by digby
Can't you just feel the anchors at Fox clenching their teeth to prevent themselves from screaming "shut up, shut up you cheese-eating surrender monkeys!!!"
After the Paris mayor threatened to sue Fox News on Tuesday over the network's recent bogus reports on Muslim "no-go zones" in the city, the network responded that the mayor's comments were "misplaced."
"We empathize with the citizens of France as they go through a healing process and return to everyday life. However, we find the Mayor’s comments regarding a lawsuit misplaced," Fox News Executive Vice President Michael Clemente said in a Tuesday statement, according to Mediaite.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo slammed Fox's "prejudiced" coverage of the city in an appearance on CNN.
"When we're insulted, and when we've had an image, then I think we'll have to sue," Hidalgo said. "I think we'll have to go to court, in order to have these words removed."
Following the attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo, terror expert Steven Emerson claimed on Fox News that there are Muslim "no-go zones" in Europe "where non-Muslims just simply don't go in."
On Saturday, Fox News issued several on-air corrections for statements made by Emerson on the network and apologized for his comments.
I find it amazing that Fox apologized for those comments and I have to assume this was done at the behest of the management for reasons that have little to do with journalistic integrity. After all, if they cared about that all they would ever do is apologize. Somebody thought it was a very important mistake.
But whatever it is, it's clearly making them very uncomfortable.
But if there's one thing we've learned over the past couple of weeks it's that the Free Speech requires that we defend to the death the right of the cheese eaters to tweak Fox News:
Mockery is a national weapon in France, so when an American cable news channel raised false alarms about rampant lawlessness in some Paris neighborhoods — proclaiming them “no-go zones” for non-Muslims, avoided even by the police — a popular French television show rebutted the claims the way it best knew how: with satire, spoofs and a campaign of exaggeration and sarcasm.
The show, “Le Petit Journal,” is a French version of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” — irreverent and reliant on mock correspondents who showcase the foibles of the high and mighty.
Usually “Le Petit Journal” reserves its venom for French politicians and the local news media. But in the days after the terrorist attacks in Paris that left 17 dead, including 12 people at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, it set its sights on a trans-Atlantic target, America’s Fox News, after the channel claimed that swaths of England and France were ruled according to Shariah.
A Twitter user poked fun at Fox News, posting that the checkered cloth coverings of jam jars showed that even homemade preserves “have to wear hijab.”
“They did this on a weekend when all France and Paris was in a state of shock,” said Yann Barthès, 40, who has hosted the show since it began in 2004. “I cried.” But, he said, it was also “irritating, so we chose humor to campaign against Fox News.”
“It’s important for the French audience to know about this. They don’t really know Fox News, and they think it’s an enormous channel, very American, with announcers with big voices and blonde women who look like Barbies.”
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