Fox News Caught Altering Ron Paul Story

Fox News attempted to skew Ron Paul's 2011 CPAC straw poll win by playing footage from 2010's CPAC event, where Mitt Romney supporters loudly booed the result. The report started by saying that Paul came from nowhere to win the poll, when in fact this was the second consecutive year Paul defeated Romney. Paul wasn't present at the official announcement and Fox News had the audacity to ask Paul to his face if he knew who booed him, when in fact the booing was nothing more than a fabrication created by Fox News.

This, however, is not the first time a media outlet has attempted to shape events rather than just report the facts. Media Matters for America reported that Fox News also shot footage of the Tea Party protests of 2009 to make the crowds appear bigger and even reported fictitious turnout numbers throughout their telecasts. According to The Huffington Post, Fox News not only enhanced the event, but refused to report any information that could negatively reflect the Tea Party protests, such as reports by other news outlets on alleged cases of racism, religious intolerance and gay bashing.

Fox News covered the Tea Party protests around the clock and even encouraged viewers to get involved. Fox ran many of their programs on location to frame the Tea Party protests as having more of an impact than they actually did. This reporting style has strengthened feelings that Fox News is a biased organization with a political agenda whose main interest is not to deliver actual news.

In November 2009, Fox News Anchor Greg Jarret said that Sarah Palin's book signing in Grand Rapids, Mich., had a huge turnout. According to Think Progress, Fox showed footage of Palin surrounded by supporters as Jarret framed the footage being shown as footage just coming in from the event. The actual footage being shown was from a McCain-Palin rally in 2008.

Fox News has since apologized for the mishap and referred to it as a "production error." While a production error is in the realm of possibility, many people feel that Fox News was caught in deceptive reporting and had to admit fault but did so without admitting intent. Before this mishap, Fox was already seen as an organization with a political agenda and the fact that these mishaps always seem to favor the agenda they are said to be partial to does not help their case with the public.

A report from Media Matters for America showed that in June 2010, Fox and Friends displayed a chart that represented the total number of unemployed Americans spanning from December 2007 to June 2010. The numbers on the chart were correct, but the presentation of the graph was misleading. The graph was manipulated to show a steady and consistent trend in the rise of unemployed Americans by displaying a perfectly ascending diagonal bar, when in fact a chart displaying the actual trend would have shown the rate rising but also slowing down. Had this graph been created by inputting the data into an unbiased computer program, the chart would have looked much different, which suggests that someone must have manually manipulated the chart. The manipulation of this chart led people to believe unemployment was spiraling at a constant rate with no end in sight, when in fact it was stabilizing.

Resources
Paul Joseph Watson,"Fox News Caught In Shocking Dirty Tricks Stunt Against Ron Paul " Prison Planet
REPORT: "Fair and balanced" Fox News aggressively promotes "tea party" protests,Media Matters for America
Sam Stein,Tea Party Protests: 'Ni**er,' 'Fa**ot' Shouted At Members Of Congress,The Huffington Post
Faiz Shakir,Fox News displays old campaign footage to claim Palin is getting 'huge crowds' at her book signings. (Updated) ,Think Progress
Fox News sticking with painfully bad unemployment chart ,Media Matters for America