Joe Muto (Photo via Facebook).

Joe Muto, a former producer on the O'Reilly Factor who wrote anonymous posts for Gawker about Fox News until he was nabbed and fired from the network, pled guilty yesterday in Manhattan Criminal Court to two misdemeanor charges--attempted unlawful duplication of computer related material and attempted criminal possession of computer-related material.

As part of his plea deal, Mr. Muto was fined $1,000, agreed to give his $5,000 Gawker fee to Reel Works, a  free filmmaking project for New York teens, and sentenced to 10 days and an additional 200 hours of community service.

Naturally, FoxNews.com wrote a fair and balanced account of the court case, which specified that the O'Reilly Factor is a "top-rated" program and that Mr. Muto, who was led into the courtroom in handcuffs, "said he wished he’d never betrayed his former employer." (What he actually said was that he wouldn't have done it had he known he would end up in a courtroom--no mention of betrayal there).

“We are very grateful to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office for their dogged pursuit of this case and for obtaining justice in this matter,” a Fox News spokesperson told Fox News.

Regrettable or not, Mr. Muto, did got a book deal out of it-- An Atheist in the Foxhole will come out in early June.

Santa is here to deliver coal to the entire news station. (Fox News)

For all their talk about how "confusing" it is for children to see gay characters on television (lest they grow up thinking that was normal), Fox & Friends had no qualms about bringing a very busy Santa Claus all the way down from the North Pole to explain why the liberal media is waging a war against Christmas.

Which just makes you wonder ... who is this shtick for? (Besides Brian Kilmeade, of course.)

Santa transcript:

You know, I never had a problem being Santa Claus, but there was a time a few years back when suddenly I started showing up at Christmas parties and was told that they were having holiday parties. So therefore, they didn’t need a Santa anymore. And it was about that time, that was the time when I think the Surgeon General said Santa should lay off the cookies and start picking up more carrots and broccoli. I heard Santa in Australia said ‘ha, ha, ha,’ so as not to offend certain gals and Santas in England couldn’t have children on their laps anymore.

Wait what? There is more than one Santa? Each country has a Santa? Forgetting everything else, destroying the childhood fantasy that Kris Kringle is a supernatural being who can visit all the good Christian children in the world in one night is actually MORE blasphemous than having an office "holiday party." Because children don't go to holiday parties. They do, however, listen to Santa Claus when he detonates his own myth on-air with Gretchen Carlson.

And you know what, why does Santa care about going to some drunk, depressing office party? It's a week before Christmas, and you are under-employed as it is. ObamaCare is probably the only kind of insurance you can get. So what are you doing on Fox News? Get to work, Santa!

Via Deadline.com

The Simpsons, the venerable Fox network animated series, made light of Karl Rove's election night antics--attempting to un-call a decisively won election for President Obama--with an animated "chalkboard joke" at the beginning of last night's episode. It reads "I will not concede the election till Karl Rove gives me permission"--a lesson Megyn Kelly et al. seem to have literally taken to heart for a time last Tuesday.

The series has a long history of teasing Fox News and the News Corporation, particularly in the episode's opening "chalkboard" sequence wherein Bart writes a moral on the board repeatedly--it's easier to animate with a short turnaround than jokes in the episode. (Another easily animated sequence: the fake Fox News "crawl" that led Fox News to reportedly threaten suit against The Simpsons in 2003.) One more memorable, and expensive, exception: graffiti artist Banksy's sequence for the show in 2010, depicting News Corp's sweatshop labor in Asia as integral to the production of the complicated animated series.

Ms. Banderas sticks with Manhattan.

Tonight we bring you breaking news from 200 Central Park South, where a certain Fox News personality has purchased a two-bedroom, 2.5-bath co-op. Go to live shot: We're standing outside this 35-story tower famous for its wrap-around balconies and views of Central Park, which news correspondent and Fox & Friends First host Julie Banderas will enjoy from her apartment on a high-level floor.

Update: Although the sale only hit city records yesterday, a source tells us that Ms. Banderas purchased the unit some time ago. Additionally, the purchase price listed in the original story was incorrect. We regret the error.

Yes, according to city records, Ms. Banderas has purchased the unit for $2.38 million under her birth/married name, Julie Bidwell Sansome. Unlike some Fox & Friends personalities, Ms. Banderas has indicated with this most recent buy, that she is not quite ready for the suburbs yet. Moreover, she hails from Farmington, Conn., so perhaps her escape from the Nutmeg state is still fresh in Ms. Banderas' mind.

