Fox News demostrates the worst of press release journalism

Both NewsHounds and Media Matters for America highlight a recent example of the worst example of "press release journalism" that I have ever seen.

If you don't know what I mean, Press Release Journalism is simply taking a press release that some company has put out, and basically publishing it without any form of counterspin or criticism or equalisation. Most newspapers do this to a greater or lesser degree. Most of the time, it is free advertising for whoever put out the press release. But at its worst, say when a political party, political organisation or pressure group is the beneficiary, then it is nothing less than allowing propoganda and bias to go unchecked.

Well, the beneficiary of this particular piece of lazyness was the Senate Republicans, who put out a press release and Fox News dressed it up and presented it as their own research. But the reason this one was so easily spotted, was the fact that there was a typo in the press release, giving an article date as 12/19/09 instead of 12/19/08. Now that would not have passed even the most cursory of checks. So it would seem that Fox News didn't even check the press release over at all, before using it, cos their graphics department re-used the same text from the release as part of their full screen graphics, typo and all.

NewsHounds says this proves that Fox News is in the GOP's pocket. Media Matters says it's lazy journalism. I say that it is in fact both lazy press release journalism, and inherent republican bias at Fox News. Shame on you, Fox News Channel!

New York airport terror plot thawted.

CNN has been reporting about a plot to bomb fuel lines at JFK International Airport in New York. It is also being reported right now on BBC News 24 and Sky News. There is more developements constantly being reported on CNN US and you can hear the coverage at CNN.com.

However, skepticism about the timing of the announcement has already been noted from Newshounds, saying...

"Here we go again. Another "aspirational" fantasy plot by yet another home-grown "cell" of Muslims angry about Bush foreign policy, uncovered by good police work and revealed just when the Bush administration has had a bad week."

I'll keep an eye on how the blogosphere reports this story.