Fox News, in their desperate attempt to show any sign of good news coming from Iraq, fell for a hoax of fried chicken proportions. Apparently there is a sign above a storefront in the war-torn city of Fallujah that has a picture of the Colonel next to the letters "KFC." So the *cough* journalists *cough* at Fox News decided to put it on the air, even getting a comment from General Tommy Franks. Yet, something about it just didn't add up and Talking Points Memo did the math.
From TPM:
Last Thursday, Fox News ran a brief segment on a KFC restaurant opening in Fallujah before segueing into an interview with former CENTCOM Commander Tommy Franks, who was asked to comment on the presence of an American fast food restaurant in the notoriously violent Iraqi city. "Do they have a drive-thru window?" Steve Doocy asks. "They get in and get out. And, so far, they do it safely," answers Brian Kilmeade.Now, call us cynical, but something about that segment seemed off -- oddly upbeat even. On Friday I put in a call to KFC headquarters to ask if the Fallujah chicken joint is the real deal. KFC told me they were looking into the matter. Today, Yum! Restaurants International spokesman Christophe Lecureuil wrote me back:
I understand you wanted some details about the store in Falluja that looks like a KFC. This store is not approved by KFC International and we have working with the US Military to warn the troops of this situation.Details are still hard to come by. Lecureuil said that the company doesn't have more information at this stage because "we've just started investigating the matter." Asked how KFC was working with the military, Lecureuil wrote only that: "Concerning the military, we have a long-standing and excellent relationship with them as we have quite a few KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut stores in military bases outside the US."
You'd think that those highly paid, qualified and journalism-degree-holding people at Fox News would check on the facts of the story by calling KFC's parent company before airing this (like TPM did). I guess "fair and balanced" doesn't exactly cover "getting the story straight" at Fox News, of course that isn't anything new over there when you have a running theme of glossing over the news coming out of Iraq for the last five or six years.
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