This is what happens when media ownership is placed into the control of an individual who has biased the network. I cringe becuase this network is trying to get licensed in Canada....

I still am in shock over this. Certainly Rather made a mistake and deserved to be reprimanded, but this is a different situation. Cameron purposely created a false story and had it posted. Media Matters and Howard Kurtz are going to be all over this very, very soon.

Justin, you're obviously real concerned with finding a "gotcha" thing to throw at FNC and their dread supposed powers being used to serve the VRWC. Still, I might recommend dialing the canned outrage down a notch or so.

Moreover, this whole story doesn't make much sense. What, it was put out as if to trick us into thinking Kerry was talking publicly about how pretty his cuticles look? Those words sound more like a parody, or SNL skit of some kind.

Are you saying that Cameron purposely concocted a lie to falsely claim that Kerry was talking about doing his nails, thus scandalizing him with the voters and costing him the election?

Damn, but that VRWC is VERY tricky.

Al, all I'm saying is that this entire thing seems rather shady simply because the article saw the light of day. Again, how could this thing reach the front page of Fox's website?

And the issue isn't about Cameron "purposely concocting a lie" to detrimentally affect Kerry, it has everything to do with FNC's culture. Cameron is their chief Kerry correspondent, yet he pushed this story through. After this, how can anyone believe Cameron doesn't report with a very strong bias?

You don't need to like someone to report on them. I'm just as happy to see a reporter who has just a little bit of controlled animosity toward their politicians. Think HL Mencken or Hunter Thompson.

I'm still not quite getting it. You're saying that they put a story on the Fox News website with Kerry supposedly talking about being metro, and getting his nails done? What?

I agree with the fact that one doesn't have to like a person to report on him, but when that bias directly affects what is supposed to be unbiased coverage it becomes an issue.

And, Al, if you look at the links in my post the issue is very clear. FNC posted the story in the blockquote to their website this morning, verbatim. They have since retracted the story and replaced it with what passes as actual journalism, claiming Cameron made a stupid mistake.

Setting aside partisan agendas for a moment, I am only interested in figuring out what exactly happened here. Why Cameron spent the time to write the satirical story and how, exactly, it made it on to the main page of FoxNews.com. I'm not going to throw out conspiracy theories, although I do wish to understand why a news corporation passed this off as actual journalism up until the point they were caught.

But what exactly is this supposed "conspiracy?" Was Cameron somehow trying to damage Kerry? This seems like a very exceedingly odd way to go about it.

Just by way of trying to make a sensible narrative of it, this looks like perhaps a little something that would be whipped up to send out as a joke among your buddies in email. Hey, I bet Brit Hume will laugh his ass off. Then some idiot webmaster doesn't get the joke and posts it as a story. That'd be just my best guess.

I might be willing to consider the possibility of a Fox employee having nefarious intentions, but I don't see how that would make any sense here. What's Kerry being accused of even if you took it literally? Getting his nails done? It's not like fabricating documents to generate a scandal.

This looks like some mild humor about Kerry being effete. That's about on the level of the dependable Bush-is-dumb line of humor. It's hardly a firing offense.

If FNC was trying to be malicious, they could do a whole lot better than this.

Al,

You are missing the boat altogether. This isn't about a prank, nor is it an Onion piece. This is a news source purposely printing complete fabrications. That is totally unacceptable. Now if it was the Drudge site or something, we could all have a laugh. Fox has enough issues with credibility these days, and they just lost the last of it with me.

I was talking with someone about the debate results and explaining the consensus was that Kerry dominated. He asked what sites and I said "all the big ones: cnn, abc, msnbc, cbs". He said "what about Fox?" I told him I don't watch Fox news at all, and certainly don't go near their web.

If Fox ever wants to be taken seriously (and I don't know that they do, to be honest)... they need to stand up to this yellow journalism.

Shit, if Hunter said it... I'd be laughing my ass off. Because, they were funny comments and no one believes a word Hunter says.

First of all, news web sites have always been somewhat loose and prone to mistakes, misprints, etc. Anyone who knows media, and is honest, knows that an anchorperson in primetime is taken much more seriously than any website.

Second, Rahthergate involved a much more serious matter (military service vs. a manicure) as well as forged documents. The latter is a felony.

Third, where was the coverup like we say with CBS?

If anyone here is calling for carl cameron's head but did not call for dan rahter's, they are quite the hypocrit.

If FOX News fired every "journalist/reporter" who lied, distorted facts, or pedaled satire as objective news, their set would be as empty as the Voting Registration offices in Iraq.

PS: Big Al, your 'point's on this thread aren't doing a whole lot for your personal 'unbiased' integrity relative to the two major parties.

PPS: I'd vote for a tradeoff: fire Dan Rather and set fire to FOX ---

Shark,

How about the recent "report" on CBS covering the fear that mothers have that the draft will be reinstituted? Based on basically an internet chain email of the sort that should always be checked out on snopes.com before forwarding.

