Unfair Bias from FOX News

This week I sat down to read some articles about the progress of the Occupy DC movement happening in my own city. I was shocked and appalled to come across this article by FOX News. (Just in case that link didn’t work for you, you can use this one was well to take you to the story: http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/11/08/debt-this-is-your-brain-on-debt/).

While barely reporting on the true nature and crux of the movement, the article made sure to discredit the protest. Providing false or expired links, exaggerating the truth, generalizing, and using loaded language the article is incredibly unreliable and can be easily struck down.

For example, at one point in the article the author focuses upon a protestor that was encountered in the crowd, not naming the individual or providing any proof of actually speaking with them. The author states that the protestor said, “"I'm an honor student! I work 20 hours a week! I'm $35,000 in debt!” and then proceeds to ask the audience, “What does this tell you about the… movements?” This obviously discredits a mass amount of the people that are currently part of the Occupy DC protest. Having been down to the protest grounds myself, and judging by hundreds of images provided by photographers from all over the city from all different political backgrounds. The author made the protestors sound as if they were all young people who worked less than full time jobs. This is in fact not true. People participating in the Occupy DC protests come from all financial, educational, racial, and social backgrounds. Here are some pictures to provide you just a few examples:

The reporter on the scene also claims that the person she was talking to had, “run away,” otherwise she would have spoken more in-depth with him about the Occupy DC protests. She does not cite any sources, does not make a disclaimer before presenting the story, and does not have any other interviews to back up her claims.

This article represents just one of many that paints the Occupy DC movement as one that is run by people that are claimed to be lazy or irresponsible. After spending considerable time searching the Internet I found no statistics or hard information on the age, race, gender, or socioeconomic make up of the Occupy protestors. Before the FOX News network chooses to make indirect claims about the people of the protest they should perhaps first conduct more research.