jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is remarkable to me is that they actually bothered to admit it. Maybe someone said they were going to come down hard on Murdoch or Sky TV.

I'm surprised by the retraction also. The largest investor in News Corp after Murdoch is Al-Waleed bin Talal. a member of the Saudi royal family and, obviously, a Muslim. Recently, Murdoch tweeted:

"Maybe most Moslems peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible."

which suggests that even peaceful Muslims should be held responsible for the violence of other Muslims. This idea of collective guilt is not something limited to Murdoch, but it is a dangerous way of thinking. After a week or so Murdoch retracted the tweet. Almost at the same time, Fox retracted its allegations. It's possible that Murdoch's investment partner reached the end of his patience.

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't even matter. They've put the lie out there- there are going to be posters on this forum asking about "no-go zones" until the end of time. That's why Fox is so damn powerful- once misinformation gets out, it doesn't matter that you've apologized or retracted. That information is out there and some people will believe it forever.

Anonymous wrote:What is remarkable to me is that they actually bothered to admit it. Maybe someone said they were going to come down hard on Murdoch or Sky TV.

Anonymous wrote:

Bobby Jindal has jumped on this ridiculous bandwagon. What a mess.

Anonymous wrote:It's nothing new for Fox News to spout a load of imaginary inflammatory bullshit and try to pass it off as actual news - it's their M.O. for crying out loud. People have been taking issue with their faulty reporting for years but they never gave a shit because they never had to because there's always been plenty of ignorant pundits and politicians to come to Fox News' defense should any high profile official or agency complain. The reason they admitted their error in this instance is because the backlash didn't come from the usual suspects here in the US, it came from overseas. As soon as British Prime Minister David Cameron entered into fray and said that Steve Emerson was "clearly an idiot" Fox had no choice but to back off and apologize. If they just tried to ignore the outrage and keep quiet or dared to deny the fallacy of their claims they would have potentially ended up making enemies overseas - its one thing to be at war with liberals and Democrats here at home but to have all of England and France hating their guts too...that would be disastrous. They had to suck it up and say "Sorry" or lose all credibility.

jsteele wrote:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/01/18/fox-news-corrects-apologizes-for-no-go-zone-remarks/

"In its programming last night, Fox News issued two corrections on the matter, one of which acknowledged that 'we have made some regrettable errors on air regarding the Muslim population in Europe, particularly with regard to England and France.'"

She continued: 'To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.'" (emphasis added)

The allegation about no-go zones has been made many times in this forum. Several times, other posters asked for support for the claim from sources more credible than Fox News. No such support was ever offered. Now we see why.

It's good that Fox acknowledged this error but disappointing that the network repeatedly broadcast such erroneous information. Hopefully Fox's audience will learn to be a bit more skeptical in the future.