Robert A. M. Stern's book described the building as "a kind of aggressive, self-referential Modernism that had hitherto been largely absent from Manhattan."

The apartment was not listed publicly, but we suppose Ms. Banderas used her investigative skills to suss out the truth—that it was for sale, or that owner Marilyn Carr was willing to sell. Ms. Carr had listed the place for $2.79 million back in 2009, then dropped the price six months later to $2.65 million.

Was $2.65 million a good deal? Apparently, Ms. Banderas didn't think so as she was said to have bargained down the price to $2.38 million. And who wouldn't be won over by that odd news anchor patois—so self-assured and authoritative, anxiety-producing and soothing all at the same time?

We assume that Ms. Banderas will be living in the apartment with her husband of three years and young daughter. There's a large living room with a sizable balcony, great views and huge closets—super important for a woman whose wardrobe is judged by conservatives across the country every morning.

kvelsey@observer.com

Shep Smith after witnessing live suicide on Fox News. (Mediaite)

"You know, you wait for the end of these things, and then you worry about how they may end," Shepard Smith told viewers today while showing live coverage of an Arizona car chase in which a carjacker was trying to outrun the authorities. Unfortunately, Mr. Smith didn't know how right he was about to be.

The host was running commentary on the suspect's erratic behavior as he stumbled from the car, noting "It's always possible guy could be on something."

After running into tall grass, the man took out a gun and shot himself, too quickly for Fox to pull the plug on the rolling live footage.

Warning: The video below is graphic and disturbing.

The footage of the suspect:

As the man puts the gun to his head and pulls the trigger, you can hear someone in the control room yell "Oh! Whoa!" before the screen cuts back to Mr. Smith, screaming to the crew, "Get off it! Get off it! GET OFF IT!!" The segment then cut to commercial.

After coming back from break, Mr. Smith apologized to viewers, saying that even though there was a five-second delay, they weren't able to cut away in time from the horrific scene. "We really messed up," Mr. Smith said. "And we are all very sorry."

The speaker was the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Later, he recalled that he originally took a meeting with MSNBC executives believing that he would be pitching the network on a weekly series. Instead, he was offered a nightly program all his own. He started as a temporary replacement for Ed Schultz at 6 p.m. when Mr. Schultz moved to 10 p.m. in the rejiggering prompted by Keith Olbermann’s departure. Before long, the hour was rechristened PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton.

“The only thing I was worried about was my bosses,” MSNBC president Phil Griffin told The Observer of the decision to name Mr. Sharpton a primary host. “But he’d already been on for a month and a half. If we’d said that he was the permanent host on that first day, I’m not sure we’d have pulled it off.”

MSNBC was willing to let Mr. Sharpton travel (provided he gave enough advance notice to allow for a studio to be provided on the road) and wrote a provision into his contract allowing him to continue his activism, Mr. Sharpton said.

It was less of a leap than it might have appeared. As he pointed out during an interview at his MSNBC office, he’d been a talk-radio host for six years (Keepin’ It Real airs from 8 to 10 p.m. on 1600 AM in New York).

If it weren’t for his civil rights organization, the National Action Network, he added, “I had the background of 50 percent of the people doing this.” But he is Al Sharpton of the National Action Network. He is also the Al Sharpton who enthusiastically fanned a media firestorm 25 years ago with his advocacy on behalf of Tawana Brawley, a teenager who claimed—falsely, it now appears—to have been raped by a group of white men, an incident that cemented the young civil rights leader’s influence and brought him a measure of infamy. He ended up losing a defamation lawsuit filed by an assistant district attorney accused of raping Ms. Brawley and was immortalized by Tom Wolfe as The Bonfire of the Vanities’ “Rev. Reginald Bacon,” a shrewd manipulator of the city’s media. Then, there was his endlessly caricatured tracksuit-and-chains image, immortalized in a parade of Sean Delonas cartoons for Page Six that depicted the reverend as a Violet Beauregarde-like sphere.

Not to mention his unsuccessful, if impressive, run for the presidency in 2004.

Perhaps it was a desire to put his reputation as a firebrand behind him that accounted for Mr. Sharpton’s decidedly sober debut. “His first show was stiff,” Mr. Griffin told the crowd at the PoliticsNation party. “There was no Rev.”

