Fox News: We Report -- Even if We Know It's False

Paul Begala

I've been dealing with the media and politics for 25 years, but I've never had a more surrealistic day than January 8. Several times that day Fox News reported that I was joining Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign. It was a big story - at least until the stunning election returns.

The only problem was, it wasn't true.

Fox News never even tried to contact me to verify their story, and when I contacted Fox, I felt like a character in a Kafka novel -- or at least Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Fox's Major Garrett -- a good guy whom I've known for years -- broke the story. My phone started ringing off the hook, and my email box bulged. There are still, thank goodness, a lot of real journalists out there. Tim Russert was first. I assured him it wasn't true, he thanked me for waving him off a false story, and that was that. Then my own network, CNN, called. I told them if I were quitting CNN that CNN would know before Fox News. Soon after, others called or emailed: Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, George Stephanopoulos and Teddy Davis of ABC, Beth Fouhy of AP, Mark Halperin of Time, John Harris of the Politico, Jill Lawrence of USA Today, Peter Baker of the Washington Post, Patrick Healy of the New York Times, David Gregory of NBC and Bill Sammon of the Examiner. There were probably more. I list the names only to give credit to journalists who behaved like reporters, not repeaters.

After I told Fox it wasn't true -- and this is the surreal part -- they kept reporting it anyway. In fact, Fox's Garrett told me he'd "take it under advisement." Take it under advisement? I realize I'm generally seen as just another liberal with an opinion, but this was not a matter of opinion, it was a matter of fact. Fox now knew their story was flatly, factually wrong, and they took it "under advisement."

Apparently that meant repeating the falsehood with added detail: the "fact" that I had been on a conference call the previous day with the Hillary high command. Again, false. My worry is that if this is what one of Fox's best and most respected reporters is doing, what are the hacks up to?

I exchanged several civil emails with Garrett -- and append them to this post. They are not nuanced. Read them for yourself. I report, you decide..........

LINK FOR EMAILS