Fox News Strikes Again

14Aug07

This time online. An article at tech website oreilly.com points out that Fox News had edited a portion of Comedian Al Franken’s Wikipedia entry. A quote of all things, that changed from

Reflecting later on the lawsuit during an interview on the [[National Public Radio]] program ”[[Fresh Air]]” on [[September 3]], [[2003]], Franken said that Fox’s case against him was “literally laughed out of court” and that “wholly (holy) without merit” is a good characterization of Fox News itself.

to

Reflecting later on the lawsuit during an interview on the liberal [[National Public Radio]] program ”[[Fresh Air]]” on [[September 3]], [[2003]], Franken said that Fox’s case against him was the best thing to happen to his book sales.

If you follow the link at the bottom of his page, it takes you to wired magazine’sThreat Level a wiki watch of the most egregious spin on wikipedia, where the original report can be found. Following the changes made by the listed IP address, we find edits to numerous wikipedia articles, mostly surrounding what I assume to Fox Affiliate stations and Fox News Reporters, which is all fine and dandy, BUT there are changes to entries about MSNBC reporter Keith Olbermann that attempt to discredit him, while protecting their own interests.

Protecting their own is what the person responsible for these edits seems to do best. There are deletings of sentences that would give a negative impression of Fox News, such as an entire section on Journalistic Fabrication by Fox News reporter Carl Cameron, and a healthy dose of adding the adjectives “liberal” or “conservative” to just about everything.

There are also plenty of edits to Brit Hume’s wiki entry that insert jabs at Keith Olbermann into the article. Why there is need to mention Keith Olbermann in an article on Brit Hume is beyond me.

But how can we attribute the address 12.167.224.228, to Fox News? Simple, run it through a whois database

AT&T WorldNet Services ATT (NET-12-0-0-0-1)
12.0.0.0 – 12.255.255.255
FOX NEWS CHANNEL FOX-NEWS73-224-224 (NET-12-167-224-224-1)
12.167.224.224 – 12.167.224.255

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2007-08-13 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN’s WHOIS database.

And of course, clicking on Net-12-167-224-244-1 takes us to a Kurt Foster of Fox News

OrgName: FOX NEWS CHANNEL
OrgID: FNC-21
Address: 400 NORTH CAPITOL ST
City: WASHINGTON
StateProv: DC
PostalCode: 20001
Country: US

NetRange: 12.167.224.224 – 12.167.224.255
CIDR: 12.167.224.224/27
NetName: FOX-NEWS73-224-224
NetHandle: NET-12-167-224-224-1
Parent: NET-12-0-0-0-1
NetType: Reassigned
Comment:
RegDate: 2005-02-06
Updated: 2005-02-06

OrgTechHandle: KFO13-ARIN
OrgTechName: Foster, Kurt
OrgTechPhone: +1-202-715-2429
OrgTechEmail: ***********@foxnews.com

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2007-08-13 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN’s WHOIS database.

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