Fox & Friends can't even get the basic facts right in its rush to stoke anti-Islam outrage
September 03, 2010 9:05 am ET by Eric Schroeck
Fox & Friends this morning freaked out over a story about cheerleaders during a game between the United States and Iran at the World Basketball Championship in Turkey being asked to dress more conservatively out of respect for cultural sensitivities in the predominantly Muslim nation.
But in its rush to stoke more anti-Islam outrage, Fox & Friends - in multiple segments -- couldn't be bothered to get the basic facts of the story right, reporting that the U.S. dance team was "forced to cover up." Here's a sample of Fox & Friends' graphics during the segments:
In one segment, Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham stated: "We seem to bend over backwards to accommodate their culture. It'd be nice if they did the same thing." In another, co-host Gretchen Carlson asked, "Can you believe this?"
Well, no. Because it wasn't the U.S. dance team that was asked to dress more modestly; it was a dance team from the Ukraine called the Red Foxes. The Associated Press reported that the "[p]erformers wore long pants Wednesday during a game between the United States and Iran. Iranian officials had turned their backs when the dancers, who usually wear tiny shorts or skirts, performed in earlier games." The AP also noted that "[t]he Red Foxes have been told to stop performing in games involving the host country because their risque costumes and routines are offensive to the nation that is nearly entirely Muslim."
How could Fox & Friends have bricked this? Probably because the story could have been lifted straight from Jim Hoft's Gateway Pundit blog - a cesspool of misinformation -- which erroneously stated that "USA cheerleaders [were] forced to cover up" during the U.S.-Iran game.
It would make sense, because it certainly wouldn't be the first time Fox & Friends used the often-wrong Gateway Pundit as a source for its stories.
Fox & Friends wasn't even the only Fox outlet to get this wrong. Fox Nation also followed Gateway Pundit's lead, claiming, "USA Cheerleaders Forced to Cover Up in 'Nod to Islam,'" and excerpting from the same article that Gateway Pundit did:
From Fox & Friends:
<sarcasm>
I personally think we need to get over the whole body must be covered thing. It's all artificially inserted into the culture as a means of control.
What they should really do is get rid of all the scripts and teleprompters and just read off all the articles from these radical conservative websites. That's pretty much all they're doing anyway.
So, on top of the factual errors, we've often seen them twist themselves into knots expressing concerns similar to what the officials in Turkey were raising--while providing an avenue to view the very same things our friends at Fox were so concerned about.
Fox News--turning hypocrisy into an art form since 1996.