Fox News Journalist’s Bad Form

Where has common sense gone? To its credit, Fox Television has provided a refreshing conservative alternative to the liberal-bent news shows of the other three major networks and PBS. It brings stories and angles that the other major television news shows ignore. Yet a recent Fox story defies all imagination and ignited a nation. Fox’s Carl Cameron came up with the implausible story that Sarah Palin did not know the three countries of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the knee-slapping story that she did not even know Africa was a continent and not a country. It is almost hard to believe a reasonably educated third grader does not know that Africa is a continent, let alone a vice-presidential candidate and a governor. If you honestly believe that Palin didn’t know Africa was a continent, you’d believe Obama was born on Mars if a national news reporter said so. In case you think I am a rabid McCain/Palin supporter, I voted for Obama. I just do not like seeing politics turn into a blood sport.

The story would almost be humorously absurd if reported by a high school student in a high school newspaper. But when a reporter from a major news channel makes such a preposterous allegation, well, you wonder if Fox has been getting its reporters from the National Inquirer. Didn’t Camon do that piece on the torrid love affair between Oprah and Barack that is getting Michelle so upset? And if Mr. Cameron is thinking of doing a follow-up, I have already learned that Palin knows her colors and can identify pictures of farm animals, so don’t try to claim she cannot.

So what was Cameron’s source of this fish tale? Anonymous aids. To be sure, to avoid legal liability, Fox did not report that “Palin did not know that Africa was a continent” but rather that “McCain aids said that Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.” The trick is to always say someone else said something, and no matter how completely unreliable the source, the media outlet can never get sued for libel. But when a major network makes such a disclosure, the intent is to have people believe “the source” is passing along a true statement. Wink. Wink.

When people have axes to grind are given anonymity and an outlet in the media, they are capable of saying just about anything, regardless of truth, knowing they will never be taken to task. With anonymous sources it is also far more difficult to prove that something is not true than if the identity of the source had been revealed. If the source was revealed, Sarah Palin could simply show with other witnesses to the conversation that the ridiculous allegation was not true, or that she had little to no involvement with the aid. The problem with today’s media is that it is far less interested in truth and unsensational analysis rather than provoking with stories of dubious integrity to give the façade of crack investigative journalism “that is only on Fox.”

This just in. Anonymous sources at Fox have indicated to me that Carl Cameron will stoop to no level to come up with a “revealing” story “exclusive to Fox” and that underneath his suit he wears a women’s garter belt and stockings to get in touch with his feminine side. Hey, it’s a heck of a lot more believable than Sarah Palin doesn’t know Africa is a continent.

Rinaldo Del Gallo is an attorney in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.