A pleasant, if damp, Sunday morning in south Florida. I wake up (thanks to my 7-year-old son urging me to get up, because "it's already almost 7:45!") and switch on the ol' laptop. I check out my blog ... and I've got a comment. In fact, it's a comment from someone claiming to be a Fox News graphics employee, chastising me for being critical of the propensity the folks at FNC have for conveniently mislabeling party affiliation (e.g., making Mark Foley a Democrat or switching up Senate candidates in Rhode Island).
Character limit ... gotta go below the fold ...
The commenter says "a majority of the members of the [Fox News] graphics department are either apolitical or democrats, as most artists are." Of course, he/she has already accused me of being "off base, hate-filled, and ignorant." Already, I'm questioning whether the person really works for FNC - those sound like boilerplate wingnut ad hominems to me. But, let's give our commenter the benefit of the doubt.
Granted, I have to question the judgment of any left-leaning individual who goes to work at Fox News, although I guess a gig's a gig, integrity notwithstanding. But the commenter tries to make the mislabeling sound like a simple mistake, even when (as with Foley) it was done repeatedly, with plenty of opportunities over a period of hours to correct the error. Once is a mistake ... more than that is deliberate obfuscation of the facts.
This is probably nothing more than a creative troll, but let's assume for the sake of argument that the person really does work for FNC. Do you buy the explanation that these are merely "mistakes," and "mistakes happen?" Is it really possible that someone working for Fox News, even in the graphics area, would not keep up at least on a cursory level with politics, as the commenter claims?
I don't mean to castigate the commenter for actual mistakes he/she may have made. My contention is that someone higher up is calling the shots, and they're either intentionally making things up (like mislabeled parties), or they're just imcompetent. Either way, it hardly embellishes Fox News' claims to journalistic integrity.
To conclude, is it possible that an actual member of the Fox News graphics department would refer to "ORielly" [sic]? Perhaps the commenter's nom de blog says it all: "Badspeller."