Using the screenname "roberwter," one resident of the Netherlands has posted (YouTube, 7/27/09) "a video response to a Fox News broadcast about my city, Amsterdam."

The short piece starts with clips of Bill O'Reilly and guests claiming that the Dutch's "experimentation with social tolerance, free love, free drugs, clearly has backfired" and that "Amsterdam is a cesspool of corruption, crime, everything is out of control. It's anarchy." Then, all under the headline "The Truth About Amsterdam," roberwter provides something Fox's talking heads rarely bring to viewers--simple facts:

Percentage of population that has ever used Cannabis
USA: 40.3 percent
Netherlands: 22.6 percent

Homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants
USA: 5.6
Netherlands: 1.2

Drug-related deaths (e.g. overdose) per million inhabitants
USA 38.0
Netherlands: 2.4

These startling statistics are all backed by something even more rarely found on the Fox channel: verifiable sources--all clearly listed in the video's final credits.

See the "Terror and Ecstasy" sidebar in this article from FAIR's magazine Extra!: "The 'Oh Really?' Factor: Bill O'Reilly Spins Facts and Statistics (5–6/02) by Peter Hart.

"If media reports are to be believed," Gabriel Arana of the Nation writes (5/27/09), "an Armageddon-like rash of drug-related violence--unlike any seen since 'Miami Vice years of the 1980s'--has crossed from Mexico into the United States, 'just as government officials had feared.'" But that's a pretty big if, even though "in the national media, it's become a foregone conclusion that Mexican drug violence has penetrated the United States":

But the numbers tell a different story. According to crime statistics for American cities along the U.S.-Mexico border and major U.S. metro areas along drug routes, violent crimes, including robberies, have either decreased in the first part of 2009 or remained relatively stable. This is not to say that the increased violence in Mexico has had no impact in the United States or that no violence in the United States can be traced to the conflict in Mexico. Rather, the drive not to get "scooped" by competitors has led media outlets to conclude prematurely--based on hearsay and isolated incidents--that a wave of drug-related violence is upon us....

Among the earliest reports that potential violence had become actual violence was an AP story that credited unnamed "authorities" with the news. Tellingly, the story did not contain a single direct quote stating either that violence had increased or that it was linked to the drug trade. Rather, it juxtaposed its broad claims against gruesome descriptions of drug violence in Mexico or wildly speculative quotes about what could happen here.

"Nevertheless," Arana tells us, "within weeks the New York Times jumped on the story: "Wave of Drug Violence Is Creeping Into Arizona From Mexico, Officials Say." See, from the three-part cover story, "Media Patrol the Border," in the currently print-only edition of Extra: "Does Violence 'Spill Over' or Come Home to Roost?" (6/09) by Daniel Hernandez

During coverage of the Obama administration's 100-day mark, MSNBC had war reporter Richard Engel and anchor Tamron Hall interview MSNBC analyst Barry McCaffrey, who CJR.org's Clint Hendler (4/29/09) calls "the retired army general whose many conflicts of interest have been analyzed by David Barstow's now-Pulitzer Prize winning reporting for the New York Times." When asked by Engel about attempts to "draw away the Taliban's source of funding by cutting down the opium crop or burning it or whatever," McCaffrey was emphatic: "I think we’ve got to take it on. But, you know, the lead agent can't be U.S. combat troops. It's got to be Afghans chopping down opium poppy." Hendler thinks he knows the source of McCaffrey's enthusiasm, even if the MSNBCers don't (or at least aren't saying):

Neither Hall, Engel nor McCaffrey made mention of DynCorp, a major military contractor that's doing exactly that--training Afghans to eradicate poppies.

Nor did they mention that McCaffrey sits on DynCorp's board, which according to federal contracting records, garnered contracts in 2008 and 2009 worth over $323 million dollars with the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, including its work in Afghanistan.

Read more on media treatment of Barry McCaffrey and his Pentagon brethren in the FAIR publication Extra! Update: "Network News Blackout on Pentagon Pundits" (6/08) by Isabel Macdonald.