The only fact about a possible draft is that two Democratic politicians in Washington are trying to push through a bill bringing it back. That was not even mentioned in the fear-mongering news report.

People talk about Fox News, but although I'm not a big believer in the supposed Liberal leanings of the main news media, this was the most blatant example of that I've seen.

Vic

I'd say that a draft if Bush is re-elected is a reasonable speculation.

Voluntary recruitments are down so 40- and 50-year-old Ready Reservists are being called up.

He's 57 years old, afflicted with skin cancer, partially deaf and suffers from high blood pressure. But the U.S. Army still wants Master Sgt. Luis Jaime Treviño.

On July 14, the Vietnam and Desert Storm veteran received his third order to report to active duty -- mobilized for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

"I was very shocked," Treviño said, a member of the Army's Individual Ready Reserve. IRRs are not part of a reserve unit, do not get paid and do not attend monthly reserve training. However, because of critical skills they possess, they can be recalled to duty if needed.

Um, so what's the third choice that only Kerry can implement?

Vic

You heard it in the debate, Vic.

OH MY GOD!

What is happening in this country? Ok, so Dan Rather moved forward with a story without properly vetting his sources...

AT LEAST, he has sources (albeit dubious). Of course, one could argue that the best way to stop the attacks on Dubya was to plant the docs in order to discredit the countless stories of Bush's preferential treatment, failure to report for duty, missed/skipped physicals...but that might stray into conspiratorial waters...what's that Karl Rove's fax machine can produce a curly apostrophe?

The really telling thing about "Rathergate" is that most of Killian's contemporaries in the TNG have stated that (authenic or not) those memos accurately reflected his feelings about Bush and his service/lack thereof.

Ok, now on to the subject at hand: YES, CARL (I LIKE THE PRESIDENT'S SPUNK) CAMERON SHOULD BE FIRED! It is one thing to move forward with a story based on spurious sources, but it is quite another to violate the public trust (not to mention the utter contempt he showed for same) by completely falsifying a story.

Al seems to wonder, "Where's the harm?" Well, Al, when a reporter presents his own twisted humor as fact and attributes quotes to the challenger for and future holder of the highest office in the land, it is a BIG DEAL.

What if (oh, I forgot the progressive media doesn't have to resort to this level of idiocy...the truth, after all, will out).

But, let's say for the sake of argument, that Dan Rather quoted Bush after the debate saying, "Boy, I haven't been that beaten up since I tried to learn about sex with a ram!"

Or, "It's also hard work having to pretend to give a damn since everybody knows that Karl has already rigged it so that I'll win."

Or, my favorite, "I did great! Man I was on point. Did you notice how many times I got to work in, "mexxed missages" and "changes positions. Hell, I said 'changes positions' so many times you'd think I was narrating porn for the blind!"

These, too, might make a biased audience laugh, but I doubt they would be well-received on the main page of a major network website. Okay, so we have to judge FNC by VERY different standards. It is, after all, barely less prejudicial than "Pravda."

The words may sound like a parody to some Al, but then people like David Flanagan use them seriously, and spread the calumny far and wide.

Flanagan even posted it on Blogcritics - check his #9 (opens in new window).

So Cameron is charged with advertently or inadvertently spreading a false and malicious rumor that Kerry gets manicures?

So writers should be fired anytime that anyone manages to not get a joke?

Nothing on the page indicated it was a joke.

Instead, the material was presented seriously on a serious site (Fox site, not the Onion).

That's not funny.

And even David Flanagan, along with many others on the Right, took it seriously.

It was serious.

It was an obvious attempt to feminize/emasculate Kerry in the eyes of the machismo-obsessed American public. That, along with using his French heritage as an epithet, is standard right-wing and GOP practice.

Vote for Bush: he rides horses and digs ditches. Don't vote for Kerry, he gets his nails done [like a girl in a salon]. That's the message. Some Americans will use those images as the basis for choosing their candidate.

The problem is that Kerry never said the words he was *directly quoted* as saying on a news site in a story written by the lead correspondent covering his campaign. Shocking [really, shocking!] that some folks have no problem with that and that they refuse to see the bias in the "reporting."

If a similar fabricated quote was attributed to Bush on CNN, we'd never hear the end of the LIES, CHEATING, and MORAL DEPRAVITY of the left.

Ahhhh, double standards.

Really BHW, you think this was some purposeful move of Cameron's, rather than a silly mistake by some webmaster? This was seriously an attempt to LIE, to make people believe that Kerry actually made these statements about manicures? Seriously, you think that?

What I know is that a *news* site posted a story by the lead correspondent on Kerry's campaign that was false. And that story fits with the type of rhetoric that has been used against Kerry by the right in the campaign.