Over the course of his first year on air, though, Mr. Sharpton has managed to uncork those cable-friendly “Rev” qualities—his undisguised political advocacy, for instance, and a compelling style of oratory that finds him punching rhetorical questions with a furious solemnity that lends the daily news churn an unusual hint of gravitas.

Still, his reputation notwithstanding, Mr. Sharpton is far from the angriest man in prime time.

“He's controversial,” Mr. Griffin told The Observer. “But a lot of people only know him from a few things. You don’t understand that he’s a good person. He’s fair. You don’t want to be judged for just a few things in your life, do you?”

We noted that his missteps had been particularly public and might color potential viewers’ impressions before they even tuned in. “It’s the civil rights movement! He has to do things that he’s misunderstood for. Maybe he’s made a mistake or two—but his heart is in the right place.”

He’s even happy to give airtime to his ideological foes. “I fought with Newt Gingrich,” Mr. Sharpton reminded The Observer at his party. He was puffing on a cigar, his only vice after he adopted a vegetarian diet that brought his weight down to a svelte 150 pounds. (He’d lost weight during his 2001 arrest on the island of Vieques, then gained much of it back while running for president—“room service when you get back to the hotel, South Carolina, fried chicken three times a day”—and lost it, once more, before he even knew he’d be on television each day.) He was looking good.

“I fought with Pat Buchanan,” he added. “And I had a good time with Michael Steele!”

For the significant portion of the nation that identifies as liberal (and the smaller number that watches MSNBC), Rev. Sharpton—cast as a clown and a villain throughout the late 1980s and 1990s—is, at 57, suddenly an establishment figure. “The Rev is only going to grow, because more people are going to accept him,” Mr. Griffin noted. “He’s going to break all these notions of who he is.”

Mr. Sharpton, who early in his career served as the tour manager for James Brown, borrowed more than a hairstyle from his mentor.

According to Mr. Sharpton’s lawyer, Sanford Rubinstein, “he’s the hardest-working man in show business.”

Mr. Sharpton's office is decorated with blown-up covers of Newsweek and The New York Post bearing his image, and a smaller frame containing three separately matted photos, portraits of the reverend as a younger man. One shows him preaching at age seven. One has him posing with James Brown. The third is of Mr. Brown and Mr. Sharpton meeting a young Michael and Janet Jackson.

Asked what the biggest misconception about him is, Mr. Sharpton cited the notion that he craves media attention and fame for its own sake. He left his role as James Brown’s tour manager in order to focus full-time on organizing and activism. “If you had a young guy out of Brooklyn, out of welfare, dead broke, who starts flying around the world with Jay-Z, then tells Jay-Z, ‘I know I ain’t got no money but I’m committed to social justice’—that defines him! If I had wanted money, I could’ve stayed with James Brown. You can disagree with me, but at least give me credit for having sacrificed. Because there was no guarantee that when I went to Howard Beach that it was going to be a national issue. Or Bensonhurst. Or whatever! Or that one day I would get MSNBC and radio and all that.”

James Brown, he added, thought his young protégé was crazy.

Mr. Sharpton came to prominence during a period of extreme racial enmity in the city, speaking out on one notorious case after another, fulminating before the news cameras and leading crowds of protesters with his now-familiar rallying cry: “No justice, no peace!”

His reference to Howard Beach recalled the 1986 death of Michael Griffith, who was struck by traffic after being chased by a white mob in Queens (Mr. Sharpton’s activism resulted in the appointment of a special prosecutor in the case). In the Bensonhurst incident, in 1989, a mob of white residents beat four black teenagers, killing one, Yusef Hawkins. Mr. Sharpton’s outspokenness in that case resulted in an attempt on his life.

After a few decades of dancing on the city’s racial fault lines, jousting with guests on basic cable must seem like a pretty low-key gig.

Mr. Sharpton’s 2011 television debut occurred as MSNBC was finding its footing as a liberal answer to right-leaning juggernaut Fox News. Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times recently referred to the network’s mission as “counterprogramming, not coverage,” and counted Mr. Sharpton as part of “a growing cast of anchor-bloviators.” At his party, the host didn’t deny that MSNBC and Fox had similarities: “We’re people with opinions,” he said.

“People don’t watch Bill O’Reilly or me for the weather report,” he went on. “They know we have an opinion. We said in the beginning I wasn’t objective. No one who watches my show thinks I’m objective. Fox is not objective.”

