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August 23, 2006

Asking for it: why terrorism vs. Fox-TV is not news

Topics: Follies of the Mainstream Media

In the case of Centanni and Wiig, observing the atypical media silence, I've also had the same suspicions some of the bloggers had, that Fox newsmen don't command the same level of sympathy and interest in our largely left-leaning media that Carroll did.

Jules Crittenden writes at BostonHerald.com that proclaiming a desire to be "fair and balanced," and to have executives and commentators question whether this is true of other news outlets, has placed Fox beyond the pale, and for these ideological reasons, an act of terrorism targeting news professionals just isn't a big deal.

... At my own newspaper, a conservative tabloid once owned by Rupert Murdoch and a distant cousin to Fox, we haven't reported much, either. Here's how the coverage worked:The first night, we saw the brief wire news report of the abduction. We noted that they were kidnapped in Gaza. Knowing that Palestinian gunmen are in the habit of releasing non-Israeli hostages within a couple of hours, we did not run the wire story. There were other stories vying for the space we devote on any given day to the many acts of war and violence in the Middle East. A couple of days later, when they still had not been released, the wires moved a heartfelt appeal from cameraman Olaf Wigg's wife that had aired on Arab TV. We ran that.That story included Palestinian officials expressing concern that this was something different. They had not heard from whoever was holding the men and did not know who was holding them.Still no hostage video. There has been virtually nothing else available on this story on the wires, which we rely on at present for most of our foreign coverage. As the person who handled the wires on some of those days, I was surprised.

Continue reading "Asking for it: why terrorism vs. Fox-TV is not news."

Posted by Richard at August 23, 2006 12:06 PM

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