"[G]ullible" Fox & Friends escape lawsuit for repeating yet another false news story
SUMMARY: In an article about a lawsuit against Fox News and hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade for repeating as fact an online parody news report of a school prank that included fabricated quotes attributed to the superintendent, the AP reported that the case has been dismissed and that the judge called Doocy and Kilmeade "gullible." But the Fox & Friends segment in question marked at least the third time since 2004 that Fox News has issued a retraction and apology for airing a fake news report that repeated false information.
In a June 4 article headlined "Judge tosses school official's lawsuit against Fox News," the Associated Press reported on the dismissal of a school superintendent's lawsuit against the Fox News Channel and Fox & Friends co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade for repeating as fact an online parody news report of a school prank that included fabricated quotes attributed to the superintendent. The judge called Doocy and Kilmeade "gullible," as the AP noted, and while he dismissed the lawsuit, the Fox & Friends segment in question marked at least the third time since 2004 that Fox News has issued a retraction and apology for airing a fake news report that repeated false information. In fact, the segment aired after Fox News' Vice President for News John Moody reportedly warned staff in January 2007 that "seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC." In dismissing the suit, U.S. District Court Judge D. Brock Hornby wrote:
The facts in this case -- a morning cable news show derisively reporting events and statements obtained unwittingly from an online parody -- should provide grist for journalism classes teaching research and professionalism standards in the Internet age. But First Amendment principles developed long before the Internet still provide protection to the gullible news program hosts against this public official's claims for defamation and false light invasion of privacy. Poetic justice would subject the defendants to the same ridicule that they accorded the plaintiff. But in real life, the aggrieved school superintendent must be satisfied with their later retraction and a professional reputation sullied less than theirs.
The lawsuit was filed by Leon Levesque, a school superintendent in Lewiston, Maine. According to the AP, "[t]he case was an outgrowth of an April 2007 prank in which a middle school student tossed a slab of leftover Easter ham onto a table surrounded by Somali Muslim youngsters, knowing the Muslims would be offended." Freelance writer Nicholas Plagman later published a fabricated news report about the incident at Associated Content in which he attributed numerous made-up quotes to Levesque, including one in which Levesque was alleged to have said: "These children have got to learn that ham is not a toy." On the April 24, 2007, edition of Fox & Friends, Doocy and Kilmeade reported on Plagman's story as though it were fact and repeated several of the made-up quotes attributed to Levesque. In discussing the parody report, Doocy repeatedly asserted: "We are not making this up." Indeed, when Kilmeade asserted: "You know, I hope we're not being duped," Doocy replied, "We're not being duped. I've looked it up on a couple of different websites up there." Doocy issued an on-air retraction and apology during the May 16, 2007, edition of Fox & Friends First.
Doocy repeated the fake quotes attributed to Levesque from the online article despite the fact that, according to the washingtonpost.com blog The Sleuth, Moody "issued this missive to staff in his daily editorial note on Jan. 23 [2007]: 'For the record: seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC.' " Moody wrote the note after Doocy retracted his false assertion on the January 19, 2007, Fox & Friends, that Sen. Barack Obama "spent the first decade of his life, raised by his Muslim father -- as a Muslim and was educated in a madrassa." Moody criticized the hosts of Fox & Friends in a January 29, 2007, New York Times article, saying, "The hosts violated one of our general rules, which is know what you are talking about. ... They reported information from a publication whose accuracy we didn't know."
Similarly, on October 1, 2004, Fox News issued a retraction and an apology for a fake news story written by chief political correspondent Carl Cameron that falsely attributed quotes to Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) in an attempt to ridicule him over a purported manicure.
In his opinion in the Levesque lawsuit, Hornby wrote that Fox News' "failure to confirm the accuracy of the quotations demonstrates 'an extreme departure from professional standards' ":
The defendants were certainly gullible. Even if they believed the segments of Plagman that they repeated on the air, at least two portions of the Plagman piece were so absurd that they should have raised the defendants' truth-seeking antennae and caused them to question the accuracy of the article as a whole. First, Plagman "quotes" Levesque as saying "All our students should feel welcome in our schools, knowing that they are safe from attacks with ham, bacon, porkchops, or any other delicious meat that comes from pigs." (emphasis added).64 Later, he "quotes" a student as saying "I'm just glad that kid I beat up yesterday was white; I wouldn't want to be in that mess."65 If negligence as to the reliability of a source were the standard, this should be enough. One would hope that when a publisher is poised to report outrageous quotations from such a source, for a story that is not even breaking news, the publisher's failure to confirm the accuracy of the quotations demonstrates "an extreme departure from professional standards." Connaughton, 491 U.S. at 665.66 But unprofessional conduct does not amount to reckless disregard of the truth, and "failure to investigate before publishing, even when a reasonably prudent person would have done so, is not sufficient to establish reckless disregard." Id. at 688.
