Caption: Fox News, 120 percent committed to make you comfortable with your preconceived notions.Image credit: Media Matters for America
Apparently, after airing this embarrassing graphic on Fox And Friends, Fox News has decided that it wasn't really a mistake:
Lauren Petterson, executive producer of Fox & Friends, told POLITICO that she sees no error in the graphic. And for that reason, there will be no reprimand of staff under the “zero tolerance" policy.
“We were just talking about three interesting pieces of information from Rasmussen,” Petterson said. “We didn’t put on the screen that it added up to 100 percent.”
Fox Producer: No Error In Graphic; Media Matters Responds
Is anyone really surprised?
When Fox News announced their "zero tolerance" policy for on-air mistakes, you might say I scoffed:
So now the management has done what management always does in these situations - instead of owning up to the fact that their habit of not hiring researchers and fact-checkers has finally caught up to them, they are threatening to fire anyone who screws up. Certainly a fitting policy, given the Republicans' antipathy toward labor. You can bet that none of Fox's high priced "talent" will be let go the next time it has to apologize for a mistake.
Which clerical worker or video editor will get the axe next? Stay tuned.
Fox News Ready To Fire Somebody
I was hardly the only one scoffing. Needless to say, Fox News has now lived up to our lowest expectations, as Media Matters notes:
As Jeremy Schulman spelled out on [MMA's County Fair column] last night, you can pretty much throw away Fox News' supposed "zero tolerance" policy for making newsroom blunders. After Fox News made a string of sloppy whoppers in recent weeks , execs claimed they were going to clean house, get back to basics, hold everyone responsible, and some people might even get fired! Because, darn it, Fox News plays home to real journalists, or so claimed the Fox News team.
But as MMA highlighted yesterday, it's all BS. Fox News was caught, yet again, making the type of mistake that would cause red faces at a community access channel. And the cabler's response? It just tried to spin it away.
Gee, There Might Be A Larger Cultural Issue Inside Fox News, Cont'd
Fox News isn't, as MMA goes on to point out, a news organization of the caliber of CNN or ABC, as low a bar as that might be. They can't be taken seriously as a source of information on anything, except maybe sports scores. They might be able to handle celebrity gossip if the press releases aren't too complicated.
To be the lowest of the low in TV news ought to be embarrassing. You'd think they'd be honest with themselves and their viewers, and just change their name to "Fox Infotainment". With a long string of embarrassingly obvious on-air mistakes, it should be clear that anyone who watches this channel isn't looking for news, he's looking to have his world view confirmed.
2 comments:
Wow. Just... wow.
They hit the bottom of the barrel and called in a backhoe, didn't they?
They seem to have done. What's sad is that their audience won't figure this out. Instead, they'll just assert (with no real proof) that all the other news organizations do it, too.
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