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Sparkle (0)
I'm not a professional journalist - I've never been to journalism school, practiced the profession, nor considered myself up to the rigours of the job. Which are traits that would seem to be shared by at least some of the Fox News personnel involved in their coverage of a San Francisco spoken word performance.
Perverts Put Out, a "sexually themed spoken word series", has suddenly found itself the soft target of a Fox News attack as part of a wider tirade against the National Endowment for the Arts and the stimulus package.Now, sexually-themed material might not be to your liking - you might not choose to partake of it yourself - you might not approve of bodies like the NEA providing funding for such activities. In which case, you'll be pleased to know that Fox News didn't just get its facts wrong, it didn't even attempt to check them. As two of the three co-curators of Perverts Put Out explain, in their own words:
We have never taken a penny of federal funding. Never. Not a cent. Your tax dollars are not going to pay for us to stand in front of a microphone and recite dirty stories. I promise.
- from "On Perverts Put Out"
Thing is - no shocker here - what the Fox report apoplectically spews is simply not true, except in the most convoluted sense. See, it says right under the alarmed-looking blonde, "Stimulus Bills Go to Fund Pornography." And then "NEA Funding Erotic Film and Stage Show. So the clear implication is that the NEA or Obama or Nancy Pelosi or Satan or somebody is regularly sending a nice big check my way, right?
Except - oh, Fox, HOW COULD YOU? - t'aint true.
- from "OH BOO HOO, FOX NEWS HATES MY GUTS"
As far as I can tell, the third co-curator, Carol Queen has yet to make a public statement.
So, Fox News - "Fair and Balanced"? Here in the UK, we have this little piece of legislation called the Trades Description Act - Fox News' use of the words "News" and "Fair and Balanced" might find them under scrutiny for breaching that Act, were they subject to it. Fortunately for Fox News - and sadly for the truth - they're not.