From the April 24 edition of Fox News' Fox and Friends (from the lawsuit):
DOOCY: [T]his is the number 1 story that we've been talking about today. Up in Maine, a middle school kid -- you know middle school kids
KILMEADE: 7th grade was it?
DOOCY: when they're not saying pull my finger they're doing crazy stuff. He left a ham sandwich in a paper bag where some kids from Somalia would have their lunches. The kid has been suspended and they're calling it a hate crime.
BREAK
DOOCY: We're gonna do a recreation, alright?
CARLSON: Ok.
DOOCY: Let ... Brian, just for uh ... demonstrative purposes, hi, how are you Alisyn?
CAMEROTA: Oh, hello.
DOOCY: Great. Uh ... Alisyn, let's pretend, this is a ham sandwich, let's pretend that uh ... Brian is uh ... from Somalia, alright? And I'm ...
CAMEROTA: [OVERLAPPING] That's quite a stretch.
DOOCY: And I'm in ... yeah, I'm in middle school and I know that he's from Somalia, and I've got this ham sandwich, and I just put it on a table next to him .. .
KILMEADE: Right.
DOOCY: Just like that.
KILMEADE: Right.
CAMEROTA: And then you come back here and you and I giggle.
DOOCY: That's right. I put a ham sandwich next to him.
CAMEROTA: That's funny.
KILMEADE: But of course I didn't know what was in it so it would have to be covered.
DOOCY: That's right.
KILMEADE: And then I realize it's ham.
CAMEROTA: Right.
KILMEADE: And suddenly ...
CARLSON: And so you give it to me. [LAUGHS] Thank you. I'll eat it all for you, Thank you, cause you can't touch ham.
KILMEADE: Yeah, look out.
DOOCY: I should have put it in front of her.
CARLSON: Yeah, is that how it ended?
DOOCY: So anyway, yeah, this is what happened in Lewiston, Maine where a middle school kid being funny doing a joke put a ham sandwich in a paper bag in front of, on a table, where some Muslim students would sit. Well now that kid is being investigated for possible hate crimes. He's been uh ... suspended and the superintendent and the school board looking into perhaps other charges against the kid because it's a hate crime. .
KILMEADE: Yeah ... yeah evidently these Somalia kids are Muslim and Muslims think pork is unclean and highly offensive uh ... and they feel as though to put that in front of somebody is akin to trauma ... uh ... to a hate crime. It's traumatizing and in this case in particular the superintendent, who looks as though he's gonna go to the hilt with this, says it's akin to making these kids feel like they're being shot at back in Mogadishu and being starved to death.
DOOCY: Brian, the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence in that region says they are now working with the school to create an anti-ham response plan. We are not making this up. Also the superintendent, a fellow who we're gonna really try hard to get on our show tomorrow to explain all this stuff, Leon Levesque, he says quote, these children have got to learn that ham is not a toy. Uh ... so they sa ... you know what this is ... this is crazy ...
CARLSON: [OVERLAPPING] I do think this is going way too far.
DOOCY [OVERLAPPING]: Hello!
From the April 24, 2007, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
DOOCY: Ham sandwich: hate crime --
GRETCHEN CARLSON (co-host): Looks good.
DOOCY: -- or lunch?
[...]
CARLSON: Is that how it ended?
DOOCY: This is what happened in Lewiston, Maine, where a middle-school kid, being funny, doing a joke, put a ham sandwich in a paper bag in front of -- on a table, where some Muslim students would sit. Well, now, that kid is being investigated for possible hate crimes. He's been suspended.
[...]
DOOCY: And the superintendent also saying, "These children have got to learn that ham is not a toy."
[...]
DOOCY: Brian, the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence in that region says they are now working with the school to create an anti-ham response plan. We are not making this up.
[...]
