Bears Blitz

Jay Cutler: Fox Sports Not Fair and Balanced for Fabricating Newspaper Headlines

Published by Ryan Rudnansky on September 20, 2011
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears

Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler took a lot of criticism after sitting out the second half of the NFC Championship Game last season due to injury.

In fact, he took so much criticism that some of it wasn’t even real.

That’s right, Fox Sports has recently taken heat for fabricating at least three newspaper headlines after the NFC Championship Game last season.

The headlines: Cutler Leaves With Injury, Cutler Lacks Courage, Cutler’s No Leader.

Fox analyst Darryl Johnson said, “These are the actual headlines from the local papers in Chicago.”

The only problem is that The Chicago Tribune tends to keep track of all things Chicago and knew that Cutler had actually been defended locally after leaving the game. So the newspaper did a little research and soon discovered these headlines were not just absent in Chicago; they hadn’t been used anywhere in the country.

Yeah, try getting yourselves out of that one, Fox Sports.

Fox Sports spokesman Dan Bell, per Pro Football Talk, has since come out and said, “It was misleading,” and, “Our attempt was to capture the overall sentiment nationwide following that game.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you “capture the overall sentiment” by using real newspaper headlines and not fabricating them? Isn’t that supposed to be a news organization’s main goal, the truth?

If Fox Sports is just going to make up headlines, it’s not only lazy journalism, it makes you wonder what else they’ve done and if they can be trusted.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some solid reporters at Fox Sports, but once something like this comes out you wonder what kind of leadership exists there.

This is blatant disregard to discovering the truth and an example of what happens when you imagine it. Most people only heard the criticism coming from Chicago after Cutler’s absence in the NFC Championship Game. Perhaps Fox Sports is in part to blame for that.

The Chicago Tribune, on the other hand, actually looked for both sides of the story and found that there was actually a lot of support for Cutler locally.

Fox Sports only had to talk to one Chicago newspaper to know the truth. Then again, that wouldn’t have fit its agenda.