Fox News' "Madison Protest" Footage Aims to Deceive

Submitted by Anne Landman on

On February 28, the O'Reilly Factor aired a video news segment by Fox Channel reporter Mike Tobin, who was shown reporting from inside the state capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin. "News" footage aired during his broadcast of goings-on outside the capitol depicts an angry, out-of-control, crowd of pro-union protesters yelling and pushing people around. But the protesters in the video are wearing shirtsleeves and standing on a street lined with tall palm trees and other green, leafy foliage -- and that is absolutely not February in Madison, where no palm trees live outside of greenhouses and where temperatures have been well below freezing for most of the winter. Fox clearly used out-of-town footage to depict the "violence" it is hyping as happening in Madison. The segment is two minutes, nine seconds long, and the palm tree footage occurs at the 1:42 mark, as wording on the screen says "Union Protests."

Main Source: 
Milwaukee, Wisconsin Journal-Sentinel, March 2, 2011
Topics: 
Corporate Campaigns
Ethics
Media
Wisconsin

Comments

Anonymous replied on

Your prejudiced against Fox News before even responding to this clip...They were depicting union activities around the country WHILE! coming from Madison. It would be the same as a discussion on middle east riots while showing clips from several countries...You guys need to get out more...This really shows your ignorance...

Mutternich replied on

The footage Fox shows in its reporting, then, is really nothing but visual background music. No need to SHOW us what's actually happening, just tell us what we're supposed to FEEL about what Fox is saying to us.

Fox could avoid the confusion by just captioning it as file footage. That would obviate the tiresome back-and-forth of us saying, "Hey, that's from California" and you saying, "Well, what do you liberals want for your cable money, real pictures of real news?"

Anonymous replied on

Well gee, I'm so glad you noticed this! Just incidental footage from elsewhere- phew. Maybe now I focus on the important pieces of news in this clip like the great sign-making consipiracy in Madison. They are so busted! You know they put subliminal pro-labor recordings in those cheese hats too! Those crafty Wisconsinites!!!

Anonymous replied on

Wow, that is sure a feat of rationalization to basically state that FOX was simply using creative license to make their point. That falls in the HDDYTWA category. The protestors have adopted the palm tree as the symbol of FOX's anti-middle class agenda. Just wait - the palm tree thing will not go away. Thank you FOX for making it so easy to show how disreputable you really are.

Anonymous replied on

Since when do 'newscasters' get to use creative license? They are supposed to be reporting what happened, not what they wish had happened.

Anonymous replied on

Fox news defenders:

If this clip involved O'Reilly and Tobin discussing union protests across the country, or how protests in Madison have inspired other rallies in other cities, maybe the footage from California could be justified.

But not once does this piece mention protests in other states. If you listen to this clip, all they are discussing here are protests in Madison. How they are organized, who is attending, etc. The protests had been going on for two weeks at the time this piece was filmed and Fox had been in Madison for most of that time. They were not lacking for footage of the Wisconsin protests.

There is no justification for this.

Anonymous replied on

I agree with you. When I saw this on TV I thought it was retarded. If they want to show the facts they shouldn't mislead. Period.

Montana replied on

O’rielly, what a joke, didn’t he say “video comes in video comes out never a miscommunication”. Why is it that so many fools follow this liar? It looks like that the top republican candidates for president will be coming from “Fake News/ Fox News”, or should I say “Big Business”, how funny.

I wonder if “Fake News” has a stable of likely republican supreme court justices (I am sure they will all attend the republican state of the union, unlike Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas, scum bags).

Marianne C replied on

It isn't just that one video. Fox has been distorting the protest all along. They're more than once reported "violence" that was not and has not happened. They've interviewed either Weasel Walker of his weaseling cohorts, and have completely ignored the reality that the Repubs have broken the law repeatedly. They've also been changing the rules to suit themselves as they went along, and are now in such fear of the upcoming recall elections that they're trying to figure out how to change the law so they can't be recalled.

Even the extremely right-leaning and right-favoring Rasmussen polls are showing that Scot Walker does not have the support of the state -- he's running at about 31% even according to Rasmussen, who's all about giving him the benefit of the doubt. Other polls put him lower. This guy is now the most unapproved new governor in the country, and is fast moving toward being the most unapproved governor, period.

The population of Wisconsin has been a sleeping giant for far too long. The giant is awake, the giant is back, and this time, the giant is totally peed off. By the time this is over, there may not be a Republican left in the state legislature.

Anonymous replied on

It's important to remember that Fox content is not news, though many people think that it is and they present it as such.

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