DOOCY: But this is just going kind of crazy. The Center for Prevention of Hate Violence is now working with the school to create -- and I'm not making this up -- an anti-ham response plan. I am not making this up. This is the school district. They're coming up -- in concert with this outfit -- is coming up with an anti-ham response plan. And the superintendent up there says, "These children have got to learn that ham is not a toy."
[...]
KILMEADE: The executive director for the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence -- and I thought this was almost from The Onion. I didn't think this was actually true. But he says, "Placing a ham sandwich in front of a Muslim is an extraordinarily hurtful, degrading thing. They probably felt like they were back in Mogadishu, starving and being shot at." I thought this was a joke.
[...]
DOOCY: So many people are typing in saying, "You're making this story up, right?" No, we're not making it up. We'll tell you all about it in just a moment.
KILMEADE: You know, I hope we're not being duped.
DOOCY: We're not being duped. I've looked it up on a couple of different websites up there, from a local paper.
From the May 16, 2007, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends First:
DOOCY: On April the 24th, we told you about an incident at a school in Lewiston, Maine, involving one student placing a ham sandwich in front of a Muslim student who -- which offended that student because eating pork is against Muslim tradition. The incident did happen. It did happen.
However, when we checked our various sources on the story, one source was actually a parody and even attributed itself to the Associated Press. In that parody, various quotes were cited to superintendent Leon Levesque that turned out to be fictitious. Had we known the source was not legit, we never would have mentioned them. We apologize if we offended superintendent Levesque and the Lewiston school system. There was no mal intent on our part.
There you go. Just to set the record straight.
Puh-leeze. FNC airs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Three retractions in four years is nothing egregious, especially since all of the stories are relatively minor.
If you want to talk REAL retractions of major stories, talk to CNN about their Tailwind coverage, talk to MSNBC about saying apresidential candidate withdrew when he didn't (or their bogus Al Sharpton/dogfightong quote), talk to the LA Times about their Tupac story, talk to the New Republic about Stephen Glass ...
My two cents. Thank you.
This is outrageous? Bull!
This is no different than that icon of Liberal hubris and ignorance, The New York Times, getting RickRolled. "The Times issued a correction to its story on Thursday: "" How many retractions has the Times had to publish since 2004? I bet its been more than 3. Even the venerated scientific journal, Science, has had to publish 3 retractions over the last 5 years, most of them over the Hu Suk Hwang stem cell scandal.
Let's talk about some serious journalistic malfeasance, something that truly is outrageous, and something the intellectually dishonest editors of MMFA do not want to discuss at all: Dan Rather and the phony Bush Guard documents. Where is the CBS retraction of this lie? Run this search: "CBS retraction bush guard documents". You will find NO retraction. This is as close as CBS ever came to a retraction:
"CBS News said Monday it cannot prove the authenticity of documents used in a 60 Minutes story about President Bush's National Guard service and that airing the story was a "mistake" that CBS regretted. CBS News Anchor Dan Rather, the reporter of the original story, apologized"
Hypocrites like you will defend these journalistic vermin at CBS all day long while at the same time decrying minor mistakes like this one by F&F, which was promptly corrected when the truth became clear.
You are presuming CBS was only 'suckered' by some Democratic operatives from Texas like Bill Burkett. Rather is so blinded by his prejudice he contends the story is true even thought the documents were fake. Ditto Mary Mapes. These lice need to be sued in the worst way for slander and libel. George W. Bush simply will not lower himself to do this.
You absolutely right, there is a vast difference between airing a stupid story that requires retraction and executing a deliberate attempt to influence the outcome of a National Election by broadcasting a fake story.
Fox makes a prompt retraction on "page one" for a stupid story and the irrelevency that calls itself Media Matters for America decries this as Libel and intimates the F&F narrowly avoided a lawsuit. What a Hoot!
"George W. Bush simply will not lower himself to do this."
still supporting Bush huh? you need a lobotomy.
"...You've had a lobotomy."
FIFY
Let's hope N(ewly)L(obotomized)207's surgeon tossed in a free vasectomy since it's in such close proximity to NeoLiar's cognitive ideatianal dissonance generator, ass a matter of convenience and consideration for future generations...
;-}
still supporting Bush huh? you need a lobotomy.
NL207 seems to be part of that 27 percent (and falling) who still think Bush is doing a good job. Maybe he's already HAD that lobotomy....
