The conservative resource for political and world events, Fox News, has continuously had its authenticity and reliability questioned. Their viewers are not only less informed than other news viewers but also less informed than those who don’t watch TV news at all. These studies and a self-described bias must draw in questions of the authenticity of their stories and sources cited.
Fox News enthralls itself in the statements of anonymous sources. One source in particular has come under recent scrutiny; the unsubstantiated source that contradicted the account of both the Obama administration and independent findings about the attack on a U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. Now, two separate and recent statements by experts in Foreign Policy are casting more doubt about the claims of Fox’s source as well as Fox’s credibility at verifying sources and providing honest journalism.
Fox News conducted a series of reports that highlighted an anonymous source who claims to have direct knowledge about the Benghazi attacks. In one segment, the source claimed that the Obama administration had forces available to aid the victims of the attack, but chose not to utilize them. The source’s claim contradicts not only the State Department but also the Accountability Review Board, an independent panel convened to investigate whether there was a breach of duty during and after the attack.
In a post on Foreign Policy magazine’s website, Tom Ricks, a national security journalist, who previously accused Fox News of “operating as a wing of the Republican Party” on the Benghazi issue, published two accounts from experts who strongly questioned Fox’s Benghazi source. Ricks then quoted Retired Special Forces Col. David Maxwell stating:
?What he offers is pure speculation and not based on any real facts as I have heard and appears to be coming from his fourth point of contact. He comes across as just another conspiracy theorist who is taking Fox News for a ride.?
U.S. Marine Corps officer and special operations team leader, Billy Birdzel explains how forces in the area, including the force training in Croatia that Fox’s source discussed, would have needed far more time to reach Benghazi than they had.
?The mystery man critiques the Obama administration’s decision-making, yet offers no information as to how C-110 would have influenced the battle in such a way that the outcome would have been different. Perhaps because it was actually impossible for C-110 to arrive before the attack, and if they did, they would not have been able to do anything that would have prevented our heroes, Woods and Doherty, from being killed. The person in the interview is a clown and I am incredibly disappointed in the news for not using Google.?
If those statements alone are not enough to cast doubt on Fox News’s authenticity as a legitimate news source, perhaps the suggested approach of using Google would help.
Edited by CB