Was it purposefully posted by the author, Cameron? Or did someone screw up and post an inside joke accidentally? Or did someone post the inside joke purposefully to show the bias of the reporter on the beat?

Your guess is as good as mine. But we all know that once an accusation has been made, even a retraction doesn't completely undo the damage. There are still people who think Richard Jewell is the Olympic Park bomber, for god's sake. So I wouldn't put it past Faux News to have put it up deliberately to hurt Kerry's momentum after the debate.

Oh, and it DOES illustrate Cameron's inabilitly to be objective when covering Kerry's campaign.

That's twice now Al has attributed this to "some webmaster." Well, Al, I happen to be a webmaster, and, contrary to your assumptions, most professional webmasters DO NOT simply post things to a live site arbitrarily. There is generally (and this is even the case with my small non-profit org) some kind of review process before things magically appear on the internet.

I can only assume that FNC actually has an online publishing framework that involves review. Of course, so many of their stories are such complete BS, that it would not be an enviable position to hold. After all, how do you sift through all their misleading, false, and biased crap and filter out the only the intentionally misleading, false, and biased crap.

If it was an error on the part on the FNC web team, that just goes to show that they no longer "get the joke" either. Let's face it, Fox News IS THE JOKE in this story and Carl Cameron is just one of many Murdoch court-jesters.

Any one who doubts that Cameron is COMPLETELY BIASED should see Robert Greenwald's "Outfoxed." Cameron initially whined that the footage in the film had been cut to make him look biased, but the uncut footage (released later and available on the internet) is far MORE damning!

I have a suggestion, let Fox keep Cameron...the rest of us should just FIRE FOX.

Now that would be funny!

Al, David Flanagan took it seriously, as did many others on the right.

Do you think that was an accident?

Or just sheep being sheep?

Look, I understand that y'all left wingers are just being driven NUTS by the success of Fox News. Tough noogies.

You are making yourselves look plain old SILLY by getting all nuts over this J-O-K-E. Indeed, it's a very MILD joke at that.

Really BHW, what's up with you here? Even a retraction of the false accusation can't completely undo the damage? What damage is that? Someone might falsely believe that Kerry has a manicure?

But what if Kerry really DOES get manicures? I bet he DOES. Probably FRENCH manicures, whatever exactly those are.

I'm sure that it is wrong and inappropriate for Cameron not to be in proper respectful AWE of the great man he's covering, but why would that mean that he's "biased?" Why, anyone that would make fun of Kerry getting a manicure isn't to be trusted!

We knew it was crap, Al, but how about Right Wingies like David Flanagan?

They all believe the story you keep trying to spin as a joke rather than malicious propaganda.

It is what it is and the Right says you're wrong.

Hal, sorry if Mr Flanagan missed a joke. I apologize for that on behalf of the VRWC.

Nonetheless, y'all have got to be out of your trees to call being teased about manicures "malicious propaganda."

With these kind of tender sensibilities, you wouldn't last five minutes on the playground at South Park.

The problem is, Al, that much of what Fox reports is a joke, and nobody's getting that, either.

Still no acknowledgment by the right that Fox is not fair or balanced.

heck, even o'reilly has admitted that "we report, you decide" really isn't true.

Duck and weave, Al, duck and weave.

The thing is: this is not the only time that Fox in the last week has run "satiric" anti-Kerry material as if it were real news. In a story on undecided voters, the net quoted a phony group called "Communists for Kerry" as if they were a real entity, later correcting the piece to indicate that the group in fact was comprised of conservative would-be satirists. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. . .

Bill, you beat me to the punch. Here is the post-stupidity editor's note from Fox on that story:

Editor's Note:

In a version of this article that was published earlier, the Communists for Kerry group was portrayed as an organization that was supporting John Kerry for president. FOXNews.com's reporter asked the group's representative several times whether the group was legitimate and supporting the Democratic candidate, and the spokesman insisted that it was. The Communists for Kerry group is, in fact, a parody organization.

More excellent "news" from Fox.

Got-damn if I'm not just fat fingering the html code all over this site! Phillip, please put in the little javascript code that allows you to just push a button to create a link or put in italics. I beg you!

i thought everything on fox news was a parody.

are you telling me that some of what they say is true?

get outta here.

jack

Oh my, some of you have no sense of humor. Don't take this obscure case of very poor judgement so seriously, come on Mr. Kerry is a metrosexual and he should be proud of it, and so should all of you guys. Why get so steamed about poor Cameron's momentary blip on the screen. No harm done really, and it was oh so obvious he was playing.

Maybe, after spending too much time with the tightly wound Kerry campaign, in an wrong minded effort to unwind, he got smashed last night, and in a morning after haze, maybe even, still, a bit buzzed, he posted his 'mistake'...Al is right, this is not the same as Rather trying to crucify Bush with forged docs.

Put on your objectivivity caps, K?

Go take a hot bath and relax...it's the end of the world as you know it anyway ;o)