Gadzooks, They're Not Even Pretending To Do News Anymore

I still can't believe that Fox (can't dignify them with the "News" moniker) ran a story , based on original reporting by the crack journalists of the brilliantly loony Weekly World News, about the purchase of 10,000 jetpacks by the L.A.P.D. Oddly enough, this piece is funnier than the "satirical" show Fox ran (for added hilarity, check out the first comment on the linked site). The dark-haired guy (can't be arsed looking up his name) comes across as an especially lunk-headed mook:





Underneath the hilarity, this story rankles for a few reasons. First, it is merely the most egregious example of the piss-poor fact-checking that is the "new normal" in the news media (so-called). It's also a transparently false (uh, dark-haired d-bag, if Montana has a surplus, it's because of states like California) anti-government spending piece... if this little fable had been set in Bush-era Colorado Springs, it would have been glowingly covered as a "get tough on crime" narrative. Finally, the Martin Jetpack Company is based in New Zealand, a nation I had been led to believe possessed no aircraft more sophisticated than trebuchet-launched gliders. Now, I am skeered and afeared that an invasion force of New Zealanders, accompanied by unholy hypnostag/Haast's eagle hybrids, will pillage my neighborhood, carrying off all of the akvavit and blood pudding, and adding superfluous "U's" to the marquees of the local color-printing businesses.