Editor:
I am writing to alert you to a story that I hope you will choose to cover. If anyone still grants any credibility to Fox News as an unbiased media outlet, I hope they will pay close attention to two interesting events from the past 24 hours: first, the Fox News website posted a story from their chief political correspondent, Carl Cameron, in which he reported fabricated and mocking quotes from Kerry, including "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great?" and "I'm a metrosexual!"
The Fox editors took the story down after a few minutes and issued a weak retraction saying that it had been posted through "fatigue" and not malice. However, they did not try to explain how they had assigned such a personally biased reporter to the story in the first place, or how he continued to keep that assignment after this colossal and revealing mistake. I try to imagine what Fox News would be saying about Dan Rather if he had, through "fatigue", started mocking President Bush and fabricating satirical quotes on the air. It wouldn't matter if CBS issued a retraction or pulled Rather off camera with a stage hook - Fox News would settle for no less than his head. Yet, their own reporter reveals his blatant scorn for Kerry and keeps his prominent assignment.
If that's not enough to shatter the pretense of Fox News's objectivity, consider that within 24 hours the site posted a story on reactions to the first presidential debate containing another misleading and incorrectly attributed quote - again detrimental to Kerry. In this case the reporter, Jane Roh, chose to interview a member of "Communists for Kerry" and to take his word that his organization was not ironic in nature. She took a quote from him emphasizing his support for Kerry's so-called socialist credentials. Neither she nor her editors chose to follow up on the true nature of boy's organization, which is online at communistsforkerry.com. The site offers clear evidence of being satirical in nature, but leaving that aside its "About Us" link goes directly to "Hellfire Republicans." This page states plainly that no members of "Communists for Kerry" are actually Communists, that the organization is intended as satire, and that the membership supports Republicans and Republican values.
Obviously Fox News is not pretending neutrality with much effort anymore, but I think its viewers deserve to be informed about these incidents lest they still think that they are hearing unbiased news from a responsible news outlet. I hope you will choose to report on these incidents in the interest of preserving credibility of your industry as a whole.
Sincerely,
Margaret Moser
p.s. Further information on these incidents is available from respected political reporter Joshua Marshall at talkingpointsmemo.com. I have the relevant screen shots of the Roh story and related sites if you need them.