He used the weather-report crack, again, at a recent Saturday broadcast from the National Action Network’s “House of Justice” in Harlem. The crowd roared its approval, as they did with most of his laugh lines; an elderly woman in the audience remarked, “I call him the next Chris Rock.”

Before Mr. Sharpton’s entrance at 10 a.m. sharp at the Saturday NAN gathering, which is a hybrid of sorts between church service and activist meet-up, a female speaker decried Nicki Minaj’s apparent endorsement of Mitt Romney (which the rapper herself has disavowed). “When I look at certain celebrities, I look at what they’ve done. How engaged are you in community activism? If you’ve never seen them on the ground, why would what they say matter?”

A choir member announced, “We should be thankful that we are blessed, that we are educated, that we can tell somebody something.” Then Rev. Sharpton took the stage, swaying to the beat but unsmiling.

“What do we waaaaaant,” he sang. The room was packed with guests who knew the answer: “justice.” Rev. Sharpton added, “Some people cheat and come at 10, because that’s when I get up here. But you don’t have a seat this morning.”

He discussed, briefly, the Trayvon Martin killing this year; he was frustrated, he told the crowd, that he had been perceived to be seeking publicity from a case he took credit for bringing to the public’s attention. (After Mr. Sharpton urged due process for George Zimmerman, Martin’s shooter, he was criticized by some media observers for full-throated political advocacy on top of his journalistic duties.) “Later the press tried to act like we rode in on the publicity,” he went on. “No. We started the publicity. Was I an ambulance chaser? No, I’m an ambulance.”

He exhorted the crowd to never lose the power to define themselves. “In my life I’ve had ups and downs. I keep going. You know why I like having my MSNBC show on at six o’clock? Not four o’clock or nine o’clock? I think about my critics, who said I’d never do anything. My show comes on at six o’clock, about the time my critics come home and put dinner on the table!”

Like his office, Rev. Sharpton’s House of Justice is decorated with images from his past. The Newsweek cover is there, as is a New York Daily News front page, “GIVE ME THE TRUTH,” about the reverend’s quest to learn about whether he was biologically related to Senator Strom Thurmond. Hung above the stage, to the left of the podium, is a framed picture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., looking down and to the right. It appears he’s gazing approvingly at whomever is speaking.

Still, Mr. Sharpton is looking for real approval these days—and not just from his amen corner.

“We can get 300 or 400 in the room on Saturday,” he explained, “and 50,000 more on the radio. Okay. When do you stop playing to the 300 people in the room that’ll clap at anything you say? And when do you deal with the 50,000 that are listening, half of whom may not be on your side but would be if you make a sound argument?”

In September 2011, its first full month on air, PoliticsNation averaged 598,000 nightly viewers; in the first two weeks of this month, the show is hovering around 912,000 per evening. Viewership in the 25-54 demographic has nearly doubled as well. (The program comes in second in its time slot among cable news outlets in both metrics, behind Fox News’s Special Report with Bret Baier.) While Mr. Sharpton claims that his Saturday-morning audience is tuning in, PoliticsNation executive producer Matt Saal described the viewership of MSNBC as, traditionally, affluent. “He speaks for people who aren’t of means. He’s making sure we’re speaking not necessarily to those people—but for those people.”

Though he’s making fewer headlines these days, Mr. Sharpton finally seems to be achieving a measure of respectability. Knowing what he knows now, he was asked, does he regret anything about the fiery rhetorical style he employed back in the day?

“So, I was in my 30s when people first met me,” he said, “and I would say things, or react, or be personal. You learn over time, well, you may be more effective not making personal attacks. Not because it looks better—but because you may really want to win the case. You may really want to win people over. So, the question is, is you being flippant more important than winning? Or is winning more important than you being flippant?”

He leaned back, almost horizontal, in his desk chair.

“I regret personalizing the battles rather than keeping it on public policy,” he said.

By way of example, Mr. Sharpton recalled that he’d once had a habit of referring to then-mayor Ed Koch as “Bull Koch,” in reference to the Civil Rights-era scourge Bull Connor. “There are a lot of people who supported Koch who don’t see him as Bull Koch but would have supported us on not cutting services. Again, the question is, when do you put winning as your goal rather than just being flippant?”

Indeed, if anything, Mr. Sharpton seems not to take politics personally at all these days; he has dinner with Bill O’Reilly several times a year and is friends with MSNBC morning host and former GOP congressman Joe Scarborough. “He’s not a phony,” Mr. Sharpton noted. “And I get along with any conservative if they believe what they’re saying.”

