When Fox News Channels delusional Bill O’Reilly's show, The O'Reilly Factor, incorrectly identified disgraced Republican congressman, Mark Foley, as a Democrat, it was almost immediately lampooned by Jon Stewart of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, who suggested that when the facts don’t work in your favor, simply alter the reality.
According to Editor & Publisher:
According to Brad Friedman of The Brad Blog, Associated Press did the same thing, but at least had the decency to both correct the problem by changing the "D" to "R" and noting the original "error" at the bottom of the report in a journalistically appropriate way when they did so.
Although legal rulings have tended to support the notion that an intrepid freelance journalist with a blog is no less deserving of First Amendment protections than a well funded media organization, you still hear that annoying label “legitimate” when it comes to media, and press access is granted accordingly.
If media outlets like Fox News are willing to compromise their remaining crumbs of journalistic integrity and willingly and deliberately broadcast falsehoods to pursue a partisan agenda, they cease to deserve the few privileges afforded the press, and should be shut out accordingly.
When you make a mistake, you correct it. Or in Fox’s case, when you get caught lying, you hide the evidence. O'Reilly? Oh, really.
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According to Editor & Publisher:
"Once it came to our attention, we removed the incorrect chyron immediately," said David Tabacoff, executive producer of the Fox News Channel show hosted by Bill O'Reilly, who also does a newspaper column distributed by Creators Syndicate. "We didn't run a correction per se."Well what did you do, per se? Actually they scrubbed the label entirely, rather than correcting the label, per se. If Foley was a Democrat, this would be newsworthy for Fox, but not that he was a Republican?
According to Brad Friedman of The Brad Blog, Associated Press did the same thing, but at least had the decency to both correct the problem by changing the "D" to "R" and noting the original "error" at the bottom of the report in a journalistically appropriate way when they did so.
Correction: This story originally referenced Rep. Mark Foley as a Democrat. He is a Republican. The AP ran a similar correction 3 hours after it first moved on the wire.The First Amendment has been under attack of late, from the jailing of Judith Miller, sentencing of Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, to the jailing of Josh Wolf, to mention but a few.
Although legal rulings have tended to support the notion that an intrepid freelance journalist with a blog is no less deserving of First Amendment protections than a well funded media organization, you still hear that annoying label “legitimate” when it comes to media, and press access is granted accordingly.
If media outlets like Fox News are willing to compromise their remaining crumbs of journalistic integrity and willingly and deliberately broadcast falsehoods to pursue a partisan agenda, they cease to deserve the few privileges afforded the press, and should be shut out accordingly.
When you make a mistake, you correct it. Or in Fox’s case, when you get caught lying, you hide the evidence. O'Reilly? Oh, really.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Clik here to view.
