Conservative Pulse

The death of actor Heath Ledger is certainly a sad story, and it’s easy to understand why the public might be interested in finding out what happened. But Fox News Channel takes it to an entirely new level, giving the story massive amounts of coverage that reach far beyond it’s relative importance. Worse yet, reporting is replaced with random speculation and gossip mongering that doesn’t even resemble news.

The anchors and reporters of Fox News have as much journalistic integrity as a pack of 14 year old girls.

On the day of Ledger’s death, CNN reported the basic facts of the story and then moved on to other things until more details became available. Fox News went with the story full time. Reporters excitedly repeated every salacious internet rumor they could get their hands on. That Ledger had been depressed, that the death occurred in Mary Kate Olsen’s apartment, and that he had been addicted to drugs. Some of it was true, some totally false. But the truth was obviously not their main concern, it was reporting as much exciting quasi-information as they could.

Fox News is attacked by liberals as a conservative mouthpiece, and some of the personalities do skew toward the right. But there’s nothing conservative about gossip-mongers exploiting the unfortunate death of a talented actor. Or reporting more in-depth information about the adventures of Britney Spears than a Middle East peace mission. That’s just lousy journalism and it’s time for conservatives to stop defending this sensationalistic trash once and for all.