This morning, some douche called in a bomb threat to the UT-Austin campus, necessitating a brief but certainly nerve-wracking and exasperating evacuation of buildings. The all-clear has since been sounded.
In reporting this breaking story, Fox News also revealed that Arkansas has been renamed Missouri, and that Alabama and Mississippi switched places overnight.
But at least Texas is BIG AND WHITE!
If we can’t trust you with 4th grade geography, Mr. Ailes and staff, are you surprised we don’t trust you with anything else?
52 comments
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redpanda
September 14, 2012 at 4:36 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I wonder how often this happens on other networks (and on Fox, for that matter). Anyone really bored?
ibbica
September 15, 2012 at 12:46 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Well, in all fairness: it happened at least once on a local French news station, when they were reporting on the Belgians “not having a government for longer than Iraq” (yes, really!) a while ago. They reversed Flanders and Wallonia. That would be like reporting on one of the Quebec referendums and reversing Ontario and Quebec XD The mistake made the news on other stations, so that might be taken as a proxy measure of how unusual it was…
gwen
September 14, 2012 at 4:41 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
How difficult is it to get a map which is correct? Probably LESS difficult than finding one this wrong!!
NIO
September 17, 2012 at 1:29 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Yeah, it seems to me that they would have to make an effort to get this wrong. Which they often do, like labeling republicans as democrats when they disagree with them.
feralboy12
September 14, 2012 at 4:47 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
To be honest, I’ve always had a hard time keeping straight which one is Mississippi and which one is Alabama.
Of course, on those rare occasions when I really need to know, I look it up in the atlas.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain
September 14, 2012 at 6:35 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Atlas? *shrug*
dukeofomnium
September 14, 2012 at 6:40 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
People have been killed for less.
Martin Wagner
September 14, 2012 at 8:30 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Well played, sir.
silomowbray
September 14, 2012 at 10:58 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.
Scrutationary Archivist
September 14, 2012 at 7:35 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Just remember that Mississippi is on the Mississippi River. Alabama is the other one.
And if you can’t remember where that river is, remember that it runs through New Orleans, Louisiana. That’s the “boot” state.
ashleybell
September 15, 2012 at 4:45 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Yeah but those states they mixed up are THEIR states
grumpyoldfart
September 14, 2012 at 4:52 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Once the right wing Christians get into power you won’t have to worry your pretty little heads about all that atlassy stuff. You’ll be living in Jesus Land and that’s all you’ll need to know.
nicholasferriola
September 14, 2012 at 5:25 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I was always great at Geography. When did we get a state called Bing?
Kaj
September 15, 2012 at 1:53 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
It was renamed in honor of the Mathew Perry character.
RickRay
September 14, 2012 at 5:45 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I’m a Canadian and always enjoyed the geography classes about the U.S. But Faux’s map is really screwed. Faux in French means false, in case anyone didn’t know! Talk about irony! I agree with Grumpy Old Fart (cool name) the south if it keeps fighting “evilution” according to them, will uneducate themselves out of existence.
Jasper of Maine (I feel safe and welcome at FTB)
September 14, 2012 at 6:00 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I think the TV is tapping into a parallel universe where the States are different. That’d explain why they’re always talking about things that don’t correlate to reality too.
dsmccoy
September 14, 2012 at 6:02 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Can’t help but notice the Bing logo up near the state formerly known as Arkansas. If I were Microsoft, I would be pissed. But then, I like to laugh at Microsoft almost as much as I like to laugh at Fox.
Martin Wagner
September 14, 2012 at 8:31 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I see the Bing logo as just the cherry on the Fail Sundae.
F
September 15, 2012 at 9:43 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Bwa ha! Hahahahaha!
jedimasteryoda
September 14, 2012 at 6:16 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
In a high pitched voice: “Bing!”
TerranRich
September 14, 2012 at 9:06 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Ned?? Ned Ryerson??
jedimasteryoda
September 15, 2012 at 1:08 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I think I’d rather see Ned the Head’s whistling belly-button trick than another M$ Bing commercial…
SallyStrange: Elite Femi-Fascist Genius
September 14, 2012 at 6:38 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
It’s a plot to make us all dumber.