These lice need to be sued in the worst way for slander and libel
The documents may have been forged, but the story is TRUE. And truth is always a pretty good defense. But the truth doesn't matter to un-patriotic people.
I totally demolished this argument below, before you ever typed this.
You don't have a leg to stand on. You're just another rightwing troll spouting rightwing talking points long-since debunked.
Liberal icon? They're right of center, and with low journalistic standards.
Your mistake msy be excusable, because to you gus conservatism looks like the angry left.
To you, Sciientific American is Marxist, the President's ex-secretary is a left-wing hate blogger, and Tom Clancy hates America.
What CBS (the company that caved on The Reagans, did that was unforgivable was that, when the documents that were of dubious provenance even though the information was independently substantiated, was that they apologized and dropped the story.. Anybody actually interested in the truth would have followed up and investigated the problem taking that into account. They didn't do that however: they just shut the story down. No major media outlet has looked at the story one way or the other since. WEird--but only if you don't realize who owns these outlets.
Mene Mene Tekel Uparshin.
Well, first, Douchey doesn't come clean with this. He professes no malicious intent, but I challenge anyone viewing the offending piece to convince me that he wasn't being reckless or malicious both in his tone and in his lack of homework. Irresponsible.
Second, if you go back over the Dan Rather Bush TANG records story, you will discover that the documents were not properly vetted, but were never established as phony. Instead, they could not be corroborated sufficient to meet CBS guidelines. Understandable because so few records remain concerning Dubya's service in the TANG. They used to be there, but sometime after Dan Bartlett and Karen Hughes did some "research " in the archives back in the '90's everything was discovered to have mysteriously disappeared.
And that IS a fact.
NL, do you have the Wingnut Filter on? I entered the exact phrase you claimed to get no results from, and my search bagged over 60,000 .
You seem to have missed the entire point here, as well. But thanks for doing all of that typing.
Maybe you have to get to the graduate level before you can take the "how to run a google search" course at journalism school.
The hosts have an army of toadies to help them get this stuff right, and every single one of them failed. With the resources available today, having a job as a fact-checker is like having a job chewing gum. And not a single one of them can manage it despite years of trying.
Does Fox know that their stuff is broadcast? You can't use the "I'm feeling lucky" button when your stuff gets broadcast.
The an intellectual giant like yourself should have no trouble whatsoever ruunning this query:
"CBS retraction bush guard documents"
Should he?
But CBS did do research to try to verify those documents. Compare that to this Fox show that was suckered by easily-debunked stories made up from whole cloth.
And the White House didn't call them into question, preferring to wait until the show was airing to sic their paid trolls onto the blogosphere. There they put doubt into the reader's minds about those documents, trying to taint the whole story.
Careful viewers learned that although those documents may have been fake (it was never proven that they were false - do you even know that?), the secretary who would have typed those documents says that they hold the same information that she recalls typing in similar memos, and they are substantiated by the bits and pieces of information available.
Their story was solid. One of the pieces of evidence they use may not be an original document but almost certainly is representative of the original documents that have been lost or stolen. There's tons of circumstantial evidence that Karl Rove et al removed all incriminating information from the Texas National Guard repository.
I tried looking up Steve doocy's biography and found nothing
Yet he got a one-on-one interview with the president recently. I guess they were both operating on the same intellectual level.
Try this biography. "In 1953, he received a bachelor's degree in journalism from Sam Houston State University where he was editor of the school newspaper"
Or this one: "Reasoner studied journalism at Stanford University and the University of Minnesota" i don't see where this guy even has a degree, just that he studied.
So how is it these folks at Fox are to be regarded any differently than these other two lions of journalism? Just a product of your leftist bias and prejudice?
There will also be new laws that require any group using the tern' news' to follow and comply with the same FCC rules as broadcast media and public newspapers must.
once Fox loses the term news, they will be forced to into oblivion.
The neocons have stolen free press, and they will be held accountable.
After all, it's our press that is a right, not some wingnut stockholders.
How about:
Fox Lowdown … Fox Scoops … Fox Bulletins … Fox Intelligence … Fox Talk of the Town … Fox Chatter of the Country … Fox Reports
No, I think you’re right, they do need that little word.
Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade are f*****g morons, and the only people who don't realize this are the listeners who have to be stupider than these two to give them any credibility. Really, these guys are ignorant douche bags, and their audience represents the most gullible, stupid examples of humanity that we have.