Hardly Surprising

Media Matters on Ann Coulter's latest:

Media Matters has examined a copy of Ann Coulter's new book, Guilty, and presents a sampling of the book's numerous falsehoods. These falsehoods include her defense of claims made against Sen. John Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth; her assertion that "Fox News has never been caught promoting a fraud"; and her claim that President-elect Barack Obama was referring to Gov. Sarah Palin when he said "you know, you can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig."

An example:

On Page 15, Coulter writes, "Fox News has never been caught promoting a fraud -- unlike CBS (Bush National Guard story), ABC (tobacco industry report), NBC (exploding GM trucks), CNN (Tailwind), and MSNBC (Keith Olbermann)." In fact, as Media Matters has documented, on several occasions since 2004, Fox News has issued a retraction and apology for airing a news report that repeated false information, one of which led Fox News' Vice President for News John Moody to reportedly warn staff in January 2007 that "seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC."

On the April 24, 2007, edition of Fox & Friends, co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade repeated as fact an online parody news report of a school prank that included fabricated quotes attributed to the superintendent. Doocy issued an on-air retraction and apology during the May 16, 2007, edition of Fox & Friends First, but the superintendent brought suit against the Fox News Channel, Doocy, and Kilmeade. In a June 3, 2008, decision dismissing the lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge D. Brock Hornby wrote:

The facts in this case -- a morning cable news show derisively reporting events and statements obtained unwittingly from an online parody -- should provide grist for journalism classes teaching research and professionalism standards in the Internet age. But First Amendment principles developed long before the Internet still provide protection to the gullible news program hosts against this public official's claims for defamation and false light invasion of privacy. Poetic justice would subject the defendants to the same ridicule that they accorded the plaintiff. But in real life, the aggrieved school superintendent must be satisfied with their later retraction and a professional reputation sullied less than theirs.

The lawsuit was filed by Leon Levesque, a school superintendent in Lewiston, Maine. According to The Associated Press, "[t]he case was an outgrowth of an April 2007 prank in which a middle school student tossed a slab of leftover Easter ham onto a table surrounded by Somali Muslim youngsters, knowing the Muslims would be offended." Freelance writer Nicholas Plagman later published a fabricated news report about the incident at Associated Content in which he attributed numerous made-up quotes to Levesque, including one in which Levesque was alleged to have said: "These children have got to learn that ham is not a toy." On the April 24, 2007, edition of Fox & Friends, Doocy and Kilmeade reported on Plagman's story as though it were fact and repeated several of the made-up quotes attributed to Levesque. In discussing the parody report, Doocy repeatedly asserted: "We are not making this up." Indeed, when Kilmeade asserted: "You know, I hope we're not being duped," Doocy replied, "We're not being duped. I've looked it up on a couple of different websites up there."

Does anyone take Ann Coulter seriously?

No really, I'm asking.

Questions? Comments? Remarks? Drop me an email.

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