Friday, April 2, 2010

Weasel of the week: Fox News Channel

This one's a slam dunk. In promoting a new series involving former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Real American Stories, Fox News is implying that the 2008 VP candidate had conducted interviews with country singer Toby Keith and rapper-actor LL Cool J (NCIS-Los Angeles), but there's one little problem.

According to an article in Thursday's New York Daily News, neither LL nor Keith actually sat for interviews with Mrs. Palin. The interviews are actually archive pieces that were originally done----and aired---in the last 2 years. So Fox is employing a deceptive advertising campaign in order to get people to watch. Nothing new, except that the press has issued a variation on the time-honored warning of caveat emptor (let the buyer---or in this case, the viewer---beware), which may only result in more people watching out of curiosity.

Fox News Channel claims to be "fair & balanced". Not in this case.

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