Under Review: A Brief History of Fox News’ Fibbing

For the second time in as many weeks this week, Fox News was forced to apologize for airing file footage it claimed was new. Reporting a story about Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue book tour, Happening Now host Gregg Jarrett commented on the “huge crowds” coming out to see Palin, referencing video clips he said were “just coming to us now.” In reality, the footage was from Palin’s 2008 campaign rallies, decidedly larger events.

Last week, Sean Hannity made a similar error, showing old footage to make a Tea Party protest appear much larger than it actually was.

So that we might better contextualize FNC’s latest “mistakes”—because nobody over there would ever try to intentionally deceive people, right?—here’s a rundown of some of our favorite funny Fox fallacies.

CABLE NEWS
The O’Reilly Factor

My favorite FNC lie comes from none other than the station’s undisputed heavyweight champion: Bill “No Spin” O’Reilly.

In a 2004 interview with Toronto Globe and Mail columnist Heather Mallick, O’Reilly threatened a boycott of Canadian goods if Canada continued harboring two deserters from the U.S. military. When Mallick said, rightly, that such a boycott would be practically impossible, and that O’Reilly’s earlier boycott of French goods went horribly, O’Reilly responded, “No, it will take place, madam. In France—they’ve lost billions of dollars in France according to ‘The Paris Business Review.”

Funny thing about that: During O’Reilly’s economic boycott of France, French-American trade actually increased. And The Paris Business Review? That publication doesn’t even exist.

Danger rating: 7 out of 10 failed, xenophobic boycotts.

-Cord Jefferson

That URL says it all.

CABLE NEWS
The O’Reilly Factor and Live Desk

Besides occasionally running deceitful footage, from time to time, Fox News also likes to throw decency to the wind and give its viewers totally inaccurate information about randy politicians.

The first instance came in Oct. 2006, when disgraced Congressman Mark Foley, who sent sexually explicit instant messages to congressional pages, was identified as a Democrat at least three different times during two different video segments on the O’Reilly Factor. The problem? Foley is—or was—a staunch Republican.

FNC producers would later cop to the mistake, but no on-air correction was issued. And then it happened again.

When the Republican Governor of South Carolina Mark Sanford disappeared to Argentina for an affair this summer, Fox managed to again misidentify the scandalized politician as a Democrat.

But what’s the danger here? Those mistakes are changed minutes later, right? That may be, but check out this Google News search from shortly after the Foley scandal—several other outlets followed Fox’s lead and labeled Foley a Democrat.

Danger rating: 6 out of 10 drunken fact-checkers.

-Andrew Bluebond

TALK RADIO
The Glenn Beck Program (Radio)

Sure, lying about the way in which he greeted the ladies from chat show The View on an Amtrak ride doesn’t seem very insidious, but Glenn Beck’s mendacity here is notable for two reasons:

1. It’s just plum funny to see the big, bad Beck eviscerated by what is basically a glorified coffee klatch.

and

2. Lying about small, seemingly insignificant things—like the way Barbara Walters behaved during a meaningless interaction—is a symptom of pathological liars. If a person actively and maliciously fabricates a story for no other reason than to make themselves seem good and others seem foolish, as Glenn Beck was caught doing, that person is showing dangerous signs of pathology, and they probably shouldn’t be trusted about anything.

Danger rating: 9 out of 10 lies for the sake of lying, because it feels good.

-Cord Jefferson

Cord Jefferson is an associate editor at Campus Progress. Andrew Bluebond is a junior at Claremont McKenna College.

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