Unfair and Imbalanced

Thanks to Tom Hanson at Open Education:

Federal Judge Rules Fox News “Gullible” and “Unprofessional”

The Fox News Network continuously attempts to portray itself as the ‘fair and balanced’ news outlet. That slogan is so ingrained, the network has at times sought to even derail others from using the phrase.

However, the “fair and balanced” network took a major hit last week after a judge ruled on an incident that took place in April of 2007.

It must be stated, first and foremost, that Fox’s legal team was somehow able to convince a district judge to dismiss a $75,000 slander lawsuit brought against the network by a Lewiston, Maine school superintendent.

But in the process of dismissing the suit, U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby found the Fox News network to be unprofessional in reporting false and “outrageous quotations” without confirming the accuracy of such quotes. Hornby also called the network “gullible” for reporting portions of a fake story that was “so absurd” it “should have caused them to question the accuracy” of what they were reporting on the air...

School official sues Fox over report parody story in Maine

LEWISTON, Maine --A school administrator who says he was ridiculed and harassed based on a bogus news story is suing.

Lewiston School Superintendent Leon Levesque is seeking $75,000 in federal court in Portland to deter what his attorney Bernard J. Kubetz characterized as irresponsible reporting by Fox News Channel.

The parody, on a Web site called Associated Content.com, was of the school district's response to a prank in April at Lewiston Middle School. Levesque suspended a pupil for tossing a ham bone on a table occupied by Somali students, knowing the Muslims would be offended. Muslims consider pork unclean.

The lawsuit contends that Fox reported the parody as fact on its "Fox and Friends" show on April 23. The show's anchors repeated a comment attributed to Levesque, that "These children have got to learn that ham is not a toy," and that there was an effort afoot to create an "anti-ham response plan."

A Fox and Friends anchor even assured viewers they were "not making this up," according to the lawsuit.

"It appears to me that Fox News acted in a grossly irresponsible way and took some information that was really not very plausible, did not do any substantial fact-checking, and put it out as hard news," Kubetz said.

Levesque said he was overwhelmed for days with phone calls and hate mail, including threatening calls to his home.

Fox did a brief on-air retraction, but Levesque called it unsatisfactory. A Fox News spokesman in New York said the company does not comment on pending lawsuits.

This from the Boston Globe.

Texas Educators Repeatedly Flunk Required Exams

DALLAS -- Testing is a part of life. Most professions require some sort of test and you only get so many tries. But a News Station Investigation shows - when it comes to teaching or running a school, for thousands of North Texas educators its try, try and try again…and again.

The anticipation and pressure mounts on most any public school student in Texas every year as they are required to tackle the TAKS test before they can move on or graduate. But what about those running the classrooms? Fox 4 found lots of teachers repeatedly flunked the tests required to teach in Texas.

Lorraine Snowden is a teacher at Urban Park Elementary in East Dallas. State records show Snowden started taking her certification exams back in 1989 but failed year after year until she finally passed in 2003. She flunked exams a total of 54 times in 14 years.

...The Texas Education Agency told Fox 4 most teachers in Texas pass certification exams on the first try. So, Fox 4 analyzed TEA’s teacher testing data to see how teachers at major school districts in North Texas fared on the first try. The records show: at Plano ISD 20% failed exams at least once; at Arlington ISD 25%; at Fort Worth ISD 34%; and at Dallas ISD 41% failed a test at least once, 3790 teachers. The data show 478 DISD teachers failed a test at least 5 times. 71 of them took 10 times or more to pass a certification exam.

This from Fox News 4 Dallas.