After leaks began coming out this week that the Department of Justice is not expected to charge former Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson with violating the civil rights of slain teenager Mike Brown, a reasonable person would assume that Fox News,
ever the champion of Darren Wilson, would celebrate such a decision. But you and I know that would seem too much like the right.
Instead, Fox News used the expected decision to blame Attorney General Eric Holder for protests, demonstrations, and "riots" in Ferguson. Beyond it just being a completely idiotic notion that Holder, directly or indirectly, had anything at all to do with any forms of resistance in Ferguson, nonviolent or otherwise, Fox, in their outrageous commentary, just got core fact after core fact wrong. Steve Doocy started concocted dates and details right away by claiming that Attorney General Holder didn't actually show up in Ferguson until after the grand jury decision was made. Holder, however, first visited Ferguson over two months before the decision came down and Fox News even used stock footage from that visit while Doocy spun his tales. Beyond that, the FBI actually began investigating the death of Mike Brown just two days after his murder and any "riots" that happened had nothing to do with Holder, or the FBI, or the DOJ. Doocy and Elisabeth Hasslebeck, though, thought otherwise.
Remember out in Ferguson, Missouri, after the grand jury said that the white police officer would not be indicted, […] then the Department of Justice headed up by Eric Holder, he went out there and talked to people and then announced that there would be a civil rights investigation, whether or not the white police officer violated the civil rights of the black man who he shot. Well now, according to the New York Times, the FBI could find no evidence of any civil rights violations, and the Department of Justice will oppose any civil rights charges. That’s the breaking news this morning. What’s curious though, is, it prompted all of those riots.
Elisabeth Hasselbeck agreed: “It sure did — I mean, we heard from Eric Holder, we heard from Al Sharpton, which kind of stirred it up in that region. Remember this?” And then the screen cut to a clip of Eric Holder, clearly labeled August 21, saying that he understood the mistrust that black citizens of Ferguson held for police officers, followed by Al Sharpton speaking on Nov. 30, as if the two were both reacting to the grand jury’s decision. Sharpton was, Holder wasn’t, and despite the entire segment’s focus on Sharpton, we would like to remind Fox that Al Sharpton is not actually an employee of the Department of Justice and had nothing to do with the investigation. The clip also treats us to some security camera footage of looters, who were also no doubt talking to each other about the DOJ’s civil rights investigation of Brown’s death.
Please read below the fold for more on this story.
So many things are wrong with how Steve Doocy and Elisabeth Hasselback recalled the events in Ferguson stemming from Mike Brown's death that the easier thing to do would be to find what was actually truthful about what they said.
Ultimately, while it's easy for many to simply dismiss Fox News as "those cooky people say cooky things," it's much more damaging than that. They are popular and have real sway with millions of Americans.
When, Sean Hannity, time and time again, quoted a grand jury witness in the case against Darren Wilson who the prosecutor has since admitted was never anywhere near the crime scene and perjured herself over and over again, it shaped public opinion about the case.
When Fox News, over and over again, reported an outright lie that Paris, France, has areas of town called "no-go zones" where even police and non-Muslims won't tread, people believed it. They even showed actual maps, but it turns out the entire thing was a lie and the mayor of Paris has no pledged to sue the network over it.
Fox—you are absolutely entitled to your own opinion, but you aren't entitled to your own facts.