Fox's Brit Hume: my first thought when I heard about the London attack "Hmmm, time to buy"

http://www.counterbias.com/339.html

There are times when all the news is bad.

And there are times when even the news about bad news is worse.

I was not fully awake when I first heard about the bombings in London's underground stations and on one of its red, double-decker buses.

The night before I had been talking with a friend about how much I have always wanted to visit London. She had been telling me how easy it was for her to get around there once you master the underground, or the "tubes" as Londoners call their subway system.

Caught between dreaming and waking up, I thought I was actually in London when I heard the crisp enunciation of the BBC reporter on the radio.

I keep it tuned to Salisbury's WSCL-fm. When the music stops at 5 a.m., our time, and I hear that it's "9 o'clock GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)," that's my morning alarm.

Over the next few days I scoured the media, trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. I read newspapers and tuned in to CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN and Fox TV news.

Most offered confused, sometimes contradictory information, suffused with shock, dismay and sorrow.

Four of Fox News' top reporters managed to present obnoxious, incredibly insensitive stories about the slaughter in London.

These pieces were so odious, so abhorrent, I spent days tracking them down on the Internet. That's important because sometimes with television reports, it's an excerpt or a repeat and you really aren't sure in what context the words were uttered.

Nothing I found could possibly ameliorate, mitigate or clean up in any way the offal that poured out of the mouths of Fox News' Brit Hume, John Gibson, Simon Marks and Brian Kilmeade. All but one spoke immediately after the attacks.

Hume said his "first thought" when he "heard there had been this attack" and realized that the futures market was low was that it "was time to buy."

Gibson, reporting the day after, said that the International Olympic Committee "missed a golden opportunity" when it chose London for the 2012 Olympic games because if they had chosen France that the terrorists would "blow up Paris, and who cares?"

Marks said that one of the underground stations, Edgeware Road, is "an area that has a very large Arab population ... so it's a further indication, if in fact these attacks were carried out by Al Qaeda-affiliated cells, that these people are, if necessary, prepared to spill Arab blood in addition to the blood of regular -- of non-Arab people living in London."

Kilmeade, noted that London, was quite near Gleneagles in Scotland where the leaders of the world's wealthiest nations were holding the G8 summit, and said, "I think that works to our advantage, the Western world, for people to experience something like this together, just 500 miles from where the attacks have happened."

He said the priority topic at G8,"believe it or not - was global warming, the second was African aid. And that was the first time since 9/11 when they should know, and they do know now, that terrorism should be No. 1."

News should have a standard of decency. You'll not find it at Fox.

Aspiring TV journalists with a conscience need not apply.

http://www.delmarvanow.com/deweybeach/stories/20050713/2179483.html

During Fox News' coverage of the July 7 London bombings, Washington managing editor Brit Hume told host Shepard Smith that his "first thought," when he "heard there had been this attack" and saw the low futures market, was "Hmmm, time to buy." Smith had asked Hume to comment on the lack of a negative U.S. stock market reaction to the London attacks.

From Fox News' July 7 breaking news coverage between 1 and 2 p.m. ET:

SMITH: Some of the things you might expect to happen, for instance, a drop in the stock market and some degree of uncertainty across this country -- none of that really seen today, and I wonder if the timing of it -- that it happened in the middle of the night and we were able to get a sense of the grander scheme of things -- wasn't helpful in all this.

HUME: Well, maybe. The other thing is, of course, people have -- you know, the market was down. It was down yesterday, and you know, you may have had some bargain-hunting going on. I mean, my first thought when I heard -- just on a personal basis, when I heard there had been this attack and I saw the futures this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought, "Hmmm, time to buy." Others may have thought that as well. But you never know about the markets. But obviously, if the markets had behaved badly, that would obviously add to people's sense of alarm about it. But there has been a lot of reassurance coming, particularly in the way that -- partly in the way the Brits handled all this, but also in the way that officials here handled it. There seems to be no great fear that something like that is going to happen here, although there's no indication that we here had any advance warning.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200507070007

People around the world were shocked and outraged by the terrorist bombings in London last week. But for the talking heads over at the Fox News Channel, this terrible human tragedy was an opportunity for some truly idiotic spin. Brit Hume (2) saw the bombings as a chance to make a little extra cash. Brian Kilmeade (3) thought they would somehow "work to our advantage." And to John Gibson (4) they were a chance to bash France.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/05/205.html

Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel was under fire yesterday for comments by some of its leading journalists in response to the London bombs.

Speaking about the reaction of the financial markets, Brit Hume, the channel's Washington managing editor, said: "Just on a personal basis ... I saw the futures this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought 'hmm, time to buy'."

The host of a Fox News programme, Brian Kilmeade, said the attacks had the effect of putting terrorism back on the top of the G8's agenda, in place of global warming and African aid. "I think that works to our advantage, in the western world's advantage, for people to experience something like this together, just 500 miles from where the attacks have happened."

Another Fox News host, John Gibson, said before the blasts that the International Olympic Committee "missed a golden opportunity" by not awarding the 2012 games to France. "If they had picked France instead of London to hold the Olympics, it would have been the one time we could look forward to where we didn't worry about terrorism. They'd blow up Paris, and who cares?" He added: "This is why I thought the Brits should let the French have the Olympics - let somebody else be worried about guys with backpack bombs for a while."

Media Matters for America, a watchdog and frequent critic of Fox, criticised the comments on its website. "I think it's absolutely sickening three Fox anchors had such callous reactions to the bombings that took dozens of lives," said the Jamison Foser, of the group.

The Fox News media relations office had not responded by the time the Guardian went to press yesterday.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1524856,00.html