Replies

This is the letter that I sent to Fox News Watch on Friday, 9/1/06

A profession in crisis

May I suggest that you are fiddling while your profession burns down around you? This week you feature yet more discussion of the Mark Karr non-story, while ignoring the continuation of massive fraud in coverage of Katrina, on display this last week for the anniversary. Why no critical commentary on the performance art we witnessed then? Will you, for once, examine the litany of false reports put out by the old media sources, particularly the hysteric reporting of Shepard Smith and Anderson Cooper?

I have a challenge for you. Provide me one month and access to all of the material broadcast by Fox during and after Katrina. Allow me to assemble a critique of that coverage and an examination of the claims made. Do you think Smith would come out such a review with an intact reputation? Do you think your role as commentators on news coverage would survive?

The hundreds of dead bodies in the Super Dome, the roving rape gangs, the snipers shooting at rescuers and, worst of all, the mantra of “the failure of the Federal Government to respond.” What do you call over 9,000 people rescued by the Coast Guard? That’s not a local agency. And it took 3 days to get material into New Orleans because the roads were damaged such that trying to move a loaded 18 wheeler over them would have been insane. Your profession broadcast and printed the wildest false rumors without bothering to check or even review them for plausibility, the more sensational the better. And you did it because it could be made to fit the preconceived notions of the uncaring and evil Bush administration inflicting harm on the poor and minorities in a Democrat stronghold.

The levees failed. That is a problem that took a century to develop and it is largely due to local graft and incompetence. Millions of dollars have been diverted from levee maintenance, a local responsibility of the multiple interlocking levee boards. It lined plenty a corrupt politicians pocket (dare I say Dixiecrat politicians?) and was diverted to pet projects, like casinos. Yet your colleagues continue to ride the same false narrative that “it’s all Bush’s fault™.”

Rathergate and the current fauxtography scandals (including Katie’s miracle diet) are only the tip of the iceberg that has managed to break through and give a hint of the utter corruption and incompetence of reporters editors and producers worldwide. The fraudulent stories being spoon fed to Reuters in the Middle East and published without even minimal critical examination are the most upfront examples of how reporters operate today, repeating what favored sources dictate to them, so long as it forwards their leftist, particularly anti-American and anti-Israeli, agendas.

And we come to your second topic, the kidnapped Fox journalists. Your listed topic is “are risks greater than ever?” You mean are the risks to reporters greater. You should be asking instead about the risks to the honest communication of the truth. Steve Centanni has been emphasizing how sympathetic he is to the Palestinian cause and how their message deserves to be heard. By definition he is not a reporter but an advocate for one side, the murderous terrorist's side, and should never be allowed to cover that region again. Your counterparts at CNN admitted that they covered up Sadam’s crimes that they knew about so that they could keep their bureau open in Baghdad. Why? What value did it serve except as a propaganda outlet for a mass murderer? And what did Fox or the other news agencies agree to do or to not report on this time?

Your job is to report on events, who, what, when, where, why and how. If you can’t do that because of fear then you should say so and leave the area. If you won’t do that and instead substitute politically biased diatribes and outright fakery, then your “profession” has already died.