Our Favorite Fox News Fails

In a hard-hitting segment about the recent addition of “selfie” to the dictionary Monday, Fox News misspelled the word “selfie.” Not the biggest deal, but also not the biggest surprise, given the network’s track record. It’s no secret that Fox News, in its unofficial capacity as the Republican Party’s public relations wing, is full of intentionally misleading propaganda pieces masquerading as reporting. But even on the rare occasions that the network does sincerely attempt to be "fair and balanced," it still manages to screw things up with some regularity.

Yes, that "selfie" mishap is far from the only time the network has misspelled the subject of a report. Hell, it’s probably the least egregious misspelling over the last couple of years. Let’s take a look at some of the other times Fox has botched its facts, even when attempting to be sincere.

INDIVIDUAL MANDATE STRUCK DOWN!

As the Supreme Court was preparing to rule on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate in 2012, just about everybody was on pins and needles. The White House’s counsel had delivered a less-than-stellar performance defending the law, and conservatives could hardly contain their giddiness at the prospect that Obamacare might be struck down once and for all.

Fox News, of course, was a bit too giddy. When the final ruling was still in the process of being issued, the network proclaimed, incorrectly, that the mandate had been struck down. Had Fox’s producers waited just a couple of minutes longer for the justices to finish issuing their ruling, they would have realized that this wasn’t the case, but no matter! Better to be first than accurate, right?

Now, Fox wasn’t the only network to make this mistake; CNN misreported the ruling, too. The difference is that CNN apologized for its error, while Fox stubbornly refused to do so, instead maintaining that it "reported the facts as they came in."

GREW UP ON TACOS

During a hard-hitting segment on how to make tacos, Fox and Friends host Brian Kilmeade turned to guest Maria Molina, a Nicaraguan meteorologist, for some advice on the matter. While being a meteorologist would seem to have little to do with making tacos, Fox nonetheless deemed Molina an expert on the topic. Kilmeade quickly — and awkwardly — made it clear what the network’s reasoning was.

“So, what are the tips we need to know to do it correctly? You grew up on tacos, correct?,” Kilmeade said.

“No, I did not grow up on tacos,” Molina replied.

“She’s Columbian,” said co-host Steve Doocey, attempting to diffuse the issue.

“I’m Nicaraguan,” Molina said, amazingly managing to keep a good attitude.

And the hosts and crew all shared a jolly laugh, because hey, if there’s anything funnier than racial profiling, it’s inaccurate racial profiling!

SPELLING BE

That "selfie" mishap wasn’t the first time the network has misspelled the subject of one of its reports. In fact, it’s actually one of the least egregious misspellings on the network in quite some time. For example, here’s Fox’s reporting from a spelling bee back in March.

Spelling be! Years earlier, the network made a similar mistake in a segment about education.

Try and say that word out loud without pausing midway. You can’t, can you?

“MEN AND WOMEN AREN’T EQUAL”

"To be happy, we must admit women and men aren’t ‘equal,’" Fox’s resident anti-feminist Suzanne Venker wrote in a 2013 piece opposing gay marriage. It’s normally a bad idea to judge a book by its cover, but that headline sort of tells you everything you need to know about the article’s contents, doesn’t it?

Except for one awesome thing: Whoever chose the image for Venker’s article inadvertently used a picture of two women getting married.

When this fact was pointed out, the image was hastily swapped out for a more generic one. In addition to being somewhat embarrassing for Fox, the fact that some editor at the network was unable to distinguish between a man and a woman in that image is, in its own way, a perfect encapsulation of everything that’s wrong with the anti-gay marriage argument.

OBAMA + ROMNEY = OBAMNEY?

Last but not least, there was the time during the 2012 campaign that Fox News got Mitt Romney confused with Barack Obama.

It was a particularly eye-popping mistake, especially considering the network’s general stance toward Obama. But it wasn’t without precedent:

Yes, that’s the name "Sarah Palin" plastered under a picture of Tina Fey, who was impersonating Palin on Saturday Night Live. Oh, Fox News. Please, never change. Unless, you know, you'd like to start reporting the news.

Images: Fox News