Fox's Race-Baiting “Nation”

Fox News' news-aggregation website, Fox Nation, has made it a consistent habit over the last few years to prominently feature race-baiting headlines and content. While websites often attract extreme comments, Fox's choice of headlines and the stories that they emphasize seem designed to attract and encourage racist commenters.

Some examples:

Fox Nation, 10/23/10: “White Kid Beaten Up Because Of Slavery”

Fox Nation 10/7/10: “Hate Crime? Brutal Bus Driver Attack Stuns Milwaukee”

The source article for this story makes no mention of race of the driver or the attacker, or of hate crimes.

Fox Nation, 7/28/09: “Reparations By Way Of Health Care Reform?”

Fox Nation, 10/25/10: “WaPo Blockbuster Story on Holder's Black Panthers”

Fox Nation, 5/29/09: “Why Would Justice Dept. Protect Black Panthers?”

Media Matters has extensively documented that the conservative assertion that the Justice Department is protecting the New Black Panthers out of racial preference has no basis in reality.

Fox Nation, 5/28/09: “NBC News: No White Men Qualified for Supreme Court?!”

This story links to a Newsbusters report that accuses MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell of “repeat[ing] White House talking points” when she countered Pat Buchan's complaint that “not a single white male” was on the short list for a Supreme Court vacancy by asking: “Did it ever occur to you, Pat, that maybe there weren't any white men who were qualified?”

Somehow this became an NBC News statement that no white men were qualified for the Supreme Court.

Fox Nation, 2/11/11: “Big Union Recruiting Minority Army for Obama”

The source article here makes no mention of Obama, minorities, or a minority army. The entire premise is fraudulent.

Fox Nation, 12/21/10: “Napolitano Letting Mexicans Bypass Some Airport Security?”

The story linked here details concerns that Mexican drug cartels could possibly exploit a program that allows Mexican citizens to apply for “trusted traveler” status, allowing them to bypass some elements of airport security when flying into the United States (after passing a background check). Fox Nation's headline is an exaggeration; even the headline on FoxNews.com's story doesn't go that far: “Trusted Traveler Program Sparks Fears That Mexican Drug Cartels Could Bypass U.S. Airport Security.”

Fox Nation, 2/25/11: “LA's Hispanic Mayor Wants Taller Walls Around His Mansion”

The story is about Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa requesting a taller wall around the mayor's official residence for security purposes. The story doesn't have anything to with his racial background.

Fox Nation, 2/17/11: “Obama Bringing Motown to White House... Boogey Down!”

Fox Nation, 4/16/10: “White NBC Reporter Confronts Black Man at Tea Party Rally”

This story embeds a video clip from Media Research Center of NBC reporter Kelly O'Donnell asking an African-American man at a tea party rally if he feels uncomfortable that there “aren't a lot of African-American men at these events.” It is hardly a confrontation, and a Gallup poll showed that 6% of tea party supporters were “non-Hispanic black” while that demographic is 11% of the adult population.