Blogcritics: Comments on Fox, Fire Carl Cameron

Comment by Mary

Sat, 9 Oct 2004 21:35:56 EDT

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)

Comment by jack e. jett

Wed, 6 Oct 2004 10:35:38 EDT

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

Comment by bhw

Tue, 5 Oct 2004 11:57:14 EDT

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!

Comment by bhw

Tue, 5 Oct 2004 11:54:52 EDT

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.

Comment by Bill Sherman

Tue, 5 Oct 2004 11:45:06 EDT

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. . .

Comment by Hal Pawluk

Tue, 5 Oct 2004 10:11:59 EDT

Duck and weave, Al, duck and weave.

Comment by Mark Saleski

Tue, 5 Oct 2004 10:03:22 EDT

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

Comment by bhw

Tue, 5 Oct 2004 09:35:16 EDT

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.

Comment by Al Barger

Tue, 5 Oct 2004 02:54:17 EDT

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.

Comment by Hal Pawluk

Tue, 5 Oct 2004 02:27:05 EDT

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.

Comment by Al Barger

Mon, 4 Oct 2004 23:40:25 EDT

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!

Comment by Hal Pawluk

Mon, 4 Oct 2004 21:54:16 EDT

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?

Comment by cyclops

Mon, 4 Oct 2004 18:57:52 EDT

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!

Comment by bhw

Mon, 4 Oct 2004 18:28:06 EDT

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

Comment by bhw

Mon, 4 Oct 2004 18:26:46 EDT

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.

Comment by Al Barger

Mon, 4 Oct 2004 18:19:03 EDT

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?

Comment by bhw

Mon, 4 Oct 2004 18:14:11 EDT

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.

Comment by Hal Pawluk

Mon, 4 Oct 2004 18:04:29 EDT

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.

Comment by Al Barger

Mon, 4 Oct 2004 17:58:54 EDT

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?

Comment by Hal Pawluk

Mon, 4 Oct 2004 17:47:32 EDT

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).

Comment by cyclops

Mon, 4 Oct 2004 17:17:48 EDT

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."

Comment by Hal Pawluk

Sun, 3 Oct 2004 17:28:57 EDT

You heard it in the debate, Vic.

Comment by Vic

Sun, 3 Oct 2004 17:21:44 EDT

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

Comment by Hal Pawluk

Sun, 3 Oct 2004 15:52:49 EDT

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 Trevi�o. 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," Trevi�o 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.

If they're that desperate, the choice is a draft or a reckless pull-out from Iraq. Neither is a good choice, so we need a new Commander-In-Chief.

Comment by Vic

Sun, 3 Oct 2004 15:26:10 EDT

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