FOX News Takes On The CBC And – Big Surprise – Loses Badly
I must admit I haven’t been very inspired lately in terms of adding a new entry to my blog. That is until I heard about the latest cry foul from the American news channel FOX News against the news wing of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aka the CBC. At the center of this latest tirade from the Fox News team is an article from Canadian writer/columnist Heather Mallick called “A Mighty Wind blows through Republican convention”.
The article is Mallick’s assessment of Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin and the fact that it provides a rather unflattering impression of Palin has got FOX News in an uproar. During a news segment on the FOX News cable network, the FOX News anchor refers to Mallick’s article as “getting beyond vicious” and states that Mallick refers to Palin’s daughter Bristol by “a nasty name that we will not repeat here on this broadcast”. The FOX News anchor also takes exception to Mallick’s assertion that Palin has helped “sewn-up the quote ‘white trash vote’ for the Republican ticket”. Now, that’s how FOX News presented this article, but why don’t we see what the article really says.
First off, in regards to that last quote about Palin sewing-up the “white trash vote” for McCain, that is not at all what Mallick said. Here instead is the exact quote – that can be seen at the link provided above – of what Mallick wrote in her article:
She added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn’t already have sewn up, the white trash vote, the demographic that sullies America’s name inside and outside its borders yet has such a curious appeal for the right.
Oops. Looks like someone was having a hard time reading this piece. Did Mallick use too many big words for you, Fox News? You can’t blame her for that – she has won National Newspaper Awards for critical writing after all.
Now, what about that “nasty name” that Mallick refers to Bristol? Oh yes, it is a shocking one (that’s sarcasm, by the way). Once again, let’s go to the source to see what was really said -
Bristol has what is known in Britain as the look of the teen mum, the “pramface.”
Yep, that’s right. The offensive word here that FOX News refused to repeat on the air was not ‘b**ch’ or ‘whore’ or ‘slut’. It was “pramface”, which Mallick even defined in that sentence as being someone who has the look of a teen mother; in other words, someone who looks like they’d get pregnant as a teen. Granted, teen pregnancies are finally on the decline, but really, does FOX News think teens are going around insulting one another by saying they’re most likely to be a teen mom? Or that the worst thing you could say about an adolescent girl is that she’s most likely to get pregnant before becoming an adult? Wow – suddenly I feel like I’m in a “Leave It To Beaver” episode.
And what about that “white trash vote” they keep tossing around in this ‘news’ report? What does that term mean? Again, let’s go back to Mallick’s own words to see what she actually said in her piece -
White trash — not trailer trash, that’s something different — is rural, loud, proudly unlettered (like Bush himself), suspicious of the urban, frankly disbelieving of the foreign, and a fan of the American cliché of authenticity.
A-ha. So, Mallick makes the clarification that she’s not defining “white trash” as being the equivalent of trailer trash and, let’s be honest here, who can prove that her definition of white trash doesn’t apply to the majority of Republican voters? I’m sure if we conjured up a personality quiz we’d find that these demographic and social attitudes do line up well with the typical profile of Republican voters. And frankly, aside from the illiterate and “loud” remark, what descriptor in her definition would really anger a proud Republican voter? That he/she lives in a rural environment? Then again, perhaps Mallick addresses this anger Republican voters are spewing over such labeling when she remarked in her article that the white trash populace “vote Republican on social issues to give themselves the only self-esteem available to their broken, economically abused existence”. Without question, it’s a great article and thought-provoking as well, and it directs the reader toward points strangely absent from most commentaries regarding the current American election. For example, Mallick’s point about Palin and Giuliani referring to Obama’s community service in the same manner as one would utter “rectal fissure” is a sad reminder of the ever widening-gap between America’s financial elite and the average American who can only dream of rising above the flotsam.
Of course, mis-representing the facts – a FOX News speciality – is not the only noteworthy bit about this piece as there was one hilarious moment when the subject of describing Republican voters as white trash came up. As part of their coverage on this article, FOX News invited Ottawa Citizen columnist David Warren to comment on Mallick’s piece for the CBC. At one point during the interview, Warren said that many people believe that Palin’s supporters fit Mallick’s white trash definition. The FOX News anchor expressed surprise, if not shock, upon hearing this, no doubt because she thought Warren would help them tear apart Mallick’s article, instead of shedding light on its true nature. Warren’s reply to hearing the anchor’s surprised “They do?” comment to his remark was classic – “I’m surprised that you’re surprised”. Hilarious stuff that deserves to be a Daily Show moment of zen.
Granted, any intelligent person knows that FOX News is far from being an objective source, let alone a reliable news one. One need only look at how many mistakes they made quoting Mallick’s article in their 5 minute ‘news’ piece for proof of that. Indeed, one doesn’t even have to compare Mallick’s article and the FOX News report for glaring mistakes since they even made serious gaffes in plain sight during the broadcast. For example, if you watch the first minute of the broadcast, you’ll see the anchor quoting the article as saying Palin has the look of “a toned-down version of a porn actress” and yet, their on-screen graphic at that point has the actual quote of “toned down version of the porn actress look”. Another humorous, if not insightful moment to be sure. Oh, and for the record, what Mallick wrote about Palin’s look was “Palin has a toned-down version of the porn actress look favoured by this decade’s woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression”. Once again, not so outrageous as those ace-reporters over at FOX News would like people to believe.
In true FOX news fashion, they asked Warren at the end of the segment if the CBC would remove this ‘offending’ piece from their website to which Warren said he doubted it and thank God for that. The very idea that a news source would demand the removal of an alternate voice being heard, let alone that in a sovereign nation, is what’s really offensive here, if not outright disturbing. Proponents of free speech denounced the removal of cartoons that mocked the Prophet Muhammed as being an affront to the very notion of a free society. However, the idea that these same people would turn around and demand that a negative piece written about a public official be removed because we find its descriptions of said person distasteful should be seen as more of a danger to our free society than the removal of a cartoon. Public officials by virtue must be allowed to be subjects of public scorn or even mockery as it is the surest way to make sure that we are not simply relying on party propaganda or emotional notions like nationalism or patriotic pride to discern the facts. Warren himself points out repeatedly during this piece that regardless of whether we agree with Mallick’s assessment or not, it’s important that such attitudes finally be brought to light since they do mirror what many reporters say in private or amongst each other, if not what many within the general public think or believe. FOX News is welcome to continue to present the news in their own clearly distorted fashion. I’m just relieved that we have organizations like the CBC and others that give us a more accurate presentation of the facts.
Oh, and FOX News – thanks for the laugh. I enjoyed it immensely.
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