By Bill Fike
Since my retirement, I have become some what of a news’ junkie, so I wasn’t surprised to learn that Fox News was accused of continually reporting a known falsehood, on air numerous times for almost a week, that Muslims in both France and England, controlled “no-go zones”, whereas non-Muslims were not allowed to enter.
CNN Money disclosed: "Fox & Friends, for example, displayed an apparent map of the “no-go zones” in (and) around Paris. On another show, a guest who was identified as a security expert claimed that Birmingham, England is a totally Muslim controlled city where non-Muslims don’t go in.”
After the airing of these two shows, the “feeding frenzy” began, with the talking heads at Fox News spreading this “no-go” garbage on at least 40 different programs over a 6 day period.** Fox failed in its journalistic duties as a news’ organization by neglecting to verify these stories, only because of their constant zeal to discredit Islam and to destroy Obama.
And of course this was “red meat” for Sean Hannity on his January 15th. show. While interviewing his favorite racist, Phil Robertson, (of Duck Dynasty fame), Hannity ginned up his viewers with his usual one line rants, like “The President won’t say “radical Islam” and Obama won’t be happy until we have Sharia law in this country". But Sean couldn’t wait to add: “They let them have their no-go zones. They let them have their own neighborhoods, ostensibly a city–a mini-state within a state, their own court system, sharia law.”
Not this time Mr. Hannity! Not this time! You and your network have been “called on the carpet”, both by Prime Minister David Cameron and by President François Hollande. Plus, even the Mayor of Paris, has announced her intentions of suing your network for damages.**** Maybe Fox will learn its lesson this time and publicly apologize for this irresponsible reporting, and be forced by a judge to change their theme of being “fair and balanced” to being “fair and balanced and reckless” in their reporting of news!
(Update) Finally Fox officially apologized by admitting: ”We have made some regrettable errors on air regarding the Muslim population in Europe, particularly with regard to England and France. To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.” Well, I guess it’s a start.
