Back in March of last year, while promoting its newly launched website TheFoxNation.com, Fox News ran advertisements telling viewers that it was “time to say 'no' to biased media and 'yes' to fair play and free speech.”
In the year plus since the website's launch it has proven each and every day that it has no intention of “fair play” and has, if anything, emulated the very essence of “biased media.”
Now, according to a Reuters report, Fox News is preparing to launch a new website targeting the Latino audience, FoxNewsLatino.com.
Interestingly, the public relations surrounding the conservative network's latest online endeavor seems eerily similar to the spin offered surrounding the launch of TheFoxNation.com. Check out these comments from Michael Clemente, Fox News' senior vice president of news editorial:
Clemente said he sees little risk that a Latino audience would avoid a website backed by Fox News because of the cable TV network's conservative pundits, whose views on issues like immigration can be at odds with the Latino community.
“I don't think there'll be conflict,” he said. “We will do what we always do on the news side which is to be very fair and balanced on all sides of the issue in our reporting.”
Notice that Clemente said FoxNewsLatino.com will be “fair and balanced.” That's very similar to the language Fox News senior vice president Joel Cheatwood used in advance of launching TheFoxNation.com:
“I don't think this is going to be limited to die-hard Fox News fans,” Cheatwood says. When registration begins in two months, users will be asked to abide by “core principles of tolerance, open debate, civil discourse and fair and balanced coverage of the news,” with insulting comments deleted.
So, I'm guessing it is only a matter of time until FoxNewsLatino.com serves as a platform for the immigrant bashing personalities that so regularly pepper the network's airwaves? Or perhaps they've hired Bill O'Reilly's buddy Lou Dobbs as the website's first editor?
At this point I wouldn't put anything past them.