Fox News Ready To Fire Somebody

Caption: Fox News identifies Gov. Mark Sanford and Rep. Mark Foley as Democrats. These weren't their first mistakes that worked to the benefit of the Republican Party, nor were they the last. Nope, not by a long shot ...

Image credit: Media Matters

There's a new sheriff in town at Faux News, or something:

After a few footage mishaps at Fox News like their recent slip-up: "Fox News Uses Old Palin Footage," the higher ups at the network have had enough.

In an email obtained by FishbowlDC, FNC management alerted the Newsroom that they were going to a "zero base" newscast production, defined in the memo...

"That means we will start by going to air with only the most essential, basic, and manageable elements. To share a key quote from today's meeting: "It is more important to get it right, than it is to get it on." We may then build up again slowly as deadlines and workloads allow so that we can be sure we can quality check everything before it makes air, and we never having to explain, retract, qualify or apologize again."

The memo warns that those involved in future "mistake chains" will receive "warning letters to personnel files, suspensions, and other possible actions up to and including termination."

Fox News Management Fed Up by Mistakes

Which is funny on many levels, not the least of which is that as long as people have been engaged in the business of journalism, there have been mistakes. This is also hardly the first time that Faux News has screwed up, as Talking Points Memo recalls:

Fox has had three much-noticed errors in the past few weeks. First, Sean Hannity used misleading footage to beef up attendance numbers at a Capitol Hill tea party rally -- an incident that caught the attention of the Daily Show's Jon Stewart, forcing Hannity to apologize on air.

Then, last week, one of the midday news shows aired footage of an old Sarah Palin campaign rally to show the "crowds" at her current book tour. An anchor apologized a day later, and Fox blamed a "production error."

Finally, in another segment about Palin's book, the network showed the cover of a satire book called "Going Rouge" instead of her actual memoir, "Going Rogue."

Fox News Threatens Pink Slips For On-Screen Errors

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These are by no means the only mistakes. When Rep. Mark Foley was first accused of molesting congressional pages, the graphic Fox put up claimed that Foley was a Democrat. They did the same thing when South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford was caught in a scandal. These mistakes, of course, worked to the benefit of the Republican Party. I've often wondered if they made mistakes that benefit the GOP's opposition. Until I'd heard of the problem with Palin's book, my guess was that they hadn't.

Now that they've claimed Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent, as one of their own, I'm pretty sure they're just incompetent. Who'd do that on purpose?

There was a time, of course, when journalists used a process known as "editing" to make sure that a story was accurate before it went to print or on the air. There was a person called an "editor" who would review stories, and who employed "fact checkers" and "researchers", to make sure that the facts mentioned in the stories were actually true, and that there was proof of the truth of the stories beyond that they fit the prejudices of the folks who ran the company.

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.