Tami Birckner, the Fox Carolina reporter who ran the one-sided fluff piece on StormFront.org, a popular hub for white supremacists and anti-Semites, was an active participant in the website’s chat forums.
While her posts have not been racist, they have been highly sympathetic to the racists. But here’s the tell:
When asked why she didn’t include some voices that were critical of StormFront, she replied she did the story exactly as she was told to and that officials at the network were very pleased with her coverage.
Anyone with journalistic ethics (or sense) would not post on StrormFront after doing a story on them simply because it makes them appear biased. Her sympathies are obvious. As are those of the higher-ups at Fox. But this wouldn’t be the first time Fox has pandered to racists.
Contrast the Fox reporter’s action this to a community meeting I was at in Venice, CA a few days ago for a group trying to save Lincoln Place Apartments. Someone in the audience praised the coverage by a local reporter, Tibby Rothman of Venice Paper, and asked her to speak. She immediately said it was inapproriate for her to speak, or even to thank people for thanking her, because being a reporter means you should be unbiased. She seemed a bit pissed at being put in a position that could even appear to be compromised. That is how a real reporter acts. Not that Fox News cares about reporting, of course.
Don’t confuse Fox News with local Fox stations.
Fox Carolina and Fox News are not the same thing, any more than the Simpsons and Arrested Development are the same thing as the O’Reilly Factor and Hannity & Colmes. Fox Carolina is a local station. The local station will certainly have some reins on it from corporate headquarters, but it is not the same as the Fox News cable channel. From my experience, local Fox stations have news that is sometimes better, sometimes worse, than other local channels (which are, of course, generally atrocious). Here in southeast Michigan, Fox 2 Detroit has frequently been the only station to cover our anti-war rallies, and the coverage has been sympathetic (even enthusiastic–they estimated we had 5000 marchers for one rally when we’re pretty sure we didn’t have more than 3000). I’ve also seen a few pretty strongly worded anti-Bush editorials from local Fox News editors (see http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/gallagher136.html, for example).
Rupert Murdoch is first and foremost about making money. Having a bunch of wingnuts run a fake news cable channel is one way he does it; owning a bunch of local stations is another. But the local stations are not part of the cable network. I also haven’t heard of any concerted effort by Fox corporate to keep certain programming off of local stations like Sinclair Group did last year (I think most of their stations were ABC).
Yes, Murdock seems only interested in making money and appears totally amoral, IMO. He’ll promote whatever makes money, regardless of the political/social damage.
However, by posting on StormFront, the reporter showed her hand. The higher-ups at Fox should have reprimanded her.