Would a younger Al Sharpton have been able to say that?

“I don’t think I would have said that. I would have gotten along with them. But I wouldn’t have said it."

Now that he’s adopted a more conciliatory tone and taken his seat among the media elites, Mr. Sharpton was asked if he’d spotted any likely successors for the role of chief civil rights bomb-thrower he played so effectively for so long. He declined to name anyone specific, but he noted that whoever came after him would have opportunities he had never imagined. “A guy said to me soon after we started PoliticsNation, he said, ‘Rev. Sharpton, I always saw you as an activist, you came out of the post-King movement, would Dr. King have had a radio and talk show?’

“I told him that there was no MSNBC in Dr. King’s time, so we will never know!”

I, Roger.

Fox News chief Roger Ailes is trying to get that paper. Elsewhere in News Corp, two locals go all Benedict Arnold on a certain tablet newspaper and a certain tabloid newspaper. What's it like to get an employee evaluation at Reuters? How's that whole Media-and-Race thing going? All that and more in your Thursday Evening Media Briefs.

Roger, Dodger: Fox News chief Roger Ailes is renegotiating his contract according to Fox News' least-favorite journalist, New York contributor Gabriel Sherman (who's working on a book about the network). Some things you probably didn't know:

1. Ailes' personal lawyer appears as a Fox News contributor. Synergy, now!
2. If he were to leave Fox News, Ailes possibly wants to buy the Cleveland Indians, thus fulfilling his destiny as the real-life basis for the villainous owner in the next Major League movie.

And onto the numbers we go (emphasis ours):

One source familiar with the talks speculated that, given Fox's record profits, Ailes could ask for a mega deal, worth more than $30 million per year. But another source close to Ailes explained that, for Ailes, signing a new deal is not only about the money. Ailes has to figure out what he wants to do next. But money is surely a consideration: Ailes is a guy who likes to keep score. And at News Corp., he's the third-highest-paid executive, behind Rupert Murdoch and COO Chase Carey. This week, it was announced Ailes made $21.1 million last year. With Fox News on track to earn $1 billion in profit, it's certain Ailes would want the biggest contract of his life.

Sherman makes an excellent point that—in light of News Corp's restructuring in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal—Fox News is a more crucial piece of the Fox pie now more than ever. Know this: Whatever Ailes' deal ends up being, it's likely going to say far more about how Rupert Murdoch intends leaving this planet than what Roger Ailes has done on it. Sherman's wonderfully juicy report is worth clicking over for the read. Do it. [Daily Intel]

The Murdoch-to-Mort Refugee Trail: Capital New York reports that the thoroughfare of employment between News Corp and the New York Daily News remains trafficked, as always. This week, it's the copy chief at The Daily—Jon Blackwell —who's off to the Daily News as a deputy managing editor for production. Apparently, he was with News Corp for over ten years, much of which was spent on the copy desk at the New York Post. Meanwhile, Don Kaplan—on the Metro desk at the Post, and previously their TV writer—is also off to the Daily News as their new TV writer. [Capital New York]

Media Employment and Race: The More Things Change, Pt. XXVIII. The Atlantic's Ta -Nehisi Coates pens a wonderful thinker on the diversity problem in the media business, which yes, absolutely still exists (to wit: look around you). As he put it:

Magazines have long had a diversity problem, and that diversity problem is inscribed in their DNA. You can add on to this the fact that the traditional way of breaking into magazines involve ways utterly inaccessible to most black people. The unpaid internship was long seen as a right of passage. Very few Americans can afford such a luxury, and fewer still African-Americans can afford it.

What's It Like To Be Probed/Evaluated For Your Worth at Reuters? Just let this marinate for a moment:

One correspondent was told that he doesn’t use enough pronouns in his writing when they couldn’t find anything else wrong with him.

The only thing less dignified than being taken out back and Old Yeller-ed because you're old is having someone come up with soft euphemisms, and past that, boldfaced lies about why they're doing it. [Jim Romenesko]  

The Boys, On The Wrong Bus. Today, in amusing corrections:

An earlier version of this story suggested an earlier report had mentioned a bus tour, which it did not.

