Federal Judge Rules Fox News “Gullible” and “Unprofessional”

The Fox News Network continuously attempts to portray itself as the ‘fair and balanced’ news outlet. That slogan is so ingrained, the network has at times sought to even derail others from using the phrase.

However, the “fair and balanced” network took a major hit last week after a judge ruled on an incident that took place in April of 2007.

It must be stated, first and foremost, that Fox’s legal team was somehow able to convince a district judge to dismiss a $75,000 slander lawsuit brought against the network by a Lewiston, Maine school superintendent. But in the process of dismissing the suit, U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby found the Fox News network to be unprofessional in reporting false and “outrageous quotations” without confirming the accuracy of such quotes. Hornby also called the network “gullible” for reporting portions of a fake story that was “so absurd” it “should have caused them to question the accuracy” of what they were reporting on the air.

The Actual Incident
To get to the heart of the matter, we turn to the summary written by Hornby. “On April 11, 2007, a middle school student placed a bag containing ham on a table where Somali students were eating lunch. The student reportedly was acting on a dare; he and his friends thought it would be a funny joke. The Somali students, who were Muslims, were very upset by the incident. They informed the lunchroom monitor, and the lunchroom monitor alerted William Brochu, the school resource officer from the Lewiston Police Department. Officer Brochu directed all the students involved in the incident to report to the assistant principal’s office. There, the assistant principal and the principal met with the students and ultimately suspended the culprit for ten school days.

“Later that day, following directions from a superior officer, Officer Brochu filed a police report describing the cafeteria incident. The Police Department then referred the report to the Office of the Maine Attorney General for further investigation. The police report classified the incident as ‘Crime: Harassment/ Hate Bias.’”

After the incident, a freelance writer by the name of Nicholas Plagman posted a parody of the incident on a website called Associated Content. The post appeared to describe the April 11 incident and included quotes from Superintendent Levesque and Stephen Wessler, the executive Director for the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence.

Of course, many of the so-called facts and attributed quotes were fabricated. Plagman quoted Levesque as stating, “All our students should feel welcome in our schools, knowing that they are safe from attacks with ham, bacon, pork chops, or any other delicious meat that comes from pigs.” To Wessler, Plagman attributed that these Somali students “probably felt like they were back in Mogadishu starving and being shot at. No child, Muslim or normal, should have to endure touching a ham sandwich.” Plagman cited the Associated Press as a source for his material.

The Fair and Balanced Network Goes on the Air
Despite containing these bizarre quotes, the Fox & Friends daily morning show went on the air on April 24th and treated the parody as a factual story. During the morning news program, Fox and Friends co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade repeatedly mixed elements of the fabricated story with those from real wire sources and without the slightest hesitation continuously ridiculed Levesque for his handling of the incident.

According to Hornby, “During the course of the three-hour Fox & Friends cablecast, the defendants repeatedly raised and discussed the April 11 incident, relentlessly ridiculing Levesque and his handling of the episode. They reported as true some of the quotations that Plagman falsely attributed to Levesque. They also attributed to Levesque certain fabricated statements that the Plagman article had attributed to Wessler. The defendants also used the incident as the basis for their ‘question of the day,’ where the hosts ask viewers to call or email the show to share their thoughts. The question they posed was: ‘Ham sandwich, hate crime or just lunch?’”

After the Fox report aired, Levesque was hit with a barrage of negative e-mails and phone calls, all stemming from the Fox News account of the incident. Levesque’s attorney contacted Fox News Channel to inform the network of the inaccuracies in the April 24th cablecast. A little more than three weeks later, on May 16, 2007, Fox & Friends issued a retraction and an apology.

Superintendent Levesque would file his slander lawsuit in June, asserting both defamation and false light invasion of privacy claims.

The Judge’s Findings

The judge would go on to render findings that painted an exceptionally poor portrayal of the folks at Fox. The judge noted, “The defendants were certainly gullible. Even if they believed the segments of Plagman that they repeated on the air, at least two portions of the Plagman piece were so absurd that they should have raised the defendants’ truth-seeking antennae and caused them to question the accuracy of the article as a whole.

“Their failure to conduct further research (this was not breaking news; there were no time constraints) or to question the reliability of the Plagman piece was a ‘negligent failure to connect the dots, and, one would hope, an ‘extreme departure from professional standards.’”

According to the District Court Judge, “The record suggests that the initial research may have been completed in about twenty minutes.” Also within the summary, the judge noted that despite the executive producer’s instructions that Levesque be called for an on air interview, the morning show began airing the parody version of the report for roughly two hours before anyone called Levesque’s office.

As to defamation, the judge offered, “Under Maine law, a statement “is defamatory ‘if it tends so to harm the reputation of another as to lower him in the estimation of the community or to deter third persons from associating or dealing with him.’ The statement must be read in context, and must be ‘construed in the light of what might reasonably have been understood therefrom by the persons who [heard] it.’ A statement is defamatory if it ‘naturally tend[s] to expose the plaintiff to public hatred, contempt or ridicule.’”

Despite the false reports and on air ridicule of Levesque, the judge dismissed the suit stating, “that is not enough to satisfy the actual malice standard. The First Amendment protects journalists even when they are gullible.”

The judge rendered his dismissal despite offering up yet another not-so-flattering statement. “The facts in this case ― a morning cable news show derisively reporting events and statements obtained unwittingly from an online parody ― should provide grist for journalism classes teaching research and professionalism standards in the Internet age.”

But the judge concluded that “unprofessional conduct does not amount to reckless disregard of the truth,” and “failure to investigate before publishing, even when a reasonably prudent person would have done so, is not sufficient to establish reckless disregard. A reasonable jury could not find clear and convincing evidence of actual malice based on these comments.”

Fox Praises Final Ruling Leaving, Levesque and Attorney Astonished

Bernard Kubetz, Levesque’s attorney appeared stunned by the final verdict. “I think it’s an unreasonable, narrow interpretation of the facts and the law,” stated Kubetz.

The attorney added that Fox portrayed “a public servant with an outstanding reputation as someone who acted foolishly and thoughtlessly, which was totally false.”

Superintendent Levesque also seemed incredulous with the final ruling. The overall findings of unprofessional behavior, the improper vetting of material and the false attribution of quotes certainly seemed to the superintendent to demonstrate, at a minimum, a reckless disregard for the truth.

Fox was reportedly pleased but remarkably mum on the matter. The one quote that could be found concerning the Fox response to the verdict appeared in the Lewiston Sun Journal on June 4th.

“The Fox News Network was happy with the court’s decision, said a spokesperson who declined to be identified.”

Of course, one might understand some jubilation on the network’s part based on winning a slander suit. At the same time, one might think that a network that prided itself on being ‘fair and balanced’ would express severe consternation over having their reputation sullied.

After all, it is not everyday that a district judge calls a national news network “gullible” and “unprofessional.”

To read the judge’s findings, see the pdf document at the Lewiston Sun Journal.

Fox logo photos courtesy of ario _j and Pberry.