You'd think the Outfoxed gals would want to know when they've made a mistake. You'd be wrong.

This is a small example of how the refusal to admit any error can turn a small mistake into an embarrassing demonstration of unreliability. Miss Melanie of the newshounds (another fine product of the Outfoxed mob) thought she was on to something when she decided to play Where’s Waldo? with Bill O’Reilly:

Dayside w/Linda Vester airs at 1:00 p.m. ET weekdays. At that time of day, Fox News typically runs advertisements promoting it's [sic] late afternoon and evening shows....Until Bill O'Reilly's sexual harassment problems surfaced, his show was almost always included. He, however, hasn't been added of late, and today, a promo for tomorrow morning's Fox & Friends was included....And now, they're running so far away from O'Reilly that they're even dipping into the next day to find shows to promo instead of his.

Unfortunately, one swallow does not make a summer, and one small hour of a broadcast day is thin gruel from which to extrapolate an entire philosophy of advertising, as we informed Melanie:

• J$: Promo's for O'Reilly’s show ran throughout the day. There were some during Fox & Friends, and several ran between about 4 pm to 7 pm.
• Melanie: NO promos for O'Reilly ran between 4:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. I have my tape in hand.
• J$: That's correct. As I said about 4 pm (actually 3:56, the last break before Cavuto started) there was one, and one or two more during the hourly breaks afterward.
• Melanie: Pretty obvious what's going on here huh, folks? (It's all posted above in case you want to check.)
• J$: What would that be, Melanie? Posting the facts about the mysterious promo that wasn't there, except it was shown over and over during the course of the day? If you like I'll scan thru my tivo and give you the precise hour:minute for each time it ran. FNC starts many of its non-primetime shows not on the hour, but at x:59. So the breaks before the show where the promos appear come a few minutes before the hour. Which is why I said "about 4:00 pm".
• Melanie: JD: You've been caught and you know it. I ain't goin' beyond the subject matter. Good night.

We’ve been caught? Doing what? Posting the facts? Is it our fault that Melanie doesn’t know the meaning of the phrase “about 4:00 pm”? Or that she doesn't read any more carefully than she watches Fox?

Just for the record, tonight’s O’Reilly was the first in a five-part series on Kerry’s platform, where O’Reilly questions supporters of the Senator (because Kerry backed out of an in-person interview). Keeping that in mind, note:


As we checked our tivo for the breaks around each hour, this ad ran in the breaks just before 8:00 am, 4:00 pm, and 6:00 pm (most of the other promos were for Hannity’s exclusive interview with the Prez, as might be expected). And there were even more breaks with promos on the half-hour.

When a correction is presented in a non-confrontational manner, Melanie choses to attack, then blames us for the fact that she misread what we wrote. How much credibility and respect do the newspups lose when they handle their mistakes in this manner? That depends on how much credibility and respect they had to start with.