Reviewing An Illegal Copy Of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" Gets FOX News Columnist Fired

[JamesG]

Pirated Wolverine Movie Gets Fox News Writer Fired
by Warren Riddle, posted Apr 6th 2009 at 2:17PM

This week, Fox News columnist Roger Friedman provided lecture fodder for journalistic ethics professors everywhere. When news of a pirated copy of 20th-Century Fox's forthcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine recently surfaced (the movie's set to hit the big screen May 1st), comic fans and interested moviegoers began scouring the Web for an early viewing.

Mr. Friedman not only found and watched the advance copy, he decided it would be a good idea to review it, saying, "It took really less than seconds to start playing it all right onto my computer.'" He was pretty brazen about it, saying also that he found all of the "current top 10 [movies in theaters], plus TV shows, commercials, videos, everything, all streaming away." He went on to say, "I could have downloaded all of it but really, who has the time or the room?"

Rupert Murdoch, the Charles Xavier of Fox (or Magneto depending upon your view) and Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, which is part of the Fox conglomerate, vehemently condemned Friedman's tactics, citing a "zero-tolerance" policy for pirated movies. According to the DeadlineDailyHollywood blog, the News Corporation asked Fox News to take down the "reprehensible" column, which it did, and then, after advising Fox News on how to properly handle the situation, promptly dismissed Friedman.


Perhaps in the future, Friedman will review illegally released movies through a blog, rather than on a Web site owned by the company releasing the film. But then again, maybe he thought it would be alright. We are talking about Rupert Murdoch, after all, who doesn't exactly let accuracy and integrity get in the way of a good story.

http://www.switched.com/2009/04/06/pirated-wolverine-movie-gets-fox-news-writer-fired?icid=main|hp-laptop|dl5|link6|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.switched.com%2F2009%2F04%2F06%2Fpirated-wolverine-movie-gets-fox-news-writer-fired

[catlover79]

Rupert Murdoch + Journalistic integrity = OXYMORON!!

[Cactus Jack]

Everyone from FOX News should do this

[JamesG]

Everyone from FOX News should do this

Do what, review bootlegs?:lol:

[TJL]

Yeah, it's probably not a good idea to go around saying how easy it was to download a stolen movie when you work for the company they stole the movie from.

;)

[Marvo301]

As Red Forman would say "what a dumbass".

[JamesG]

Yeah, it's probably not a good idea to go around saying how easy it was to download a stolen movie when you work for the company they stole the movie from.

;)

Yeah, it's bad enough he put an official review of something nobody is supposed to have on the news site and even worse that the film is from FOX. :crazy:

[catlover79]

Yeah, it's probably not a good idea to go around saying how easy it was to download a stolen movie when you work for the company they stole the movie from.

;)
I know. It's like, DUH!!

[JamesG]

Murdoch Author: Piracy Is Extraordinary To Fox, Routine To Others
8 April 2009 2:34 AM, PDT

Michael Wolff, author of the controversial Rupert Murdoch biography The Man Who Owns the News, has suggested that FoxNews.com's Roger Friedman was fired not because he reviewed a pirated workprint of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but because he exposed how easy it was to watch it.

On his blog, Wolff suggests that Friedman's case exposes how oblivious top media executives are to common behavior by young people using the Internet. "They think of [watching pirated movies] as exceptional behavior, while everybody else knows it's trivial stuff.

Actually Murdoch tends to think that almost everything that happens on the Internet involves dubious, if not outrageous, behavior," Wolff wrote.

On the Los Angeles Times blog, columnist Patrick Goldstein chimed in: "Friedman took the fall for his own starry-eyed approach to piracy, but if media tycoons like Murdoch believe they can hang on to their old business model forever, they will soon be taking a much bigger fall than Friedman did."

-IMDB News

[JamesG]

Liz Smith Hails Fired Columnist Roger Friedman
9 April 2009 2:34 AM, PDT

Veteran entertainment columnist Liz Smith has come to the defense of former FoxNews.com entertainment columnist Roger Friedman.

In her syndicated column today (Thursday), Smith calls Friedman "the hardest-working entertainment columnist in the entire world."

While observing that downloading a bootleg workprint of 20th Century Fox's X-Men Origins: Wolverine and reviewing it was tantamount to "waving a red flag in front of a fox," Smith observes that Friedman was "fired by one facet of an empire owned by Rupert Murdoch, when he tries to print the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

In February, Smith herself was fired by another facet of Murdoch's "empire," the New York Post.

-IMDB News