MediaMyopic

True or false, everything makes Fox news these days. And now the conservative network has taken sensationalism to a whole new level since Rupert Murdoch’s MySpace acquisition. Every time a child goes missing, or a school endures another ‘bloody melee,’ Fox reports the most minute details on the victims and villains — their favorite song, background information, and personality inferences. Where do they get this information? Not family. Not friends. Not even opportunistic neighbors looking for a few seconds on the camera. Fox’s most tapped into source is MySpace, a site where: 1) someone can make a page about anyone they want to. 2) Pages can be inactive for several years, with out-of-date information. 3) People can manipulate other pages by posting misleading pictures or inaccurate information. And 4) Viewers can misinterpret sarcastic pop culture references or inside jokes among friends. Fox’s coverage of former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer’s fall from grace was emblematic of the absurdity. The network’s stories of the hooker Spitzer sought services from, Ashley Dupre, relied solely on the woman’s MySpace page — the latest fact-gathering shortcut of Fox ‘journalists.’ The famous “a source told Fox” has been replaced with “according to MySpace.”