiction of Fox News and rationale for bias [117]

“ ” Once again, we [Fox] put something on the air that's a flat out lie and distortion. —Bob Beckel on distortions of Obama's comments about infrastructure (01-Aug-12)[118]

“ ” To be frank, oftentimes this show is critical of Fox. But only because they're terrible. —Jon Stewart, describing the relationship between Fox News and The Daily Show

A string of lies too big to swallow [ edit ]

In the aftermath of the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris by Muslim extremists, anti-Islam fever was at an all-time high. Naturally, this led to a lot of speculation from many news channels about how Islam was going to be affected by the general public's new attitude toward it. Over on Bullshit Mountain, however, they decided to cut the speculation crap and dive into their own asses headfirst to feed the hysteria.

On a Friday much like any other typical Friday at Fox, Fox Report host Julie Banderas was hosting a self-described "Islamic Terrorist Expert" going by the name of Steve Emerson. During the interview, Emerson referred to the "fact" that Birmingham in England was a city with a population comprised of 70% Muslims (somehow overlapping with the 46.1% of the population that are listed as Christian in the 2011 and most recent census) and that there were several places in Sweden, London, Germany, Paris, etc. that had sharia law set up as that region's law, and that they were almost "a country within a country".[119][120] However, the really big lie that got everyone's attention was Emerson's claim of supposed "no-go zones" in Paris, a claim which Fox repeated in other reports.[121]

The following Saturday, the network apologized not once, but four times for the factual errors.[122] Within mere minutes, memes were flying and FOX's usual detractors were rolling out the "I told you so"s. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, announced plans to sue Fox News for the slander and libel brought about by the network, and received approval from the city's council.[123]

Even if we disregard Steve Emerson's comments, the days following the Hebdo attacks were a particularly bad week for racist scaremongering by Fox pundits. Bob Beckel lamented the increase in interracial dating among young people and suggested this helped make them more receptive to radical Islam,[124] Shannon Bream wondered aloud how we can tell whether masked criminals are "typical bad guys" if we can't see their skin colour,[125] and Jeanine Pirro launched a hateful rant calling for mass extermination of Islamic extremists by arming other Muslims and then "simply looking the other way".[126]

Not even two weeks later, Bill O'Reilly pushed that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl had not been charged with desertion (no doubt to impassion his viewers against our "Muslim-in-Chief"). However, this particular lie had been confirmed since that very morning, and once again, they were caught in the act.[127] While it is true that there will first be a hearing held to determine whether to proceed to trial, this is a far cry from not charging the man.

Things quieted down on the network for a few months after the Bergdahl claim. Although during the Brian Williams scandal Bill O'Reilly fended off statements by his former employers and coworkers that he had not covered those wars with his pen in the thick of it.[128][129][130] While Bill had called for Brian Williams to be pulled off the air, Fox and Bill didn't have a single care about the many exaggerations of Bill's experiences, dismissing them as part of a left wing campaign while admitting that at least some of the detractors' claims appeared to be correct.[131]

However, then came the 2015 Baltimore riots. News media in general was pretty incompetent when it came to informing the public on the Baltimore riots, and Fox was no exception. All the news media organizations focused on the actual rioting, very few focused on the peaceful protests, but when they did, it was full of blunders. Geraldo Rivera mistakenly attempted to speak to one of said peaceful protesters whom he thought was Russel Simmons, then claimed he looked like Russel Simmons when the man denied he was Mr. Simmons (though it's worth pointing out that CNN took it a step further and actually speculated Mr. Simmons was masquerading as the man in question when he wasn't). But Fox took their coverage of the riots one step further than anyone else.

On 4 May 2015, Fox attempted to get fears of the rioting started again with Mike Tobin, who claimed to be on scene at Baltimore with the Fox crew, and that a Baltimore police officer had shot a young black man. Greta Van Susteren then stirred the pot by announcing all of this on Twitter without properly following up on it. She followed up with a couple more tweets, until the Baltimore Police Department tweeted that no one had been shot, refuting Tobin's claim. Van Susteren attempted to save face by saying everyone should turn on Fox to watch as they tried to sort it out.

Eventually, a freelance reporter managed to get Tobin to admit that he had not actually witnessed the crime he had apparently witnessed, and that he had been in his van the entire time, the exact opposite of what he had said 20 minutes before. After a few hours, Shepard Smith had to step in, bring it back to the set, and apologize for screwing up yet again.

Nevertheless, it didn't stop people from still circulating the information after the retraction, but the Baltimore Police Department is standing firm in that it didn't happen. The whole saga can be seen on Snopes Today.[132]

See also [ edit ]

Notes [ edit ]

↑ Well, OK. Two blocks away. ↑ admit they are opening the possibility to And yes, somehow they don't have a problem dropping that phrase (theythey are opening the possibility to fake journalism ). ↑ Slogan of parody network CNNNN ↑ In fairness, this last category also seems to be popular on the other 24-hour news channels. ↑ Smith is actually an out gay man.