D. Armenta
PlagmanFox News Reports Fake Quotes from Parody of Ham Steak Hate Crime Actual News
On April 11th, a middle school student in Lewiston, Maine was suspended for two weeks after he intentionally placed a lunch bag containing a ham steak on a table where Muslim students were eating. Muslims, who consider pork to be unclean unless it’s washed at least three times with anti-microbial soap and a solution composed of no less than 0.04% sodium hypochlorite, are offended by the mere presence of pork, and thus will always check an unopened bag in their vicinity to ensure its contents are not swine-related
The Sun Journal, a newspaper in Maine, originally reported the story, stating that the incident was viewed by the students and school staff as a hate incident, and was handed over to the authorities to be properly investigated as a potential hate crime. The school then collaborated with the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence to create a response plan.
This was not, however, the story that was presented in Tuesday’s broadcast of a Fox News morning show, “Fox & Friends.” According to the show’s anchors, the ham product involved in the crime of hate was a ham sandwich, which any farmer or chef will tell you bears no resemblance to a ham steak. The anchors continued to report on the story, using quotes from the article from which they had first learned about it and laughing about the sheer absurdity of the whole “ham hate crime” situation.
Unfortunately, it would not be until after the show that the Fox News staff would discover that the article from which they had reported the incident was actually written by an unknown young writer named Nicholas Plagman, who supplemented real quotes with fabricated ones in a lame attempt at a Daily Show-like parody. Immediately following the broadcast, the school in Lewiston was bombarded with calls and e-mails from viewers who were outraged not only at the categorization of this child’s insensitive prank as a hate crime, but also at the audacity of a writer to try and make a satire out of a situation as serious as one involving an offended Muslim.
“There was nothing funny about this hate incident,” said superintendent Leon Levesque after the broadcast took effect, “the fact that this writer would even attempt to satirize a story about a child trying to get a rise out another student via ham just goes to show what kind of ignorant, selfish, uneducated, and ignorant person this Plagman fellow really is.”
During the broadcast, the “Fox & Friends” anchors repeatedly assured the viewing public that they were “not making this up,” one anchor even admitting that at first he thought he was reading an article from The Onion. He would be immediately reassured by his co-anchor, who knew they weren’t being “duped” given that he had “looked it up on a couple of different websites up there.”
“The whole thing just got way out of hand,” said Stephen Wessler, executive director of the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence, who was also misquoted in Plagman’s version of the story, “All we wanted to do was investigate this kid just as we would any other student who picked on someone in junior high.”
Continued Wessler, “The same thing happened two years ago when a kid put a bag with ham in it on a table at which two of the nine students were black; the staff saw it as a mockery of African-American stereotype that they are partial to ribs, and so he was suspended for nine days. This most recent incident called for a two week suspension because he made fun of black people who were also foreigners. Had they been black foreigners with a learning disability, he would have been suspended for three weeks. And had they been illegals who don’t speak English, they would’ve been expelled.”
The false quotes were attributed to Plagman quickly after the story spread nationwide, leading to talk of lawsuits against the writer who is expected to be offered his own column by a leading US newspaper as soon as they leave him a message on this article.
The Sun Journal was the first to print the news that would inform the public that the story was not accurate enough to meet the standards of a Fox broadcast. Initially the paper blasted Plagman, with quotes from Levesque and Wessler, neither of whom have had a pleasant history with the paparazzi. ***Levesque said he was bothered… that Fox and others reported the information as fact without checking. The national media sees information posted online, said Wessler, and uses it as gospel***l, stated the article. Levesque would later be forced by the governor to apologize for making a reference to the “gospel” while employed by the state.
The Sun Journal also posted an editorial that ripped Plagman “a new one,” referring to him as “a wannabe writer,” among other things that can no longer be seen because the article was quickly taken down upon realization of with whom their readers were siding.
But even in light of the blame placed on Plagman, the overwhelming majority of comments left in response to the Sun Journal’s articles were supportive, placing the blame where it belonged rather than on the scapegoat with the smallest legal department. Also filling the discussion forums was a vast array of racial debate, much of which focused on the special treatment received by minorities for having to deal with the racism inherent in minority scholarships and welfare benefits. Even the issues of “under God” being in the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” being removed from currency came into play, upsetting people who are offended by controversy.
