Veritas Team Huddle Compiled By Brenna Flynn On March 17th, a segment on a Fox News show, “Red Eye,” aired with host Greg Gutfield mocking the Canadian military. After Canadian Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie commented that Canada’s troops would need a year to recover from their Afghan deployment in 2011, Gutfield claimed that our military would be taking a break to “do some yoga, paint landscapes or run on the beach in gorgeous white Capri pants.” The show’s panel members said they were unaware we were even in Afghanistan. What many may not have been aware of is the fact that the show aired at 3 a.m., however the segment only received a ton of negative publicity once it went live on YouTube a few days later. According to the Vancouver Sun, the YouTube clip had more than 170,000 hits and more than 12,000 comments at last count. Obviously, making asinine and offensive comments about your country’s allies is a Fumble (especially when Canada was mourning the loss of four more fallen soldiers). Shocking viewers to build your own personal brand, while offending an entire country, is simply unacceptable. The real question is how did Fox handle this uproar of negative publicity? Fox is known for its typically conservative views. However, in today’s online world, there are now a number of channels through which any broadcast information gets disseminated. Although this segment may not have offended Fox’s key target audience, the Internet has no boundaries. This clip has offended so many Canadians (and Americans) that there have been numerous anti-Fox Facebook groups, negative Twitter conversations and online petitions set up; consumers online are even threatening to avoid purchasing anything advertised on the network. Key communications lesson: be aware of the Internet and think about your audience on a broader level. Nothing stays contained to a single outlet anymore. Fox ultimately issued a formal apology, but the view among the Veritas team was that it was too little, too late for the network’s overall reputation. For this, Fox drops the ball in a disgraceful Fumble.
1 comments:
I too caught this clip, but only once it came out on YouTube. I couldn't believe it. I was literally watching with jaw dropped. They made themselves look so stupid and ignorant towards their neighbours. There was not a single intelligent thing said by a single person on that panel!
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