Why did Fox falsely claim to have a DHS memo linking Loughner to American Renaissance?

[ProSense]

THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE 'LINKS'....

As media outlets scrambled over the weekend to better understand why Jared Lee Loughner allegedly went on a shooting rampage in Tucson on Saturday, Fox News said it had a scoop: the network had "obtained" a memo from the Department of Homeland Security connecting the shooter to a racist group called American Renaissance, and this memo was distributed to law enforcement agencies.

I held off on mentioning this, because of the source -- the only thing less reliable than Fox News' opinion journalism is Fox News' attempts at investigative journalism.

I'm glad I held off. The network has already backed off its original reporting, and Greg Sargent talked to a DHS official this morning who said the agency has made no connection between Loughner and American Renaissance.

The Fox report caused a splash, with some news orgs reporting that anonymous officials had confirmed such possible ties. Some conservatives railed at DHS for supposedly trying to tie the shooter to the right for political reasons, and others disputed the suggestion that this displayed the shooter's ideological leanings.

But DHS has not officially provided any such information to any law enforcement officials, the DHS official says.

"We have not established any such possible link," the official says.

The official cautions it's conceivable that a law enforcement official got unofficial info from a DHS official somewhere along the lines of what Fox reported. But he emphasizes that DHS has not even concluded in any official way that even the possibility of such ties exists. The official adds that it wouldn't be DHS's place to reach any such conclusion in the first place, since the FBI is leading the investigation.

In a situation like this, I'm a little more sympathetic to on-the-spot journalistic errors -- rumors were rampant on mid-day Saturday, as evidenced by CNN and NPR reporting that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) had died -- with reporters chasing down details in crisis-like circumstances.

But Fox News claimed it had a DHS memo that it didn't, in fact, have, and the story affected the politics of the story in unhelpful and misleading ways.

<...>

Yesterday, from TPM

A lot of attention has been paid today to a Fox News report about what was originally described as a leaked "DHS memo" that tied Jared Loughner to an anti-immigration, racist group called American Renaissance.

But Fox has walked back its initial description of the memo as coming from the Department of Homeland Security. Now it uses a labored description: "a law enforcement memo based on information provided by DHS."

That's not the same thing as a DHS memo, and it suggests somewhat less certainty about whether Loughner's reference to the group in his internet ramblings is getting special attention from law enforcement.

Was Fox trying to shift the focus away from Palin? If so, isn't it positively Freudian that they used a RW group to do so?

On edit, think about this: While others in the media were using the fake friend to claim Loughner has a liberal past and the teabaggers e-mailed talking points to play up the connection, Fox instead pick a RW group to shift the debate away from Palin's crosshairs and the hateful rhetoric being commonly used by her, the RW media and other high-profile Republicans.

[liberal N proud]

1. Facts are not important on FOX

The propaganda is!

[benld74]

2. Because they are FOX !?!?!?

[Zoeisright]

3. Because all they do is lie!!

Face it: every time a right winger opens his mouth, he's lying.

[ProSense]

4. Yes, they lie

I'm more interested in why they chose a RW group. It seems an acknowledgment on their part that the person is in fact RW, something that is still being denied by others.

[Sheepshank]

5. Fox has been given Court Approved permission to lie.

It comes down to what are they going to lie about? I would think it's about promoting their agenda, their POV, and diverting attention or the truth from anything that deterrs the focus away from their agenda. Duh!

[Recursion]

6. I got cautious when I saw the word "linked"

And getting the provenance of the memo wrong is bush-league. Glad to see Fox keeps its standards consistent...

[Kdillard]

7. Never trust Fox.

[skip fox]

8. Item: in the first few hours of Fox's coverage, they speculated on John Roll as target

because many talk shows contained violent rhetoric after a decision of his last year. He had even received numerous treating messages.

At the time on DU I speculated that they were trying to take attention away from Palin's "targeting," complete with cross-hairs map, of Giffords.

Item: They would even throw some conservative talk shows (not identified as such, of course) under the bus to protect Palin!!!

This is only more evidence that Palin is their dream presidential candidate in 2011.

[ProSense]

9. Speculation is allowable

by Fox, the media, and Rand Paul and everyone who made his simlar "medical" diagnosis of Loughner, but condemning hateful rhetoric is "McCarthyism."

[11 Bravo]

10. Because they're Fox. Sometimes they lie just for practice, because they never know when ...

they might be called upon to spew bullshit of truly galactic proportions, so they need to be ready.