As for the original article that got Plagman into such hot water, it became one of the most talked about and viewed pieces of Pulitzer-worthy literature ever to grace Associated Content. With the exception of Muslims who are required by their religion to take offense to everything, most readers were able to appreciate the piece as a satire, although some remained understanding of the position Plagman put Fox News in. “A writer of Plagman’s caliber has to be aware of the power he wields with his articles,” said a spokesperson from the Associated Press, “Fox News doesn’t have the resources to verify the legitimacy of every piece of news they put on the air. A writer of Plagman’s talent can turn around and sell his news to another bidder at the blink of an eye. If it’s true that Plagman was paid $5 for this particular article, we can accurately speculate that another news agency would’ve given him $5.50, maybe even $6.15 for the article; Fox had to make a quick decision.”
But despite being entertaining and quite humorous, the angry calls and e-mails received by the school because of the parody were no joke. Because of the story, which in the opening sentence read, after he placed a bag containing a ham sandwich on a table where Somali students eat lunch, the public was led to believe that the school had overreacted to what they believed to be a ham sandwich tossed at a Somali student.
“Sure, the story is accurate, and what he says outside of the fake quotes really did happen, and I may have myself stretched the truth to clear my name,” argued Levesque, “but he still made me look silly with those fake quotes. And it wasn’t a ham sandwich, it was a ham steak. If people knew that, they wouldn’t think I overreacted just because the school worked with the Center for Hate Violence Prevention because of a middle-schooler’s vicious use of ham. If putting ham in the vicinity of a Muslim isn’t a hate crime, I don’t know what is.”
In spite of all this talk of legal action and liability issues, Plagman somehow remained optimistic. “I got a ton of support from other writers and people who are sick of our PC culture, and that overshadowed the flak I got from the ‘I’m offended’ people, who’s opinions I generally pay a lot of attention to given that they’re written with such passion that they lack spelling, punctuation, grammar, and logic” said Plagman. “Unfortunately, in our country, even if you don’t agree with someone’s point of view, or just plain can’t stand reading their articles, you still have to read them. It’s not like TV where you can just change the channel away from Lifetime or BET. I just want to thank Fox News, though, because without them I’d still be the same nobody that didn’t have one of his satires read as real news on a national television broadcast.”
“If I was trying to offend people, I’d go after whites,” continued Plagman, “no particular reason, I just like the challenge. For instance, did you know that white men can’t jump? Well it’s true, but you may want to double check that before going live.”
The Sun Journal, a newspaper in Maine, originally reported the story, stating that the incident was viewed by the students and school staff as a hate incident, and was handed over to the authorities to be properly investigated as a potential hate crime. The school then collaborated with the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence to create a response plan.
This was not, however, the story that was presented in Tuesday’s broadcast of a Fox News morning show, “Fox & Friends.” According to the show’s anchors, the ham product involved in the crime of hate was a ham sandwich, which any farmer or chef will tell you bears no resemblance to a ham steak. The anchors continued to report on the story, using quotes from the article from which they had first learned about it and laughing about the sheer absurdity of the whole “ham hate crime” situation.
Unfortunately, it would not be until after the show that the Fox News staff would discover that the article from which they had reported the incident was actually written by an unknown young writer named Nicholas Plagman, who supplemented real quotes with fabricated ones in a lame attempt at a Daily Show-like parody. Immediately following the broadcast, the school in Lewiston was bombarded with calls and e-mails from viewers who were outraged not only at the categorization of this child’s insensitive prank as a hate crime, but also at the audacity of a writer to try and make a satire out of a situation as serious as one involving an offended Muslim.
“There was nothing funny about this hate incident,” said superintendent Leon Levesque after the broadcast took effect, “the fact that this writer would even attempt to satirize a story about a child trying to get a rise out another student via ham just goes to show what kind of ignorant, selfish, uneducated, and ignorant person this Plagman fellow really is.”
During the broadcast, the “Fox & Friends” anchors repeatedly assured the viewing public that they were “not making this up,” one anchor even admitting that at first he thought he was reading an article from The Onion. He would be immediately reassured by his co-anchor, who knew they weren’t being “duped” given that he had “looked it up on a couple of different websites up there.”
“The whole thing just got way out of hand,” said Stephen Wessler, executive director of the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence, who was also misquoted in Plagman’s version of the story, “All we wanted to do was investigate this kid just as we would any other student who picked on someone in junior high.”
