An alert reader tipped us to Fox News Channel misreporting presidential candidate Ralph Nader’s party allegiance during the daily airing of the popular “O’Reilly Factor”. At 8:12 p.m. the T.V. screen flashed from a trailer of the new Tom Hanks’ movie “The Ladykillers,” to this Uma Pemmaraju report:
“…The first poll out since John Kerry locked up the Democratic nomination shows him in a dead heat with President Bush. The Associated Press poll is showing Mr. Bush with 46 percent, Kerry with 45 [percent], and Green Party candidate Ralph Nader with 6 [percent], enough to affect the outcome, just as some Democrats are fearing.”
Check it out for yourself and you’ll see the Green Party does not yet have a candidate for the 2004 election. Currently David Cobb is leading the pack with 18 first choice delegates. Nader is third with 4.5, but if you read on, the notes specifically say “Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader have withdrawn their names from consideration as the Green Party nominee.”
Our best guess is that the Green Party identification slipped into the newscast as the copy writer rewrote this Associated Press article from yesterday that stated, “The Republican incumbent had 46 percent support, Democrat Kerry had 45 percent and Nader, the 2000 Green Party candidate who entered the race last month, was at 6 percent in the survey conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.”
Not a big deal…but is it too much to ask Fox News to get something as essential as a candidate’s political affiliation right?
–T.L.
