FOX News: Smear first, investigate later
Reported by Chrish - February 25, 2008 -
The FOXNews.com website's top story with photo (after the jump) insinuates that Hillary Clinton's campaign is circulating an image of Barack Obama in traditional African garb ("Muslim-dress"), citing a "web report." The infamous Drudge Report is the source.
The front page reads
"Obama camp reacts to Web report that Clinton staffers circulated Muslim-dress photo, calling it 'the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering...'" beneath the photo:
(Note the hyperlink to the article,
http://youdecide08.foxnews.com/2008/02/25/photo-showing-obama-in-somali-garb-circulated-by-clinton-campaign-source/.)
Not until you click through and read to the article's last two paragraphs do you see
"FOX News is working to confirm the source of the photo, but GOPAC head and FOX News contributor Michael Steele said he’d be surprised to find out this photo came from the Clinton campaign.“If there is a staffer who sort of in their own roguish way had gone out and put this out there, this will be their last day on the job,” Steele said. “I think this is something that just kind of popped up on the ‘Net and they are attributing it to her. I’d be hard-pressed to find someone on the staff who is wasting their time in the heat of this battle to do something like that.”
Smear first, cover your ass later. Real journalism.
This is par for the course for Ailes' machine, but all the more notable after the collective hissy fit the right, with FOX News broadcasting for them, had over the "shoddy journalism," "innuendo," and "insinuations" of the New York Times article that brought Republican John McCain's judgment into question.
It's another two-fer smear, accusing Hillary Clinton of dirty tricks and relating Barack Obama to Islam, which for FOX followers is akin to Satanism.
