Fox's Most Blatant Falsehood Ever?
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, June 17, 2010 |
CONTACT Jess Levin (202) 772-8162 |
Media Matters' Rabin-Havt sends letter to network about glaring error
Washington, DC - Today, after Fox News and the Fox Nation falsely suggested that President Obama was giving a "major strip" of land in Arizona "back to Mexico," Media Matters for America issued an open letter to Fox News Senior Vice President Michael Clemente asking that, as promised in the "quality control" memo Fox News management issued to staff, "immediate disciplinary action" be taken.
"Michael Clemente cannot simply ignore this on-air error like he has so many others," said Ari Rabin-Havt, Vice President for Research and Communications at Media Matters. "This was one of the most deliberately misleading reports I've ever seen on Fox News."
Added Rabin-Havt: "This is not a quality control problem. This is a journalistic ethics problem. And if Fox News doesn't correct this, it will prove that it has none."
BACKGROUND
Rabin-Havt has sent five previous letters about such "mistakes" but has yet to receive a response. He sent today's letter after Bonnie Swarbrick, the public information officer for the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona, exclusively told Media Matters that Fox's claims were "totally false" and the notion that America had given the land back to Mexico is "ludicrous."
The letter reads:
Dear Mr. Clemente:
I am writing to you to demand that you correct a glaring error made both on Fox News and on Fox's website The Fox Nation.
The Fox Nation used the preposterous headline "Obama Gives Back Major Strip of AZ to Mexico" to trumpet a report about a closure of land in a national wildlife refuge in Arizona. During that America Live report, guest host Shannon Bream stated: "A massive stretch of Arizona now off limits to Americans. Critics say the administration is, in effect, giving a major strip of the Southwest back to Mexico."
But according to Bonnie Swarbrick, who is the public information officer for the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona, the "massive stretch" of land is about five miles square, it's been closed since 2006, and it obviously hasn't been given back to Mexico.
Swarbrick told Media Matters that the area in the refuge bordering Mexico was "closed in 2006 during the construction of a vehicle barrier." Work on the vehicle barrier progressed into the construction of a 12-foot fence along the part of the refuge that borders Mexico, which is about seven miles long. The area has been kept closed "to allow the Border Patrol to do their work," she said. Swarbrick added that the small strip of land that is closed makes up "less than 0.03 percent" of the refuge and said that the rest of the reserve is still open to the public.
However, the on-screen map that Fox News used during the report suggested a far different scenario:
The map suggests that the red outline indicates the closed area, but only the area of the refuge along the U.S.-Mexico border is actually closed
As for the Fox Nation headline, Swarbrick called it "totally false" and said the notion that America had given the land back to Mexico is "ludicrous."
I'll remind you once again of the quality control memo your network issued in November. The memo assured that "mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the 'mistake chain.' " I would assume that the memo would also apply to Fox Nation, a website that Fox News has promoted with advertisements telling viewers that "[i]t's time to say 'no' to biased media and 'yes' to fair play and free speech."
I have written you on five previous occasions about errors on your network, and I have yet to see any "immediate disciplinary action" take place. In this particular case, on-air and online corrections, at the very least, are necessary.
Sincerely,
Ari Rabin-Havt
Vice President for Communications and Research
Media Matters for America
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At FOX NEWS, "fact" is the worst of all 4-letter words.
As far as the title of this article goes, I think that the FOX NEWS motto of "Fair and Balanced" is far and away "the most blatant falsehood ever."
Ever!
SIBnet funds have been diverted to purchase things that actually work in the effort to secure the border instead of continuing to waste $$ on Boeing's faulty system.
So the Obama admin spends money wisely as opposed to wasting it on corporate give-away to a defense contractor that cant build the system they promised.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/16/AR2010031603573.html
This is really Media Matter's most desperate grasp for straws ever.
1) The land was not given back to Mexico.
2) Obama was not president in 2006, when it was first closed.
3) And Fox use the same color to mark the miniscule dot delineating the land as they used for the mexican border.
Conclusion:
1) You're an idiot.
2) Fox's graphics deptartment is either grossly incometent or was deliberatley trying to be misleading.
3) You're an idiot.
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IMHO
yes the mexican border is almost the same color, but it appears last.
Watch the video, again.
It appears after the two labels (refuge in red and closed section in yellow) are displayed.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4240637/giving-part-of-us-to-mexico?playlist_id=86856
This is a blatant lie on media matters part.
The border is highlighted after.
Watch the video.
This is a blatant lie by mmfa!!!
At which part do they explain how the land was (or was not) "given back to Mexico" "by Obama?"
Just curious.
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I'll stand by my conclusions above.
and for obama you change the source for 2009 and present goals as actuals. for 2010.
