We WishThem Well Too!

This AP story from David Bauder in the SF Gate trashes Fox News for snarky well wishing, and we're not talking about the kind where you throw a coin at a hole in the ground.

"If someone at Fox News Channel wishes you well, watch your back. The seemingly benign sentiment is a creative signature of Fox's public relations, usually accompanied by a kneecapping. It's something like a kiss from a Mafia don."

Mr. Bauer compares a sarcastic retort from the Fox News PR people to a threat of death from an organized crime capo. Over reacting a bit Princess? It seems to me that Fox just has the stones to tell it like it is. A primo example:

"MSNBC host Keith Olbermann was the latest to visit the wishing well. When The New York Times recently asked Fox its opinion of Olbermann, who has repeatedly used Bill O'Reilly as a pinata on his nightly news countdown, spokeswoman Irena Briganti replied:

"Because of his personal demons, Keith has imploded everywhere he's worked. From lashing out at co-workers to personally attacking Bill O'Reilly and all things Fox, it's obvious Keith is a train wreck waiting to happen. And like all train wrecks, people might tune in out of morbid curiosity, but they eventually tune out, as evidenced by Keith's recent ratings decline. In the meantime, we hope he enjoys his paranoid view from the bottom of the ratings ladder and wish him well on his inevitable trip to oblivion."

Ewwww, they're so meeeeean! How dare these people speak their minds! It's so, so... honest. Come one, it's not like Irena came out and stated that Keith Olbermann tried to get out of potentially dangerous military duty by enlisting in a National Guard unit. That was just news professionals doing their jobs in covering the BushCheneyHitlerJudas (gotta take a breath here) AttilaHalliburtonSatanKaiserWilhelm administration.

Other examples of over-the-top Foxiness abound:

Ted Turner: The CNN founder called Fox a "propaganda voice" of the Bush administration and compared its popularity to Adolf Hitler's rise in Germany before World War II. Briganti: "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind. We wish him well."

Heh. I mean, that's funny.

George Clooney. Fox News branched out to Hollywood after the actor criticized O'Reilly. "We are disappointed that George has chosen to hurt Mr. O'Reilly's family in order to promote his movie," Schur said. "But it's obvious he needs publicity considering his recent string of failures. We wish him well in his struggle to regain relevancy."

I don't care who you are, that there's funny!

Jonathan Klein. On the day the CNN U.S. president was hired, Briganti offered: "We wish CNN well in their annual executive shuffle." She later stuck the knife in further with: "We wish Jon well in his battle for second place with MSNBC."

Now that's a HOOT!

Plainly, public relations is a contact sport at Fox News Channel — with, as Fox PR chief Brian Lewis explains, a sense of mischief sprinkled in.

How dare Fox News ridicule the eleventy hundred levels of fact checking, naunced, impeccibly credentialed, caring news professionals of the MSM? It seems to me that they are just as confounded by a snarky body check as they are by a fact check. Brian Lewis defines the Foxy strategery:

"Not every attack on us deserves a response," he said. "It could be no response. That's a strategy. It could be mild, medium or spicy, depending on what our needs are."

Make mine extra spicy with Jalapeno adverbs and Cayenne rhetoric please.

And all you news readers/commentators, I wish you well also.