Black Hound Down


The Outfoxed gals don't like Black History Month, as long as Fox News dares to celebrate it.

Sometimes the newshounds (another fine product of the Outfoxed cabal) just can't seem to invent enough "bias" to complain about on the Fox News Channel--or they are just having another spell of laziness. When that happens, you know it's time for another expose on the evils of foxnews.com. In ellen's case, it's the outrageous "insult" to Black History Month:
I was a bit surprised to discover the "celebration" to begin with, considering how lily white FNC is. I can think of only two African American reporters in the entire line-up and none who are [sic] program hosts.

This will come as news to Lauren Green, Wendell Goler, Kelly Wright, Juan Williams, and Julian Phillips. But hey, it took all of five minutes to gather that information from the FNC "biographies" page. Like we said, laziness. [Update: Ira reminded us not to forget Dari Alexander either.] (We might ask how many newspoodles are African Americans. If we cared.)
So when I saw the little box (no longer there) on the top of the web site advertising Black History Month, I knew I had to take a peek. The "celebration" itself takes place in a distant corner of the web site. There is usually no link on the home page.

We're not sure exactly how any web site can have a "distant corner", but we are sure that when we checked, there was a prominent link right on top of the foxnews.com home page:



Ellen continues:
...you have to find the Fox Fan link at the top of the page, click on Newsletters (not exactly an intuitive link, IMHO), then to FNC Update (another counter-intuitive [sic] link), then scroll down to the bottom of the page for the link that says "FNC's Celebration of Black History Month Continues."

Or, you could just click on the box advertising it. Duh.
The first black history link is actually a promo for a FOX-related product. It's a chance to win Dear Senator, A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond.

We reloaded the Black History page half a dozen times and never saw any such promo, nor any mention of this book. Curiouser and curiouser.
Clicking through led me to a page filled with self-serving FOX propaganda disguised as homage to African Americans....there's a link to a video clip of Bill O'Reilly that reads, "Racial Injustice — Are Black Crime Victims Ignored?...But wait, there's more. Near the bottom of the page is a "fair and balanced forum" on "Black issues today."

Hold the phone! Ellen jumps from the O'Reilly video to the bottom of the page? Not really. This feature is really about half way down. So why call it "near the bottom"? More on that in a moment. For now, let's just inventory the items ellen skipped over between Mr Bill and the fair and balanced forum:

Great Moments:
A selection of turning points and milestones.

Famous Faces: Portraits of people who've enriched our history: Politics & Social Change, Athletics, Arts & Entertainment.

Legendary Knockout: Jack Johnson
Acclaimed documentarian Ken Burns explains the historical significance of the first African-American heavyweight boxing champion.
Clicking once more for "more black history month Q&A's," I found a page called "Black Issues Today — A Fair & Balanced Forum." If it weren't such an outrage, it would be funny - one professor who seems to disagree with Bush but is never identified as either liberal or Democrat...

Seems to disagree?
Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act is a failure...
Why isn't the Bush Administration demanding an end to this kind of inequality?...
...this administration got elected to office without the popular vote. In a real democracy that never would have happened. The danger is that we are also practicing tyranny and imperialism, and fascism to a certain degree.

Yeah, we think he "seems to disagree". Sheesh! And after a few words about Fox daring to include black Republicans on the site, ellen sums it all up:
That it would distort the reality of an ethnic group it is pretending to honor is nothing short of an outrage.

Remember, ellen already planted the idea that she was "near the bottom of the page". Yes, there was a reason for that particular falsehood. So that ellen, in a web-based variant of the invisible man technique, could just pretend like the rest of the entries did not exist:

B.B. King
The legendary musician recalls bringing the blues across the color line.

Much More Than a Theater
The late Ossie Davis explains how the Apollo became "America's gift to the world, and our gift to America."

Who's Willa Brown?
FOX News and the U.S. Census Bureau spotlight little-known African-American innovators with a series of audio minutes.

African-Americans on the Rise — We Name Ones to Watch:

Power Players in the Corporate World
From Mars to the "The Boondocks" to McDonalds, Black Enterprise names the top 10 African-Americans to watch in the business world.

Don't Walk, Run to the Music Store
You may not have heard of them, but they deserve a place on every iPod.

A feature on Ossie Davis? How outrageous. A report from Black Enterprise? What an insult. Also unmentioned by ellen is the following:
The section will update all month, so watch this space or subscribe to the FNC Update to stay in the loop!

