FOX NEWS CAUGHT AGAIN PASSING ON BOGUS INFORMATION

…Fox Anchor Bret Baier had to apologize to millions of viewers.

 

There is a reason that Fox News is the least respected major news operation.

 

If you are a normal American, you probably don’t regularly follow the Fox News channel.  In that case,  you probably are not aware that last Wednesday, their news anchor, Bret Baier reported that the FBI had determined that Clinton’s private server, the one she used while serving as US Secretary of State, had been hacked by “five foreign intelligence agencies.” 

 

Then on Thursday, in an interview with Fox’s Brit Hume, it was reported that in a separate investigation of the Clinton Foundation, Fox also reported that the investigation “was “likely to lead to an indictment of Hillary Clinton after Tuesday’s election.”

 

Wow, what a bombshell!!!

 

Of course, being that Trump is totally into the Fox News channel, he immediately  jumped on this and as he has repeatedly invoked the alleged corruption of the Clinton Foundation and he continually repeats the security risks involved in Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server while being the US Secretary of State.  This he says is the reasons to not vote for Clinton.

 

Needless to say, if both statements were true, they would be highly explosive developments in these late stages of the presidential campaign.

 

But neither of these reports about Clinton were accurate or true, and anchor Baier had to apologize and acknowledged that on Friday morning in a “Fox News alert”..

 

Baier apologized Friday for Fox’s false reports that the federal investigators had determined that Hillary Clinton’s private email server had been hacked, and that an investigation would lead to an indictment of Clinton after the election.

 

Baier sheepishly had to say that, after checking with his source, there was no evidence at this time for either of these statements.

 

The reporting team of Woodward and Bernstein in the infamous Watergate case had proven once again that a professional reporter never relies on just one source of information.  You always need at least two, preferably three, separate sources before you go before the public to announce something as powerful as this type of political information.

 

A pro like Baier really blew it, as he had relied on a single anonymous source within the FBI for his report about the alleged hack of the server: “I was quoting from one source about his certainty that the server had been hacked by five foreign intelligence agencies. . . . As of today there still are no digital fingerprints of a breach, no matter what the working assumption is within the bureau.”

 

The reality is that this has become SOP “standard operating procedure” for those at the Fox Network. 

 

This is why the Fox Network is known for having the least accurate news organization on cable TV.

 

Baier later stated: “All the time, but especially in a heated election, on a topic this explosive, every word matters no matter how well sourced.”  If only those people at Fox, whether it’s Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity or whomever, would only follow Mr. Baier's sage advice. 

 

Hell, if only Bret Baier himself would follow his own advice....!

 

When talking with Bret Hume, Baier said that his comment about whether the investigations would continue after the election, Baier said his answer was “inartful”.  At that comment, Hume really said it right, when he commented that, “Well, that wasn’t just inartful. It was a mistake.”

 

“Indictment,” is obviously, a very loaded word.  In the current negative political atmosphere, no one knows if there would or would not be an indictment of Clinton, no matter how strong the investigators feel their evidence is. It’s obvious that a prosecutor has to first, agree to take a case, and then they have to make that case to a grand jury.  With so many investigations, not being able to find illegal activity or illegal intent, that would be a hard case to make.

 

This was just one more example of how slip-shod the Fox News operation is deep down.  There is just another example of why Fox is the least respected news operation compared to the rest of the world’s TV news organizations.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016