The fact that the network is getting rich doesn’t bother me. More troubling is their misleading of the American public, paired with the “Fair and Balanced” advertising label which many people innocently believe. Much has been written on this issue from both the left and the right. A much simpler and less talked-about example of Fox News folly can be found 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and I won’t need to name individual names.

If you were to turn on the TV right now and surf over to FOX News, you would find a ticker streaming across the bottom, much like you would on other news networks, sports networks, and websites. But there is something unique about the Fox News ticker. At regular intervals, 24 hours a day, the ticker informs the viewer of what the terror threat alert level is. It said << Terror Alert Level: Elevated >> last time I checked, in bright yellow letters. This practice is a travesty in the field of journalism.

Am I being too harsh on the network? After all, our own Department of Homeland Security says that the color-coded threat alert level was designed partly as a heads-up for the public, in addition to the main purpose of being a guide for government agencies to put certain procedures in place. DHS is wrong for creating the system as well. But even Secretary Tom Ridge doesn’t conduct press conferences 24 hours a day reminding people of the terror alert level; he depends on Fox to do the work for him.

What is wrong with using a color-coded threat alert level? First of all, the data is highly subjective. Data so important as to necessitate 24-hour monitoring on a news ticker should be indisputable. Moreover, there is no reason why it should be orange vs. red vs. yellow or whatever other colors are on the Bright and Happy Alert Rainbow. I’ve read the accounts of how terrorist “chatter” from abroad and other such evidence goes into the government’s decision to raise or lower this alert level, but I’m going to come out and say it: it’s a waste of everybody’s time. Our intelligence agencies are nowhere near ready to paint an accurate picture of what our so-called threat level is. By former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet’s own estimates, we are 10 years away from even having reliable human intelligence in other countries.

In the days leading up to 9/11, there was no high alert. If there was ever a use for one over the course of American history, we needed Fox News to display it on 9/10/01. We now know that too many people were asleep at the wheel for this to have happened. Since 9/11/01 there has been no terrorist attack in America, but in many places the terror alert level is still “high,” such as in New York City, where I live. What is the public supposed to do with that information? I’ve yet to hear a plausible answer to that question, anywhere. Are we supposed to be more “vigilant?” If you live in a big American city today and you aren’t vigilant, chances are you’ve already been pick-pocketed, robbed, stabbed, raped, or shot by a thug with no terrorist aims. In fact, the odds of one of these things happening to you are far greater than you being the victim of terrorism. It’s a statistical fact. What if you live in a small, peaceful town with no criminals? I’ve got news for you, too. The terrorists aren’t going to bother with you because killing you is a waste of their time. Modern terrorists aim for the maximum shock value for their efforts; if anything is going to happen, it will probably be in a major city. So, people of Kansas, stop buying those gas masks.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they’re planning to come after Ohio, where I used to live, or perhaps Utah. My home was a short drive away from the town of Perry, Ohio, where a major nuclear power plant is housed. There, that’s a terrorist target! Small town America, watch out! Put it on the ticker, the level’s been elevated! Let’s assume our nuclear power plants are indeed terrorist targets. A logical plan of action would be to hire more cops in Perry, or fortify the plant with guards, cameras, fences, and sensors. I am all for spending that money. But it’s ludicrous to ask the residents of Perry to go hang out at the plant with binoculars and vigilantly look for any Middle-Eastern men running around. Or white men, like John Walker Lindh. Or Hispanic men like Jose Padilla.

Anyway, I’ll leave Secretary Ridge to sort his plethora of issues out. Back to Fox. The largest problem of all is that Fox News portrays the terror alert level as news. It’s not news. It’s a piece of information given out by our government. Fox takes this information and displays it as indisputable fact. There is a problem with that. If it were so important, the network should investigate the source of the data, and report the terror alert level as a product of its own journalistic investigative work, along with the nature of the information that it led to its conclusion. Instead we see it on the ticker, unattributed, as if it’s a free-standing fact. If John Kerry says, “Bush made a mistake by going into Iraq,” we won’t see "Bush made a mistake by going into Iraq" on their ticker, or any other reputable ticker. That’s because it’s an assertion, not a fact. It’s based on subjective evidence.

I have a theory on why Fox News plays the alert level on the ticker. Two reasons: politics, and business, both at the expense of honest reporting. It’s good for Fox’s political goals because it continues to scare people throughout their viewing sessions. Scared people want to buy more guns to protect themselves. They are more willing to support a pre-emptive war on foreign countries. People scared of terrorism are also more likely to vote for some candidates than others in this year’s election cycle. In particular, polls have shown Bush with a double-digit lead over Kerry on the issue of terrorism. He is George W. Bush, and he approves of this message! Free advertising is helpful in a close election. On the business side, Fox gets more viewers and advertising money because it appears they are closely monitoring the terror issue by regurgitating what the DHS tells them. It’s what people want to see because they think they are keeping up with the latest developments that way. Good ploy.

For the sake of full disclosure, I work for local government in New York City. My office is directly involved in emergency response and law enforcement. My colleagues and I handle homeland security issues, and since I’ve been here we’ve dealt with 9/11, the 2003 Blackout, and a few other serious situations. Even if it is imperfect, it might be useful for us to know what the alert level is. But every man, woman, and child sitting in their living room across the country does NOT need to be shown this information 365 days a year, especially as if it were a fact. Our fear is only a victory for the terrorists.