Anonymous Atheist
September 14, 2012 at 6:46 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
ROFL.
Anonymous Atheist
September 14, 2012 at 8:11 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Regarding the original news topic, rather than the wacky geographic hijinks:
Strange… There were also bomb threats at two other colleges, in Ohio and North Dakota, today. http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Ohio-college-safe-reopened-after-bomb-threat-3866515.php
This article says the FBI thinks the three threats are unrelated local matters, but it’s quite a coincidence of timing since it also says “Such threats against universities are rare, said Christopher G. Blake, associate director of the International Assn. of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators. The last well-known case occurred in the spring, involving more than 40 bomb threats made by a man against the University of Pittsburgh.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-bomb-threats-campuses-20120914,0,120732.story
Hatchetfish
September 15, 2012 at 8:39 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Bomb threats, and actual bombs, are actually surprisingly common. It’s been a long time* but I once saw a figure reported that there was an average of about one actual bomb/destructive device incident per day nationwide, and so many threats that they just weren’t tracked. Three threats to universities may be a bit further out the bell curve than we’re used to, but I kind of doubt it actually rises to the level of any meaningful sort of statistical significance.
* late 90′s I believe, and therefore before 9-11 and the following absurd hypervigilence and no acceptable incident mentality that’s ruled since. Those changes may have had some deterrent effect such that these figures are different now. Although I actually doubt it.
Hatchetfish
September 15, 2012 at 8:47 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Also, this has me thinking a little bit in terms of the bathtub curve that (sometimes/usually) applies to reliability of components in engineering. If we apply it to college students and mental health, every year’s incoming freshman are at the left end of the curve, so if there’s going to be a period of odd and unpredictable behavior, September is a good candidate.
Hatchetfish
September 15, 2012 at 8:50 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Rats. Link should read bathtub curve
leedawson
September 14, 2012 at 9:26 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Any outside confirmation that this isn’t altered? The JPEG artifacts around the state names look very suspicious. Of course, it could have been Fox that messed it up when they flushed the color out of Texas. They could have moved all the state names off the map and put them back wrong (why go to that much trouble I have no idea). It’s just such a stupid thing to screw up, I’d like more than just one picture of a tv screen.
Martin Wagner
September 14, 2012 at 9:48 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
This is not exactly Fox’s first, let alone their worst, map error.
dsmccoy
September 14, 2012 at 10:08 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
This seems to be a genre:
http://www.newscaststudio.com/blog/2012/01/05/fox-map-eliminates-countries/
dsmccoy
September 14, 2012 at 11:02 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
A genre:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/12/13/foxs-graphics-department-fails-mislabeling-stat/185288
azgeo
September 15, 2012 at 5:51 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Wow. I could have spotted all those state errors for them when I was 7. Although that might have something to do with the United States puzzle I loved playing with…….
hypatiasdaughter
September 14, 2012 at 10:15 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
No, their worst is when a Republican Congressman is caught a sinnin’ and he gets labeled as a Democrat. It eventually gets corrected, but by then, it’s firmly planted in their viewer’s minds, never to be erased, that those Dems have done evil again
(Not that Democrats are sin free, but, gees, they don’t need to bear the burden of BOTH Dem and Repub foibles.)
Anonymous Atheist
September 15, 2012 at 1:13 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
If you zoom out far enough on Bing Maps Aerial view, Bing actually removes all the state labels for you, and you get something that looks exactly like what Fox News did their sloppy labeling on, if cropped down. http://i.imgur.com/SCo5C.jpg If they had any sense they could’ve zoomed in one level closer so that the state names reappeared, but of course they didn’t.
leedawson
September 15, 2012 at 7:25 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Thank you everyone. I see what happened now: Bing doesn’t use State abbreviations at any zoom level, or at least I couldn’t make it do so after playing with it for 10 minutes. So Fox just guessed which State was which. I really shouldn’t be surprised by their stupidity any more.
