Does anyone know if this is real?

Posted October 13, 2006 6:45 PM.

Spotted by Davezilla and displayed in his Flickr photostream, this screenshot purports to be from Fox News' coverage of the whole Mark Foley scandal in the US. I genuinely have no idea if it's an accurate representation or a mock-up, although I'm a bit suspicious of it. So I thought I'd ask if anyone out there had any more information.

If it is an accurate representation, then I'm sort of stunned and can only agree with Dinah's opinion of the whole thing when she says, "Where's your moral high ground now, you conservative slimeballs? Monica Lewinsky was 22, yet you tried to bring the whole Clinton adminstration down and now it comes out you've been protecting a pedophile for over half a decade?" If it's not real, of course, that's no reason to stop being critical of Fox News or the US News Media's treatment of this debacle. The initial representation of Foley as a Democrat, the way his behaviour has been conflated with being gay - it's all been a bit troubling even from half a world away.

Addendum posted at 8.30pm: Thanks to Thom Shannon who sent in a link to this image, which seems to conclusively demonstrate that capture above was hacked together in Photoshop:

That's not to say that Dinah's point still doesn't stand, of course. The way the Republican party has operated around this territory has been decidedly dubious.

Comments

Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.

Going strictly by the use of two fonts in one message (which a google image search for "fox news screen caps" would seem to show is not common practice for Fox) I'd have to say fake. Still "slime-balls" though.

→ Posted by: Jmorrison at October 13, 2006 7:14 PM

Using font heuristics is the only principled approach to this.

→ Posted by: Jim at October 13, 2006 7:31 PM

I love how the actual headline is no less ridiculous than the Photoshop job.

→ Posted by: Scott Reynen at October 13, 2006 9:28 PM

Yeah, you of all people should have spotted the dodgy font match.

→ Posted by: Aegir at October 13, 2006 11:32 PM

@Scott Reynen: Absolutely, the latter is more outrageous. Funny!

→ Posted by: Newfred at October 14, 2006 12:36 PM

Jon Stewart did a lovely bit a few weeks ago about the new habit of making captions into questions: "George Bush: The Best President Ever?". Or, to use an appropriate example: "Plastic Bag: Does Anybody Read It?".

Hey, I didn't say nobody reads your blog!

→ Posted by: Mor at October 14, 2006 4:36 PM

Ways of spotting...

1. Is the 'A' in "UNDERAGE" the same as the 'A' in "BE A GOOD"? (No. It's a fake).

2. Is there a black drop-shadow behind the top line just like there is in the bottom line? (No. It's a fake).

3. Are there any green smudges behind the top-line text? (No. It's a bad fake).

Mind you: made me laugh.

→ Posted by: James Cridland at October 14, 2006 8:31 PM

Republican handling has been decidedly dubious

/chuckles to self/

Is that the British tendency to understatement we hear so much about?

→ Posted by: quixote at October 16, 2006 5:13 PM

Oh, Tom. Have I ever posted anything real in the past 11 years? It's a parody site. ;^)

→ Posted by: Davezilla at November 1, 2006 11:28 PM

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