When Fox News Attacks:Fox Plays Good Cop / Bad Cop This Week By: blogic Posted: Monday, October 04, 2004 on The Tide Goes Out Message Board: Politics This week, Fox News showed both its best and worst qualities. The Bad The worst thing about Fox News is it's all-but-open partisanship, consistently giving far more negative coverage to John Kerry than do the other networks, and relentlessly pushing Bush campaign talking points.

You know the rest of the major players (CBS,NBC,ABC and MSNBC) are just as badbut they do it to Bush instead of doing it to Kerry. So how does it feel?

I still like the fact that within the timeline of the SAME DAY they took the report down and reprimanded the man involved.

How long did it take Rather to come clean? Entirely?

Come on you can beat Fox's Same Day policy with another network, not mention the others will bury it and not tell you about, better I hear about the man being partisan from the network them self, than hear later that a report on CNN (for example) was false on MSNBC, etc. couple of days later.

- GX

"This week, the Chief Political Correspondent of Fox News wrote a piece filled with fake Kerry quotes, playing on standard conservative spin points of falsly hyping Kerry's supposed effeminateness, in order to appeal to the homophobia of born again Christians. "

No, you were the one that called the word "metrosexual" smear. So far the only people behaving homophobically are the ones who somehow think "metrosexual" and manicures are somehow "smear". If you have issues, blogic, there's no point imposing them on Fox News. Some people just have a sense of humor.

Besides, you have no clue why the guy posted that. Maybe... humor? You are trying to pretend that saying someone has well-manicured hands is somehow scandelously planned to effect the outcome of an election. Are you totally nuts?

Odd that you don't dig into all the Liberals that make fun of Kerry. Don't you watch the Daily Show or SNL? That's some blind spot you have there, Hypoc... ur, I mean, Blogic...

You are just stretching to turn a FAILED article you started a few days back to provoke "outrage" into something that will garner you a couple more points. It's sad, frankly. Fox News took care of the situation before anyone could even comment on it.

You are just stretching to turn a FAILED article you started a few days back to provoke "outrage" into something that will garner you a couple more points. It's sad, frankly. Fox News took care of the situation before anyone could even comment on it.

Um, I thinik the point is that comments about this article are what led Fox to do something about it. And while liberals certainly do make fun of Kerry, I think there is a considerable difference between the kind of humor they make and the kind of inciting sarcasm that was made by not a "fake newsman" but supposedly a real reporter.

But so blogic asks:

I've never seen a similar thing happen at another network, or at CNN -- which shows how exceptional Fox News is in its partisanship. Do you remember another network doing anything like this? Please don't claim MemoGate is equivalent -- show me a story with made up quotes actually authored by the senior person in charge of covering political campaigns.

And since nobody has really been able to offer any specific evidence of a similar case on the other news stations (except of course oblique references to so-called "memogate" with all of its siginificant differences from the case at hand and the call by blogic not to cite that one), I am forced to conclude that blogic's point stands.

Make whatever attributions or psychologizations of me for reaching this conclusion. Call me a point whore if you want. I'm just saying that the responses to this post have been predictable reactive, but they haven't really challenged the substance of the charge.

"Um, I thinik the point is that comments about this article are what led Fox to do something about it."

Fox dealt with it the day it was discovered, and it was no secret. It was a JOKE, oh ye of pink, flaccid senses of humor...

"Call me a point whore if you want."

Point whore...

"I'm just saying that the responses to this post have been predictable reactive, but they haven't really challenged the substance of the charge. "

WHAT CHARGE??? Comparing this to memogate is insane. Memogate is a thousand, a million times worse. This was a JOKE. Do you really think that saying Kerry is a well-manicured metrosexual is some kind of conspiracy to effect the election? CBS was levelling charges of illegal acts at a sitting President using forged documents. Someone at FoxNews posted a joke page about Kerry's grooming. Are you serious?

The gay Kerry allusions practically STARTED on The Daily Show, when they showed the montage of all the hugs and stuff between Kerry and Edwards. You guys are way off base.

The gay Kerry allusions practically STARTED on The Daily Show, when they showed the montage of all the hugs and stuff between Kerry and Edwards. You guys are way off base.

You mean this:





- GX

Fox story = CBS story = Has nothing to do with either candidate or the election

Now, just a little levity......
Let's get the focus back where it should be....that damn pen that Kerry brought up to the podium!!!!!
I mean the Purple Hearts....
Wait no....it's how Kerry looks too French?!
Or was it fuzzy math and mixed messages?
Manicured nails....no wait that's the first one.....
Man this is hard.....I'm going to have to work hard and remember what this election's about because it's hard work! But I think we're making progress...

(BTW- for full disclosure, the Fox reporter in question's wife worked on the Bush campaign....plus the notes with the "jokes" about Kerry were not supposed to be published, they were the reporter's own little jokes he had made about Kerry but they mistakenly got placed in the article)
(BTW #2- while the documents in the CBS story may have been forged, the White House did not deny that Bush did not meet the terms of his service. Here is the Boston Globe story where Bartlett (Bush's spokesperson) admits that Bush didn't complete his term commitment with proof from his own guard records. "I must have misspoke" Bartlett said after being reminded that he had previously said that Bush fulfilled his commitment.
Link)