Fox News Reports That GWU Student's Suicide 'Tragically Coincides' With Obama Visit

UPDATE: As of 4:30 p.m. EST, Fox has apparently pulled the article in question from their site. The GW Hatchet reports that Fox took the story down "due to the student and university reaction, even though nothing in the story was factually inaccurate." Scroll down for a screenshot of the original story.

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ORIGINAL POST:
George Washington University students are making their anger known over a Fox News story that reported a student's suicide alongside President Obama's visit to the school.

The story, titled 'GWU Suicide Tragically Coincides With Obama Speech,' appeared on Fox's America Election HQ blog Wednesday and called the unidentified student's death a "tragic coincidence." The story was taken down sometime Thursday afternoon.

In response, GWU students are targeting Fox News and the post's author, Kelly Chernenkoff, through Facebook. The Facebook group HOLD CHERNENKOFF AND FOX NEWS ACCOUNTABLE has more than 600 members and counting, many of whom are openly questioning Fox's news judgment.

"[Fox is] making a connection between two unrelated events just to push their political agenda," one poster wrote on the group's wall. "It's disgusting of Fox news to devalue someone's death like this."

According to the GW Hatchet, Fox News changed the article from its original iteration. Danny Leimberg, creator of the above-mentioned Facebook group, grabbed a screenshot of the original story (see a larger version here).

LOOK:

Comments

[butchcliff]

07:47 AM on 04/18/2011

Could Fox News sink any lower?.....Probably

[llen]

12:15 PM on 04/18/2011

No............they are not news reporters they are instigators.

[iconico62]

05:15 AM on 04/18/2011

Well, Fox is mulling a Kelly Chermentoff show, specializing in non sequiturs. I think they have a sleeper here with a built in Teabagger audience all set to applaud. For starters, she could do a show on gas prices at $4/gal while Kirstie Alley stumbled on DWTS. Or the devastating tornadoes in NC while Malia and Sasha were having their snack at the WH.

[guardduckrules]

01:36 AM on 04/18/2011

Fox can't go after Obama intellectually so they go for the basest and worst in those who need justification to hate the man. Fox has an easy target audience in the uneducated and dittohead teabagging crowd.

[murphysgirl]

12:52 AM on 04/18/2011

Kudos to the GWU students for calling out Faux News..

[TeeSC]

06:18 PM on 04/20/2011

Exactly. There IS hope for future generations yet!

[capeman2]

10:34 PM on 04/17/2011

I guess the earth god for the godless is losing his power if this por soul couldn't hold until his visit.

[Jake Dogg]

09:19 AM on 04/18/2011

Please explain. I hope you aren't saying what I think you're saying.

[Anluise]

03:02 PM on 04/17/2011

Reading / Viewing Fox Tabloid Coincides with Debilitating Cerebral Atrophy

[Kimiko Austin-Rijs]

02:15 PM on 04/17/2011

I wish that I could say that I was surprised by this obvious display of negativity by Fox, but I'm not.

[capeman2]

10:36 PM on 04/17/2011

I'm really glad there is at least one media outlet that actually questions Obama's actions and not act as if they are on his payroll. Refreshing, ain't it?

[Kimiko Austin-Rijs]

04:14 AM on 04/18/2011

You gave me my first laugh of the day! That is certainly how they present themselves isn't it?

[Deborah Marshall]

01:26 PM on 04/17/2011

Will they ever stop lying about anything really? It is time that this fake news organization be accountable for what they post or "report" I am still in amazement that people actually listen to these freaks. I feel bad for the family that lost their son to read or hear all this garbage. To make it about politics these people stop at nothing and I believe someone better stop them soon or we will have more of this stupidity printed and reported in the media. Shame on them and shame on people who believe it!

[BUSTERtheCAT]

10:51 PM on 04/17/2011

PLAME

[deanleto]

01:21 PM on 04/17/2011

sinking lower as we speak.

[Allen Reed Jensen]

12:19 PM on 04/17/2011

As a current college student I can see both sides. My school would be honored to have a sitting president come to our university but even then that day would be a tragic one if one of my fellow students committed suicide. Fox News was not tying them together, saying they had to do with one another. What they showed was a more accurate view of college life. It's more than just parties, football games, and special speakers, there are actually many social problems such as depression and suicide that plague our campuses. Perhaps such a story should have been in the health section seeing that imbalances of mental or emotional health are such an issue for high school and college students.

[deanleto]

01:22 PM on 04/17/2011

never would have done the same thing if Bush were still president.

[capeman2]

10:41 PM on 04/17/2011

Not on Fox but certainly on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, PBS, Headline News. IS that enough for you?

[Spins VMFA321]

08:24 AM on 04/18/2011

ARJ, you have to look at the subtext. The Fox blogger did not explicitly or implicitly say that Pr. Obamas' visit caused the death. But it's an age old tactic of fear mongering by associating two events that have nothing to do with each other in 1 news piece. An easy tell on how to spot this is by looking at the number of times events that have nothing to do with each other are mentioned in the piece. Including the article title, there's 3. That's how you press home a message, by repeating it constantly. Also, there was no need to contact the White House for a response...

Fox rarely reports on "social problems" such as teen suicide or the hardships of college life. It's not a conservative concern, as they hold the belief that you should stand on your own and not whine about things being "hard".

Also, good news reporting focuses on the facts, without muddying them up with extraneous details that take away from the focus. It would have been more appropriate to detail one story, insert an "In Other News...", and get on with the other story.

[Christian Troy]

12:17 PM on 04/17/2011

I'm surprised fox didn't find a way to correlate the tsunami and earth quake in Japan with Obama as it's cause

[CommodoreP]

10:59 PM on 04/16/2011

Fox viewership actually, not coincidentally, correlates to steeply declining logical thinking abilities in viewers!

[Mark Redd]

10:36 PM on 04/16/2011

I already hold them accountable, I don't watch them.

[Barbara DeZan]

09:45 PM on 04/16/2011

Nice try Faux.

But, no matter how you try to spin it, Obama didn't cause this student to commit suicide...nor did Obama kill him.

They must be getting desperate over there....Beck out the door, Hannity in trouble, Spanky Cavuto's ratings falling.....

[capeman2]

10:46 PM on 04/17/2011

So if there ratings continue to fall, as you say they are, the next closest network, which is probably liberal CNN, will catch up in about 598 years by my calculations.

[Barbara DeZan]

01:48 AM on 04/18/2011

I'm not saying the ratings are tanking. Those moles out there somewhere who measure thiese things for the media print ratings daily, weekly , monthly and anytime they are bored. They publsih them......

As for ratings....well, they only have an affect on revenue. Ratings have nothing to do with quality of programming..... I mean, heck, Sesame Street beats the pants off Fox and most other networks. That doesn't mean I turn to Oscar the Grouch for news.

[patrique77]

09:00 PM on 04/16/2011

Crazed Lunatic Stomping Babies and Biting Heads From Live Puppies Coincides With Fox News Broadcast.