So the page is being constantly revised and updated. Could that explain why ellen didn't see fit to file her "report" until the last week of the month? Did it take 21 days for something to appear that she could distort and take out of context?

The tail-waggers, apparently speaking for all those blacks who somehow haven't risen up in protest about FNC's tribute, claim it is an "insult" to African-Americans. But it's the newspups' deceitful denunciation that is an insult--to everyone's intelligence.

posted: Mon - February 21, 2005 at 11:12 AM       j$p  send 

Ira
Johnny: Add Dari Alexander to the list of FNC African-American newspeople/anchors.
February 21, 2005, 12:08:52 PM EST – Like – Reply

johnny dollar
Thanks, Ira. Good catch. Will add.
February 21, 2005, 12:30:12 PM EST – Like – Reply

ellen
A few comments:
1. It's true the celebration box is back on the website. I never said it wasn't. I said "usually" the link had not been there. That was true as of yesterday. I was working on that post over the weekend and the link was not on the homepage most of the time. I went back and forth to FOXNews.com at least 25 times and saw it on the home page two or three times. Most of the time, there was an ad for the Hollywood-bashing special on Sunday night.
 
2. I never said there were only two black reporters. I said there were only two that I could think of. I didn't bother to count because that's not the point of the post. I suppose I could have just said that there are waaayyy more whites than blacks. Even with your count that is clearly the case.
 
3. I never said Fox only honored Republican, conservative blacks. My point was that their views were disproportionately represented and in a way that does not reflect the actual views of the black population. 
 
4
February 21, 2005, 2:51:50 PM EST – Like – Reply

johnny dollar
1. You were wrong whether you said "usually" or "never". The box has been up there all month. This past week the Hollywood special was also being promoted in that space. What about the first 2 weeks of the month? And what about the on-air promos for the Black History Week page?
 
2. That's an easy way to score a cheap, inaccurate point. "I could only think of two--even if that makes me wrong by a factor of 300%". There are waaaay more whites than blacks on all news channels. In fact, there is a rumor that there are waaay more whites than blacks in the general population.
 
3. That's a nice point to make when you visit the page a week before it expires, knowing that the contents have been rotated and changed over the course of the past 3 weeks.
 
4. On this point you are absolutely correct.
February 21, 2005, 5:25:08 PM EST – Like – Reply

JohnG
Who's Ellen? Not being a watcher of much TV and never relying on the MSM channels for my information seeking, the only Ellen I can think of is Ellen DeGeneris, the entertainer who I saw recently on Leno or Letterman or some other late night show. Who's Ellen?
February 21, 2005, 6:17:01 PM EST – Like – Reply

johnny dollar
JohnG, ellen is the "newshound" whose article we dissected in our article.
February 21, 2005, 6:24:00 PM EST – Like – Reply

Ira
Johnny: Having just watched the tape of the weekend Business Block, we can also add Charles Payne who is one of the Saturday regulars who also appears at least once a week
on the daily "Your World with Neil Cavuto." 
 
I assume that Ellen is one of the managers of the Fox Hounds web site (motto: "we watch Fox so you don't have to.") Therefore, if she really does watch, Ellen would have easily known that FNC has more than two black reporters.
 
BTW, Ellen and the Fox Hounds gang could do me a real service if their credo was "we watch CNN so you don't have to."
February 21, 2005, 7:23:16 PM EST – Like – Reply

BrainlessTroll
Ellen is also the author of a ridiculous post about a rumor started by Scott Al-Ritter, writer for Al-Ajzeera:
 
"Scott Ritter Says US Will Attack Iran in June" From United for Peace of Pierce County, WA.
 
The comments that follow this article are the most outrageous anti-American drivel I have ever seen. It sounds like an Al-Queda forum.
 
I sent excerpts to the White House through their Web Mail, such as:
 
"It's time for regime change in the US"
 
and 
 
"I would hate this lying [bleep] sitting in the White House"
 
Its ridiculous

Edited By Siteowner
February 22, 2005, 5:21:06 PM EST – Like – Reply

Jerry
Ellen, you must have a great deal of free time on your hands! My advise, Get over it. Bush won, he's in for four more years. Right ON!! Pun Intended!
February 23, 2005, 2:47:47 PM EST – Like – Reply