Under Review:

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.

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

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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Comments

1. You don’t understand, guys. FOXNEWS is the “fix” under-educated and helpless Middle America takes whenever its own common sense tells it that our United States are going down the drain. Afterall, they’re too old to take pot or coke to feel better. Instead they tune in to hear that, yes, they were right all along and that Obama is an anti-American cad. That gives them hope that things will get better as they sit there in utter helplessness. Unlike the younger people who watch MSNBC, the FOXNEWS audiences watch the commercials for instructions on how to live happier and healthier lives on Viagra in their new Chevys, taking Plavix for their PAD! Afterall, taking their orders from that electronic box is what they’ve been doing since early childhood. Truth? What is truth? It’s got to be truth because I saw it on FOXNEWS and FOXNEWS makes me feel alright so it must be “fair and balanced”!

   — DE Teodoru - Nov 25, 04:28 PM - #
   
   

2. How about the time O’Reilly claimed that a Swedish study PROVED that the rate of heterosexual marriages declines when gay marriage is legal? No such study was ever done.
   Or how about the time Hannity and Michael Reagan claimed that nobody blamed Clinton when Hurricane Andrew did so much damage, so why blame Bush for Katrina? Turns out Hurricane Andrew happened under Bush I’s watch, not Clinton’s.
   We should have an organization that does nothing but debunk Fox lies… but I’d hate to ask anyone to watch Fox.

   — Jane - Nov 25, 07:01 PM - #
   
   

3. How about the time O’Reilly claimed that a Swedish study PROVED that the rate of heterosexual marriages declines when gay marriage is legal? No such study was ever done.
   Or how about the time Hannity and Michael Reagan claimed that nobody blamed Clinton when Hurricane Andrew did so much damage, so why blame Bush for Katrina? Turns out Hurricane Andrew happened under Bush I’s watch, not Clinton’s.
   We should have an organization that does nothing but debunk Fox lies… but I’d hate to ask anyone to watch Fox.

   — Jane - Nov 25, 07:01 PM - #
   
   

4. “We should have an organization that does nothing but debunk Fox lies… but I’d hate to ask anyone to watch Fox.”

   We have “someone like that,” Jane. Robert Greenwald and his BraVeNew Films team watch Fixed Noise so that I don’t have to! bravenewfilms.org/

   — hterrya - Nov 27, 07:58 AM - #
   
   

5. Too bad Fox News has more viewers at 3 am than CNN or MSNBC has at prime time.

   — Kim - Feb 6, 02:26 PM - #