Monday, January 31, 2011

Fox News and Geography

You've got to love Fox News. Sometimes, I wonder if they are trying to look incompetent and clueless on purpose. Egypt might be all over the news (meaning the actual news) these days. Fox News, however, still hasn't been able to figure out where Egypt is actually located.

Their mistake is even more egregious given the country they erased to stick Egypt in its place. I hope I don't need to tell anybody (except, of course, the quasi journalists at Fox) which country is supposed to be located next to Iran.


Thank you, Canukistani, for always supplying me with such great materials!

P.S. I can't help wondering what hapless college graduated the idiots who are behind making this map.

10 comments:

Patrick said...

Wow. I'm stunned and speechless.

I'm not a geography expert (I've been playing the Traveler IQ game on your blog to prove it) but there are two things that really, really bother me about this.

1) Egypt is not an insignificant country in the history of the World. Not being able to identify some of the smaller, obscure African Countries or Island states in the Pacific Ocean is understandable. But Egypt? My 7 year old daughter can identify Egypt, China, Columbia, Canada, USA, England, India and Russia on a globe fairly easily.

2) What ever happened to editors & fact checkers? This happened at Fox, but it could have just as easily happened at MSNBC or CNN. And people use these news sources for reference. How do you convince a 12 yr old student that Egypt is actually on the other side of the Suez Canal? They're suppose to be able to trust the news, at least for the 'indisputable' facts.

Clarissa said...

Territorially, Egypt is a big country. How it is possible to make such a mistake, is beyond me.

Of course, after this I can't ask my students to keep their geography straight.

eric said...

Ok, well, it's Fox. But also, 'willful' ignorance is not implausible, since it seems to signify authenticity for Palinistas.

Clarissa said...

You mean, it's a populist trick? Like they are trying to seem stupid to look like they are just regular folks?

Anonymous said...

I wonder if they did it on purpose. "Egypt is in the Middle East, therefore they are all Muslim suicide bombers who want to destroy America!"

Anonymous said...

That's really freaking embarrassing. Another reason why I don't watch Fox News.

Clarissa said...

"I wonder if they did it on purpose. "Egypt is in the Middle East, therefore they are all Muslim suicide bombers who want to destroy America!""

-Either consciously or subconsciously, I think this way of thinking was definitely present.

Liese4 said...

All they'd have to do is listen to the Christmas song, 'Joseph took his wife and child and they went to Africa...' Yes, Egypt is in Africa, who put that map together? My 5 y/0 knows where Egypt is (plus Daddy is pretty near there.)

Anonymous said...

I don't what college graduated them, but I bet they went to public school first! LOL

Clarissa said...

I wish people would take their illiterate anti-education phobias some place else.

What idiots at Fox need is more education not less, you weird Anonymous person.