If Glenn or Hannity tried this bs you would be calling the evil incarnate.
In a post accusing Fox of using a questionable graph, you use one yourself.
Ya, aint evil, but that is really misleading.
Why did you change the source for 2009?
Not to mention did the head of ICE state he will not deport illegals detained in Arizona? How is that going to improve things?
It's not my chart, so I didn't change the source for 2009. If I had to guess, it's because the DHS did not yet have data publicly available, but was obtained by a source for the WaPo.
There is an additional note regarding the memo which is not shown on the chart I posted but is shown at the source: The memo said that as of February 15th, ICE was on track to deport 310,000, and outlined steps ICE would be taking in order to "meet or exceed" the goal of 400,000.
Washington Post links to the ICE documents from this article, which also corroborates the figures shown in the chart.
Which renders the idea of "most blatant falsehood ever" null and void.
And we just have to trust the Washington Post's source? It is possible that the DHS did not have the data released yet because it was a guessitmate and not accurate, but we'll just be lemmings and trust the WAPO.
And before you say "you just trust fox and beck blindly" ask yourself "why do i read the articles here?"
On track as of Feb 15th? Ask the Cubs if they are on track to win the world serious after two months.
It would if this was about the map, but it is about the stories on fox news and fox nation about "Obama giving a massive stretch of land back to Mexico."
Yes, on track as of Feb 15th because Feb 15th is 4 1/2 months into the fiscal year.
Fox reported that the U.S. ceded territory to Mexico. It isn't true.
You don't have to trust the WaPo's source any more than the WaPo does. They are taking responsibility for the validity of the information since they chose to report it. Publications utilize sources for exclusive information all the time, it's not a new concept. They cite those sources based on the level of trust they have established with them and the ability to confirm the information.
Does WaPo have a reputation for fabricating government documents?
;0)
you stay classy mmfa.
You stay trolly, troll.
You can post "2 + 2 = 5" a hundred times here, but don't expect a math lesson in response to each one.
The Obama Administration stopped wasting millions of dollars on the Bush Administration's "virtual fence" that was a complete and total failure.
However, the right wing gasbags only care about wasteful Government spending when a Democrat is in the White House.
Unfortunately, when the land was never ever slated to go "back to Mexico" never does "go back to Mexico" the Fox news propaganda machine will either take it down and pretend they never promoted the story, or take credit for bringing this to the public attention before it was too late!
In the meantime, the willfully ignorant Fox nation readers will have been further indoctrinated into hating the Obama administration over another totally bogus story.
Almost as good as reading it on the internets.
Sincerely,
Ari Rabin-Havt
Right wing attempted comedy is pretty fascinating to me. They always seem to miss the real absurdity, the obvious target, they're too focused on taking a jab at whoever or whatever they've been told to hate.
In the old days, it was planes dropping pamphlets, now we have Fox "News". The tried-and-true Big Lie strategy is based on the proven fact that if you tell an incredible-sounding whopper and repeat it incessantly, people (or should I say "sheeple") will eventually begin to believe it despite how outrageous and absurd it is.
It relies on a gullible frightened public, already predisposed to believe anything that supports its preconceived notions and prejudices. It largely explains why most of us supported the Iraqi War at first, and why Germans eventually accepted that Jews were internal enemies of the nation.
This is just another manufactured complaint by the gnats at mmfa and all the lemmings who visit just eat it up.
I checked the site tonight to see if the gnats were noting the criticism of the Obamanation by the NY Times and the likes of Jon Stewart. I am not surprised that it is missing.
The NYTimes and Jon Stewart are also not the topic of this article.
Nice attempt at deflection, but you once again prove you've got nothing.
I checked the your post to see if it had an actual relevant point. I was not surprised to find that it was missing.
Related to the red herring and usually accompanied by the ad-hominem fallacy ("gnats"). You people are so predictable and formulaic. Like you're all reading from the same Reactionary Conservative Defective Argument Handbook.
It used to be there was the occasional comedy of one of the right wingers misunderstanding the items here, not getting it, and missing the point.
I don't mean simply disagreeing with rational peoples take on things, and I don't mean just getting their facts wrong, I mean a complete inability to follow the topic of the MMFA item. Seems like it used to be one or two a day, these Emily Litella moments, and they were always good for a laugh.
But something has changed. I've checked out several items here almost every day over the past few weeks, and I honestly can't remember the last time I saw a wingnut actually addressing the topic as if they read and understood it. It's a 100% failure rate lately.
Does this mean the brighter wingnuts just don't comment, because they're at least bright enough to know they got nothing? Is it just that only the dimmest bulbs in the Republican box are delusional enough to try ?
Or is the entire right wing completely losing what little bit of brain function they had left?