[Infowarrior] - Fox News: al Qaeda link to California fires

[Richard Forno]

Geez.    ---rf


Ill-informed Fox anchors spread fears of al Qaeda link to California fires
David Edwards and Nick Juliano
Published: Wednesday October 24, 2007

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Fox_advances_theory_that_CA_fires_1024.html

Questionable 4-year-old FBI memo presented as new to stoke terror fears

Did al Qaeda start the California wildfires?

As more than a million people escaped the flames, Fox News anchors couldn't
help speculating about a terrorism link to the blazes ravaging southern
California.

"I've heard some people talk about this a little bit to me, but have you
heard anybody suggest that this could be some form of terrorism," Fox &
Friends co-host Steve Doocy asked Wednesday morning.

Correspondent Adam Housley said he's received "hundreds of comments" from
readers of his Fox News blog speculating about a link to terrorism.

Investigators have determined that one 15,000 acre fire in Orange County was
deliberately set, and Housley reported that authorities arrested one man who
set a hillside on fire. Causes of most other fires are still being
investigated, and there has been little speculation beyond Fox News about a
terror plot.

A review of Housley's blog posts about the fire reveals that his
characterization of the terror fears perhaps was inflated.

Of his 15 posts on the fires, just two included speculation from commenters
about a terrorism link.

"Is anyone asking how these fires started? I see no comments or
speculations," observed "clyde teeter" in response to a post Tuesday. "Could
it be linked to illegal alien misadventure on the border [...] Terrorism?
... If you are a journalist, then these questions need to be asked and
investigated. Your coverage is admirable but the emotional journalism about
the loss of peoples homes is not helping to find the causes."

Fox & Friends co-host Judge Andrew Napolitano tried to serve as the voice of
reason.

"That's a fear, Adam, but is there any evidence of it?" the judge asked.

Such skepticism could not last, though.

Later Wednesday, Fox anchors returned to fanning the terror fears, digging
up a four-year-old FBI memo and presenting it as new information relating to
an al Qaeda link to the fires.

In June of 2003, FBI agents in Denver detailed an al Qaeda detainee's
discussion of a plot to set forest fires around the western United States,
although investigators couldn't determine whether the detainee was telling
the truth, and his plot did not include setting fires in California.

Such small discrepancies in dates and details proved to be no obstacles for
Fox anchors, who reported that the memo was from "late June of this year"
and "is just popping up this morning."

The memo was first reported by the Arizona Republic in July 2003, although a
Fox anchor said it was reported "five days ago." That confusion seems to
stem from an inability to read the date on an Associated Press account of
the memo from the time it was first reported.

A July 11, 2003, AP story, still available online via USA Today, reported,
"The contents of the June 25 memo from the FBI's Denver office were reported
Friday by The Arizona Republic."

On Fox, that information became, "The June 25 memo from the FBI's Denver
offices was reported three days ago, excuse me five days ago, by the Arizona
Republic."

Further distorting the report, Fox failed to mention a key caveat from the
2003 AP story they appear to have ripped from.

"Rose Davis, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in
Boise, told The Associated Press that officials there took note of the
warning but didn't see a need to act further on it."


Partial Transcript (via ThinkProgress):
#

DOOCY: You¹re looking live at pictures from San Diego ‹ Santiago, CA, where
the wildfires continue. We were talking earlier in today¹s telecast with
Adam Housley and apparently police officers in a hovering helicopter saw a
guy starting one of these fires. And Allison Allison Camerota, an FBI memo
from late in June of this year is popping up this morning and it is ominous.

CAMEROTA: This actually has happened for many years in the past as well. An
FBI sent out to local law-enforcement said that an al Qaeda detainee had
given them some information that the next wave of terrorism could be in the
form of setting wild fires. Adam Housley said lots of people on his block
were asking him about it. Obviously this is something the FBI has looked
into. They will continue to investigate it.

CARLSON: If they have this person in custody it probably won¹t take long to
be able to develop a link if there is one.

KILMEADE: A June 25 memo from the FBI¹s Denver offices reported three days
ago, excuse me, five days ago, by the Arizona Republic, that is a newspaper,
they have been carrying the story and they continue to expand upon it.

DOOCY: Brian, the plot they say, according to this detainee, and they don¹t
know if the detainee is telling the truth. The plot was to set three or four
wildfires. But they don¹t mention California. They mention Colorado,
Montana, Utah, and Wyoming. We do know for a fact that a number of the fires
in southern California are of a suspicious nature and they are investigating
arson.
#