[Buzzfeed]

The Boys On The Bender: Resident MSNBC delicate flower Chris Hayes needs sleep. At midnight. [@chrislhayes]

License to Jill: New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson —the first woman in the paper's history to have the job—made some Vanity Fair power list, which is great, except somehow she dropped a ranking and is less important than Jay-Z and Beyonce (who the Times uses in their ads). This reporter remains mystified at the fact that Graydon Carter once had something to do with Spy and also wide-eyed at his reverence towards celebrities, which—we've been here long enough, we shouldn't be surprised—we're slightly ashamed of. [Vanity Fair]

WaPo Wha-Wha? If you can explain what's happening in this Washington Post filing—or at the Washington Post, period—in three sentences or less, The Observer will send you a pastry* of your choosing. [Washington Post]

[*Pastry subject to avaliblity.]

- - -

That's it for tonight. Give us your shady, your sketchy, your salacious media gossip. Or tips on making a paper crane army with very little effort. We're still after that one.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Sarah Palin won't get to talk about John McCain tonight. (Facebook)

Well, at least she can't claim it was a liberal news bias this time: Fox News contributor Sarah Palin took to Facebook today to kvetch about being bumped from the interviews (plural?) she was slated to give tonight about her BFF, John McCain. Whose birthday it is, apparently.


Okay, let's be honest: it is weird that Sarah Palin isn't going to be on Fox tonight, seeing as it's Paul Ryan's speaking engagement at the RNC. The former VP candidate weighing in on the next conservative to run for the spot?

Either way, one thing we do know is that it's not a good idea to send pouty little messages like that out on Facebook. We expect this to blow up in five ... four ... three ...

We found ourselves on the receiving end of one today, however, that struck a chord of curiosity from one person who sent it on.

The email, which came with the subject line "FW: Eye Candy? Not." extols the educations and qualifications of Fox News's female on-air talent. It begins as follows:

Impressive backgrounds for Fox News' women reporters...

Check out these "Dumb Gals" on FOX News.

For the past 10 years FOX News has had higher ratings and the largest audience numbers (for news and business/political "talk" programs) than all of the other TV and Cable news channels combined, including CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC and CBS!

Some folks who are "bitter" about this claim that FOX's higher ratings are only because FOX purposely hires a lot of female "reporters" who do nothing but sit around in short skirts and merely "read everything off of a TelePrompTer."

Bottom line: The next time you hear someone criticizing FOX News for supposedly having a "bunch of dumb gals" doing the news, etc. that are only on the tube to serve as "eye candy" to catch the attention of stupid, right-wing men, etc. well don't be so quick to jump on that left-wing band-wagon!

Still not a believer? Well, scroll down and let the FOX ladies speak for themselves!

It's boilerplate email-forward type stuff, but it then goes on to briefly list the names and credentials (with photos) of "Fox News' women reporters."

We received the email by way of someone fairly close with Fox News, who's already received it multiple times from people having nothing to do with the network: In other words, it's making the rounds, whatever those rounds are, and it's going some degree of old-school viral.

But they correctly point out some omissions from the email: Lauren Green, an African-American woman who's worked as Fox News's on-air religion correspondent; Santita Jackson, one of the few African-American women working as on-air talent at Fox News (who also happens to be Rev. Jesse Jackson's daughter); Jemhu Green, also an African-American woman working at Fox News (who once called Tucker Carlson a "bow-tied white boy"); and Sally Kohn, an openly gay former community organizer whose partner was once the executive director of the Environmental Grantmakers Association.

This isn't the first place the women of Fox News have been quite literally "whitewashed" by their fans. Even the "Girls of Fox News and Fox Business" fansite—yes, it exists—omits most of the African-American Fox News contributors.

A screengrab of part of the email is at the end of this post. We're curious: Have you seen it? Who started this email? What prompted it? And why, with such careful diligence put toward comprehensively listing these women, were the omissions made? If you know anything about it, we'd love to hear it.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Apparently, yes.

Fox News Network's favorite alternative proper noun spelling Megyn Kelly was on today, discussing a train derailment in Columbus, Ohio, when the broadcast rolled a clip of citizen journalism video, with the video's cameraman delivering a fairly astute observation of the massive explosion he'd just witnessed.

And yet, Kelly felt the need to apologize for it, and on a subsequent viewing, the 'bad words' were censored:

News Corp's other notoriously conservative news outfits don't seem to shy away from it. Question: Does this say more about Ms. Kelly, the network's viewership, or who someone with Fox News' censor button answers to?

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek