Fox, We Call Foul!

One of our more popular entries to this blog was posted right after the September 1st Rio Rancho Tea Party event -- and although we would have thought that event was faded and distant in our collective memories, a news piece just surfaced on Huffington Post which triggered our memory back to our own Tea Party experiences here in New Mexico.

In short, the video shows a Fox News producer rallying a crowd (of crazy people) to really amp up their cheers, etc. for the filming of a segment. The capacity in which the woman is acting is much like that of a cheerleader of sorts. This is not necessarily unheard of, but it does create a scenario where the raucous nature of the crowd is inflated.

So where's the problem? And why are we writing about Rio Rancho?

To be honest, probably no one would have cared what the producer at Fox was doing, had Fox News not purchased a full-page ad in the Washington Post claiming that other major news outlets were not covering the 9/12 Tea Party Event sufficiently -- claims which were resolutely rejected by the accused media outlets. (Yes, this is the same event where organizers used old photos to imply that participants numbered higher than in actuality.)

Here is the clip of what eventually aired on Fox -- We especially liked the part about how this movement was organic in nature -- with a little encouragement, of course.

Griff Jones, the anchor in the video, however, is not inexperienced as he was the same anchor who covered the Tea Party event in Rio Rancho.

We were there, and we also watched as Mr. Jones not only arranged protesters for a "good" news segment, but also hand-picked the types of signs being held by the protesters. (You can see more pics from the Tea Party here.) Note in the video we took how he lets the crowd know he is about to start filming:

By Fox's own standards, we think that Mr. Jones should also be disciplined.

We're not really counting on it though.