An Indictment of Fox

Posted at 12:44 pm on Saturday, April 2, 2005, in Uncategorized.

If you are a newsperson on televisoion (same principle applies in print and radio, but the widespread exposure of television is just that much more crucial) and your guest, in an answer to your question, flatly lies, isn’t it your responsibility to correct the information for the viewer’s sake.

During Fox’s unprecedented coverage of the Terri Schiavo case, Pat Robertson was a guest on March 31, 2005, and the following conversation took place.

BRENDA BUTTNER (Fox News senior business correspondent): Sir, I wanted to ask you also about the Terri Schiavo case. You have called this judicial murder, I believe, a judicial execution. Those are very strong words.

ROBERTSON: Well, it’s exactly what happened. You know, on my program today, I read in detail the finding of a noted Nobel Prize-winning neurologist named Dr. Himmelfarb [sic]. This man examined her for several hours, and his conclusion was that she could swallow, she was responsive to voices, she was responsive to music. That she could feel pain, that she had been given painkillers. This woman was not persistent vegetative. And Dr. Himmelfarb [sic] said I’ve treated patients that were worse than she was and brought them to some kind of a recovery. This was an execution. I mean, you couldn’t do that to a prisoner in a jail, a convicted cop killer wouldn’t have gotten treatment like that.

BUTTNER: Well, what do you do next? Terri is sadly dead. What is the next step in this fight?

ROBERTSON: Listen, to me — I spoke to the National Press Club several months ago, and they said, “What is your principal agenda?” I said, “It’s judges, judges and judges.” I think the judiciary is out of control. The way that that federal district court judge in Florida thumbed his nose at the United States Congress is outrageous. And I think it’s time those guys get reined back in.

Source: Media Matters for America

First of all, this Dr. Himmelfarb’s name is actually Dr. William Hammesfahr, and as the world knows, he was not a Nobel-winning doctor, he wasn’t even a Nobel-nominated doctor, as I discussed in a previous post. He was nominated by a Republican Florida Congressmen, which isn’t even close to being regarded as an actual nomination.

So why didn’t Brenda Buttner, Fox News host, do anything. First of all, Robertson got the name wrong. It is as if I stated, “Former President Donald Regan died this morning.” Wouldn’t someone correct me on the name issue? Secondly, Robertson not only furthered the lie that this man was Nobel-nominated, he stated as fact that this doctor was a Nobel-winning doctor. Buttner just let it slide and went on to her next ridiculous question. The only thing Fox News is afraid of is the facts.

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