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Ill-informed Fox anchors spread
fears of al Qaeda link to California
fires
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."
The following video is from Fox's Fox &
Friends, broadcast on October 23, 2007.
Partial Transcript (via
ThinkProgress):
#
DOOCY: You’re looking live at pictures from San
Diego — Santiago, CA, where the wildfires
continue. We were talking earlier in today’s
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 won’t take long to be able to develop a
link if there is one.
KILMEADE: A June 25 memo from the FBI’s 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 don’t know if the detainee
is telling the truth. The plot was to set three or
four wildfires. But they don’t 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.
#
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