#Three months later, Faux's In-house bigot is back with new smear
5295 Dead, 428 since 1/20/09
Three months after humiliating retraction, Fox gay-baiter Maxim Lott has
a new smear
December 14, 2009 8:06 pm ET by Jeremy Schulman
Three months ago, Fox News was forced to issue a humiliating retraction
of the false allegations it had leveled against Department of Education
official Kevin Jennings. Now, Maxim Lott, the FoxNews.com reporter at the
center of those falsehoods, has re-emerged with more smears of Jennings.
This time, in an article headlined "Obama's Safe Schools Czar Tied to
Lewd Readings for 7th Graders," Lott reported that Jennings "is under
fresh attack after it was revealed that the pro-gay group he formerly
headed recommends books his critics say are pornographic." In the
article, Lott grossly distorts the contents of books recommended by GLSEN
for grades 7-12 and waits until the 13th paragraph to disclose that the
list of books included the disclaimer that they "contain mature themes"
and the recommendation that "adults selecting books for youth review
content for suitability."
And just who are the "critics" who apparently inspired Lott's article? In
short: anti-gay bigots.
There's Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council, who last year
announced his desire "to export homosexuals from the United States" -- a
comment for which he later apologized (sort of). FRC's website states:
"Family Research Council believes that homosexual conduct is harmful to
the persons who engage in it and to society at large, and can never be
affirmed. It is by definition unnatural, and as such is associated with
negative physical and psychological health effects."
Lott also quoted Peter LaBarbera of American for Truth about
Homosexuality. LaBarbera has explained that his attacks on Jennings are
"all about homosexuality and the 'gay' activist agenda whose singular
goal is to normalize homosexuality as a 'civil right.' "
The fact that Fox continues to allow Lott to report on Jennings is some
of the strongest evidence yet that the network isn't a news outlet at all
but is actually a right-wing political organization whose mission is to
concoct dishonest, bigoted attacks with which to damage progressives and
the Obama administration.
Let's revisit some of Lott's past work on the Jennings beat.
On September 30, Lott reported as fact that more 21 years ago, as a young
teacher in Massachusetts, Jennings "didn't report that a 15-year-old boy
told him that he was having sex with an older man."
At the time, there was substantial evidence available that Lott's claim
was false. As Media Matters pointed out, a publicly available 2004 letter
from Jennings' lawyer stated that the student was actually 16 years old
when the conversation took place. The Massachusetts age of consent is --
and was at the time -- 16; Jennings was under no obligation to report
anything. (The student later said that he "had no sexual contact with
anybody at the time.")
On October 1, after reporting as fact that the student was "15," Lott
apparently decided to check whether this claim was true. As Media Matters
exclusively revealed, Lott sent a Facebook message to the student, asking
if the "rumor" that he was 15 at the time was "accurate."
Normally, this is the sort of thing journalists ask before leveling
allegations at public servants. But Lott and Fox News are apparently so
obsessed with gay-baiting that accuracy has become a secondary matter
that can wait until after they've run with their charges.
On October 2, two days after Lott's story ran, Media Matters published a
statement from the student and a copy of his driver's license,
definitively proving that he was 16 at the time of his conversation with
Jennings. That same day, the student wrote to Lott and demanded a
correction. Eventually, Fox added the following editor's note to the top
of Lott's article: "Since this story was originally published, the former
student referred to as 'Brewster' has stepped forward to reveal that he
was 16 years old, not 15, at the time of the incident described in this
report."
Three months later, Lott's back. And he's got a new smear.
--
Slavery: The belief that people can be property
Corporatism: The belief that property can be people.
Phlip
> of the false allegations it had leveled against Department of Education
> official Kevin Jennings. Now, Maxim Lott, the FoxNews.com reporter at the
> center of those falsehoods, has re-emerged with more smears of Jennings.
Public Option is down to the final votes, so the HMO lobby does not
mind burning up entire careers to provide distractions.
> This time, in an article headlined "Obama's Safe Schools Czar Tied to
> Lewd Readings for 7th Graders,"
You mean like the scene in /Tom Sawyer/ where the boys are wrestling
naked?
5295 Dead, 428 since 1/20/09
Along with Catch-22, Catcher in the Rye, the Harry Potter series, and
pretty much anything by Kurt Vonnegut.