Portraying all the day's news in such a way to make it all agreeable to people who hate "liberals" seems to be an exceedingly difficult task for the folks at Fox News.
This seems especially true with Arizona issues, which the network seems to butcher in one way or another every time the state's shown on a national scale. Check out our list below, of the five biggest Fox News fuck-ups on Arizona issues:
5.) Fox's graphics team fails in Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?
Here was New Times' "Moment of Zen" last week. The network, while talking about a provision of the 2004 voter-approved Proposition 200, a voter-ID provision, being struck down by the Supreme Court, showed a graphic of the great state of, um, Arizonasas.
The graphic of the state says "AZ," but that ain't what "AZ" looks like -- that would be Arkansas. So, it's not that bad, you say. But wait, there's more.
The state of Arkansas was presented as Arizona twice that day on Fox, on two different shows.
4.) S.B. 1070: The most confusing law ever made
Arizona's anti-immigrant S.B. 1070 law was another law that earned a Supreme Court challenge.
According to Fox News, the law will/will not be overturned because it's a good law/bad law, only the liberal/conservative justices like it, and it's probably good/bad for Mitt Romney.
Forget it, Obamacare sucks. That one, we know.
3.) Terrorists bombed the United States? Better call Joe Arpaio
While events were still unfolding hours after the bombing of the Boston Marathon earlier this year, Fox knew they just had to go straight to an expert -- elderly county Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Of course, Arpaio's completely unqualified to speak about anything about that situation, and was absolutely clueless. The only bullshit he could conjure up was that people were trying to kill him, too, when Neil Cavuto asked him about national security.
"They're trying to do a good job at the border," Arpaio said. "I have five threats to hit me with cartels. The latest one last week, so maybe being high-profile from Washington to Maricopa County with certain groups that don't like the sheriff, and I'll tell you I'm not leaving."
Arpaio followed up amid the report on the dead and wounded in Boston, "I'll be the sheriff for many years."
2.) Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is dead
NPR was the first to falsely report on January 8, 2011, that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords had died. Shortly after that, Fox News' Bret Baier magically found a source to confirm that report.
"Listen, uh, I have one source now who says, uh, that that Congresswoman, uh, Giffords has, in fact, died, and I'm working to get another one."
Believe it or not, that second source never came, and Giffords is alive to this day.
1.) Here's a suicide
In late September, a man named JoDon Romero started running from the cops after stealing a car. Local Fox affiliate Fox 10 tracked Romero in a helicopter for some time, as Romero headed west on I-10, and the national Fox News network picked up the chase.
Romero pulled off the Interstate on the western outskirts of Phoenix, started running from the vehicle, and shot himself right in the head.
We know because we saw it on Fox News, which showed it live.
Someone was apparently asleep at the wheel in the Fox control room, because the local Fox 10 didn't show it to its viewers, but if you were watching the Fox News channel, you got it all.
Some of Romero's kids heard about a car chase/suicide while they were at school, not knowing it was their father, and went home to check it out on YouTube.
The kids haven't been back to school since then, after being traumatized by the Fox News footage, according to a lawsuit filed against Fox News' parent company in Maricopa County court.
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Follow Matthew Hendley on Twitter at @MatthewHendley.
