Fox News connects student’s suicide with Obama speech, draws outrage
Just before 3 p.m. Central Standard Time on Thursday, Fox News removed a controversial article linking a student suicide with President Barack Obama ‘s Wednesday afternoon speech on deficit reduction
Author:Hajra ShannonReviewer:Paula M. GrahamJul 31, 20205.8K Shares841.4K Views
Just before 3 p.m. Central Standard Time on Thursday, Fox News removed a controversial article linking a student suicide with President Barack Obama‘s Wednesday afternoon speech on deficit reduction.
The article titled “GWU Student’s Suicide Tragically Coincides With Obama Visit” drew outrage among students at George Washington University. University officials had in fact learned of a student committing suicide in his dorm roomat the same time the President began his speech, however, there was absolutely no connection.
By Thursday afternoon, an event was created on Facebookencouraging students to reach out to Fox through phone calls and emails to complain about the article. More than 1,200 had signed up as “attending” while nearly 7,000 others had not yet replied.
Fox apparently removedthe article, but The GW Hatchet posted the storyon their website. From the Hatchet:
“„Danny Leimberg, the [Facebook] event’s creator, posted contact information for Fox News’ headquarters and implored students to call and complain.
“„“After reading the article I think it’s ridiculous they had that in the politics section in their page, much less implying the relationship between the two,” Leimberg said. “Members of the GW community should be outraged, and his family shouldn’t have to see something like that on the politics blog.”
“„Leimberg said he wants to see Chernenkoff and the blog’s editor punished.
“„“I think there should be consequences for the people who publish it,” Leimberg said. “We just need to stand around the student and his family.”
This is not the first time Fox has caught fire for their news stories online. In November they blogged about a fake story on The Onion, a satire media group, and referred to it as fact.
Hajra Shannon
Author
Paula M. Graham
Reviewer
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