by David Edwards and Nick Juliano - Oct 24, 2007Questionable 4-year-old FBI memo presented as new to stoke terror fears
Did al Qaeda start the California wildfires?
As more than a million people escaped the flames, Fox News anchors couldn't help speculating about a terrorism link to the blazes ravaging southern California.
"I've heard some people talk about this a little bit to me, but have you heard anybody suggest that this could be some form of terrorism," Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy asked Wednesday morning.
Correspondent Adam Housley said he's received "hundreds of comments" from readers of his Fox News blog speculating about a link to terrorism.
Investigators have determined that one 15,000 acre fire in Orange County was deliberately set, and Housley reported that authorities arrested one man who set a hillside on fire. Causes of most other fires are still being investigated, and there has been little speculation beyond Fox News about a terror plot.
A review of Housley's blog posts about the fire reveals that his characterization of the terror fears perhaps was inflated.
Of his 15 posts on the fires, just two included speculation from commenters about a terrorism link.
"Is anyone asking how these fires started? I see no comments or speculations," observed "clyde teeter" in response to a post Tuesday. "Could it be linked to illegal alien misadventure on the border [...] Terrorism? ... If you are a journalist, then these questions need to be asked and investigated. Your coverage is admirable but the emotional journalism about the loss of peoples homes is not helping to find the causes."
Fox & Friends co-host Judge Andrew Napolitano tried to serve as the voice of reason.
"That's a fear, Adam, but is there any evidence of it?" the judge asked.
Such skepticism could not last, though.
Later Wednesday, Fox anchors returned to fanning the terror fears, digging up a four-year-old FBI memo and presenting it as new information relating to an al Qaeda link to the fires.
In June of 2003, FBI agents in Denver detailed an al Qaeda detainee's discussion of a plot to set forest fires around the western United States, although investigators couldn't determine whether the detainee was telling the truth, and his plot did not include setting fires in California.
Such small discrepancies in dates and details proved to be no obstacles for Fox anchors, who reported that the memo was from "late June of this year" and "is just popping up this morning."
The memo was first reported by the Arizona Republic in July 2003, although a Fox anchor said it was reported "five days ago." That confusion seems to stem from an inability to read the date on an Associated Press account of the memo from the time it was first reported.
A July 11, 2003, AP story, still available online via USA Today, reported, "The contents of the June 25 memo from the FBI's Denver office were reported Friday by The Arizona Republic."
On Fox, that information became, "The June 25 memo from the FBI's Denver offices was reported three days ago, excuse me five days ago, by the Arizona Republic."
Further distorting the report, Fox failed to mention a key caveat from the 2003 AP story they appear to have ripped from.
"Rose Davis, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, told The Associated Press that officials there took note of the warning but didn't see a need to act further on it."
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