FOX News’ continued dance with illegitimacy

Since FOX News embarrasses itself, and journalism, just fine all by itself, I don’t really even need to mention this, but I do so because I recognize that many still believe the station is a legitimate source for fair and balanced, and dare I say, accurate news.

That wasn’t the case Monday, however, when FOX Nation presented as a “serious” news story a tale about a global warming activist who had frozen to the death this past weekend in Antarctica, meanwhile apparently not catching the irony. But here’s the hang of it: the original story came from faux and satire news site, EcoEnquirer.com. And straight from FOX’s Web site, here is the now-dead link.

Obviously continuing the 24-hour smear campaign against anything that may be called progressive (“Progress?” We wouldn’t want that.), FOX ran the story because it makes a roundabout, assumptive case that, in fact, global warming is a myth, as if to say:

See, it’s right there, clear as day. We still have people freezing to death in Antarctica!

Forgetting the fact that even after sea levels rise and most of the arctic sheet is toast, temperatures on this planet will still, and quite often, indeed, get cold enough for people to freeze to death. We are, after all, talking about an exceeding slow process, like evolution or other natural processes. But unlike evolution (Maybe we should welcome its intensification …), climate change is escalating with most of the warming since 1880 coming in recent decades. It’s a brute fact by now, and we might as well come to terms with it. Attempts to subvert it are, and here’s the nasty word again, retarding our progress as human beings.

But never a station to trade unscientific, fear-mongering nonsense for the scientific record or pesky truths, FOX actively looks for ways to conservatively pad its news hole, and the evidence has been mounting for years. By the way, I don’t need to link to probable liberal sites to prove my point. If I had the inclination, I could flood this site with egregious nonsense I hear from this outfit. But it’s too easy, and since so many others are sawing away at it, I don’t see the need to add my voice to the fray, or at least not on a daily basis.

Thanks to Media Matters for this screen shot:

Credit: Media Matters