Anonymous Atheist
September 15, 2012 at 11:12 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Yeah, on the closer zoom levels, Bing uses the full-length state names rather than the two-letter abbreviations.
otrame
September 14, 2012 at 11:03 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
My favorite is when “Faux and ‘Friends’” was discussing possible “Lincoln/Douglas” style debates between Clinton and Obama during the primaries. The pictures they flashed up on the screen were Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Seriously.
azgeo
September 15, 2012 at 5:49 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
LOL, that made my day!
hypatiasdaughter
September 15, 2012 at 6:07 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Well, home and xtian schooled kids need to get jobs somewhere. Why shouldn’t Faux News hire them?
F
September 15, 2012 at 9:48 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I think I just wet myself.
jacobfromlost
September 15, 2012 at 11:19 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Ironically, I just heard a conversation between two high school students (walking between classes) about how to remember which was Mississippi and which was Alabama.
It took them 10 seconds to get it correct between them. Maybe Fox should hire some high school students? Naw. They would be too informed.
LykeX
September 15, 2012 at 12:14 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
1) It’s one thing to get the particulars of a foreign country wrong, but your own? You’d think they’d get their patriotic credentials revoked.
2) Don’t they have standard maps for this stuff? Do they really make each new graphic from scratch? Why don’t they have these maps pre-made with all the fact-checked names on there?
3) I wonder how many Fox News regulars either didn’t notice or thought it was completely insignificant. It’s not like these people care about reality anyway.
m6wg4bxw
September 15, 2012 at 3:07 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
While it’s well within my abilities to overlook something obvious, I can’t seem to locate a source reference in the post.
LykeX
September 16, 2012 at 3:40 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Don’t know where Martin got it, but I dug up this.
Martin Wagner
September 17, 2012 at 3:37 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Wow! That page is a veritable link smorgasbord of hilarity.
celticlight
September 17, 2012 at 9:57 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
This is funny. Another recent funny one was when the picture of the Russian naval ships was used as a backdrop during the Democratic Convention during the support the military section.
eric (not from Mesa)
September 18, 2012 at 11:16 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
While Fox News may be a target rich environment, errors like this are not unique to Fox, and are not very surprising for networks that try to fill 24 hours with timely content, much of it live. There will be mistakes that seem inexcusable in retrospect, but is it reasonable to expect 100% accuracy? These gaffs can fun to point at and laugh, but I don’t see how you get from “Network aired an inaccurate map” to “Network lacks credibility”, which I take to be the implication of “people with brains laugh at”. It may be true that Fox lacks credibility and that people with brains laugh at Fox, but it’s not because they goof up map labels from time to time.
In case anyone thinks this is isolated to Fox, http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=cnn+map+mistake
Some of the highlights include misplacing London, misplacing Switzerland, and displaying the Punjab instead of South Carolina. I’m sure other networks have similar goofs, but I haven’t bothered searching for them. In addition to the news networks, I would expect some funny goofs from ESPN and the Weather Channel, as networks with a similar model of filling 24 hours with timely content, much of it live.
tommykey
September 22, 2012 at 12:05 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
In reporting this breaking story, Fox News also revealed that Arkansas has been renamed Missouri, and that Alabama and Mississippi switched places overnight.
There go you elitist libruls’ nitpicking about meaningless facts. We know they’re all Southern states, so who cares if they’re not all shown in the right place? You’re missing the big picture. These campus terrorist threats are clearly happening because they’re emboldened by the Muslim Kenyan Nazi usurper in the White House.
RickRay
September 22, 2012 at 2:36 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
More incorrect information! But, what can we say, but….HAAAAAAAAAA. Do you work for Faux, by the way?
tommykey
September 22, 2012 at 3:35 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
No. I don’t. Just trying to channel the mindset of people who do watch it.
Martin Wagner
September 23, 2012 at 9:38 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
I detect facetiousness.