Continued Wessler, “The same thing happened two years ago when a kid put a bag with ham in it on a table at which two of the nine students were black; the staff saw it as a mockery of African-American stereotype that they are partial to ribs, and so he was suspended for nine days. This most recent incident called for a two week suspension because he made fun of black people who were also foreigners. Had they been black foreigners with a learning disability, he would have been suspended for three weeks. And had they been illegals who don’t speak English, they would’ve been expelled.”
The false quotes were attributed to Plagman quickly after the story spread nationwide, leading to talk of lawsuits against the writer who is expected to be offered his own column by a leading US newspaper as soon as they leave him a message on this article.
The Sun Journal was the first to print the news that would inform the public that the story was not accurate enough to meet the standards of a Fox broadcast. Initially the paper blasted Plagman, with quotes from Levesque and Wessler, neither of whom have had a pleasant history with the paparazzi. ***Levesque said he was bothered… that Fox and others reported the information as fact without checking. The national media sees information posted online, said Wessler, and uses it as gospel***l, stated the article. Levesque would later be forced by the governor to apologize for making a reference to the “gospel” while employed by the state.
The Sun Journal also posted an editorial that ripped Plagman “a new one,” referring to him as “a wannabe writer,” among other things that can no longer be seen because the article was quickly taken down upon realization of with whom their readers were siding.
But even in light of the blame placed on Plagman, the overwhelming majority of comments left in response to the Sun Journal’s articles were supportive, placing the blame where it belonged rather than on the scapegoat with the smallest legal department. Also filling the discussion forums was a vast array of racial debate, much of which focused on the special treatment received by minorities for having to deal with the racism inherent in minority scholarships and welfare benefits. Even the issues of “under God” being in the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” being removed from currency came into play, upsetting people who are offended by controversy.
As for the original article that got Plagman into such hot water, it became one of the most talked about and viewed pieces of Pulitzer-worthy literature ever to grace Associated Content. With the exception of Muslims who are required by their religion to take offense to everything, most readers were able to appreciate the piece as a satire, although some remained understanding of the position Plagman put Fox News in. “A writer of Plagman’s caliber has to be aware of the power he wields with his articles,” said a spokesperson from the Associated Press, “Fox News doesn’t have the resources to verify the legitimacy of every piece of news they put on the air. A writer of Plagman’s talent can turn around and sell his news to another bidder at the blink of an eye. If it’s true that Plagman was paid $5 for this particular article, we can accurately speculate that another news agency would’ve given him $5.50, maybe even $6.15 for the article; Fox had to make a quick decision.”
But despite being entertaining and quite humorous, the angry calls and e-mails received by the school because of the parody were no joke. Because of the story, which in the opening sentence read, after he placed a bag containing a ham sandwich on a table where Somali students eat lunch, the public was led to believe that the school had overreacted to what they believed to be a ham sandwich tossed at a Somali student.
“Sure, the story is accurate, and what he says outside of the fake quotes really did happen, and I may have myself stretched the truth to clear my name,” argued Levesque, “but he still made me look silly with those fake quotes. And it wasn’t a ham sandwich, it was a ham steak. If people knew that, they wouldn’t think I overreacted just because the school worked with the Center for Hate Violence Prevention because of a middle-schooler’s vicious use of ham. If putting ham in the vicinity of a Muslim isn’t a hate crime, I don’t know what is.”
In spite of all this talk of legal action and liability issues, Plagman somehow remained optimistic. “I got a ton of support from other writers and people who are sick of our PC culture, and that overshadowed the flak I got from the ‘I’m offended’ people, who’s opinions I generally pay a lot of attention to given that they’re written with such passion that they lack spelling, punctuation, grammar, and logic” said Plagman. “Unfortunately, in our country, even if you don’t agree with someone’s point of view, or just plain can’t stand reading their articles, you still have to read them. It’s not like TV where you can just change the channel away from Lifetime or BET. I just want to thank Fox News, though, because without them I’d still be the same nobody that didn’t have one of his satires read as real news on a national television broadcast.”
“If I was trying to offend people, I’d go after whites,” continued Plagman, “no particular reason, I just like the challenge. For instance, did you know that white men can’t jump? Well it’s true, but you may want to double check that before going live.”
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