Leaked Fox Memo...

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 10:22 AM on November 15, 2006.

There's simply too much Fox fun to be had these days.

First, the most serious. According to right wing news source, World Net Daily, Palestinian militants were paid $2 million for the release of 2 Fox reporters:

A spokeswoman for Fox News Channel told WND she could not provide an official statement about whether Fox was aware of money paid to free its two employees.

A source at Fox told WND many parties were involved with the freedom of Centanni and Wiig, including the U.S. government, and that it was possible money was paid.

John Aravosis writes:

Excuse me? Someone, on behalf of FOX News, reportedly gave terrorist organizations $2m that the terrorists now say they used to buy weapons to kill Israelis? FOX says "it's possible" money was paid to terrorists? And the Bush administration, they were heavily involved in this effort to free the FOX reporters - were they aware that someone was paying off terrorists? Were they the ones who arranged the payment? This is abominable if true.

The State Dept. claims it didn't do it, so who did?

The money was reportedly distributed to a number of groups associated with armed opposition to Israel, on which, one of the groups claimed, all their booty was spent: "He said the money was used to purchase weapons," and that: "This does encourage people to continue kidnappings."

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Elsewhere in the Fox world, the Huffington Post has obtained what appears to be an internal Fox memo urging reporters to, among other things, "be on the lookout of a ny statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem-controlled congress."



Then, according to NewsHound Judy:

During the "Live Desk" show that aired the same day as the memo, MacCallum claimed without providing any details or sources that there were "some reports of cheering in the streets on the behalf of the supporters of the insurgency in Iraq, that they’re very pleased with the way things are going here and also with the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld."

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Finally, the War on Christmas is getting off to an early start this year, beating the War on Thanksgiving to the punch.

According to Nico, Bill O'Reilly praised Wal-Mart's pandering to the markets in the name of Jesus, for its return to "Merry Christmas," from "Happy Holidays" of yesteryear.

Gawker, however, notes that O'Reilly may have a full-blown Civil War on his hands, as his employers at News Corp have once again scorned the baby Jesus in favor of ecumenism for their "Holiday Party":

Tagged as: fox, terrorism, wal-mart, war on christmas, newscorp

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.