Fox News Makes Fun of Burning Man Suicide

by Scott Beale on September 8, 2007 · 30 comments

Red Eye

So yeah, I’m well aware that Fox News is often off-base and irresponsible with their reporting, but this might be one the most disgusting things I have seen them do in a while. On their show Red Eye, host Greg Gutfeld and his cast of “experts” proceed to make fun of the recent suicide at Burning Man during the opening of the show. Here’s the link to the video and thread on Tribe.net. They’ve hit a new low with this one.

Oh and remember Julia Allison, the clueless woman who showed up at our Laughing Squid Paradise Lost event, refusing to pay to get in or even have her hand stamped. Well she is one of the “experts” on the show, where she pretends that she’s never heard of Burning Man. Um yeah, right.

Here Are A Few Related Posts You Might Enjoy:

Comfort & Joy Statement Regarding Burning Man Suicide

Suicide Bots

Facebook News Network, All The News Feed That’s Fit To Print

Fuck Cancer – Fractal Suicide Raising Money For Cancer Research

Burning Book, A Visual History of Burning Man

filed under Burning Man

{ 3 trackbacks }

Fox News Thinks Burning Man Suicide is Funny « Kevin Burton’s NEW FeedBlog
September 8, 2007 at 1:23 am
Shame on Fox News (Red Eye) « Nevada Girl’s World
September 8, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Second-grade teacher reading gay Prince Fairy Tale, what do the Democratic canditates have to say « Nevada Girl’s World
September 27, 2007 at 9:32 pm

{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Tyler D. September 8, 2007 at 12:32 am

And here I thought Red Eye was satire…

Reply

2 lane hartwell September 8, 2007 at 1:29 am

I might have forgiven their bad taste had they actually said something amusing. But seriously, it makes them look really, really stupid.

Reply

3 Joel September 8, 2007 at 2:35 am

You’re overreacting. They aren’t even making fun of the suicide so much as Burning Man itself. And their position is pretty normal regarding it, not quite as ridiculous as you let on. You’re just blowing this out of proportion.

Reply

4 BillB September 8, 2007 at 4:27 am

They were ridiculing Burning Man, (and the demographic that participates) not the suicide.

But yeah, “Red Eye” seems to be a forced, lame show.

Reply

5 Jeremy Toeman September 8, 2007 at 6:38 am

Unbelievable. And mainstream media thinks down on bloggers…

Reply

6 Adam Jackson September 8, 2007 at 6:58 am

Wow. That was a horrible spot.

Reply

7 hj September 8, 2007 at 7:21 am

LOL, sometimes I wonder if Julia Allison really is that slow

Reply

8 Patrick September 8, 2007 at 8:36 am

“I’m anti Burning Man” !?!

Worst comedian ever.

Reply

9 John W September 8, 2007 at 11:31 am

You accuse Fox News of being “off-base and irresponsible” but it was not Fox who got the facts in your post completely wrong. Red Eye does no “reporting” and it uses no “experts”: it is an irreverent comedy show. You also misrepresented the target of the joke.

Psychiatrists call this effect “Fox News Derangement Syndrome.”

Reply

10 Lori Dorn September 8, 2007 at 12:01 pm

Whether or not “Red Eye” is an irreverent comedy show as you state, Fox is a news network. It was completely disrespectful to make light of this man’s death.

The family and friends of the man deserve more than the inane blather of obviously ill-informed wanna-be comics jabbering on and on about a subject of which they know absolutely nothing.

Reply

11 Joel September 8, 2007 at 12:34 pm

Where does all this “violating the sacred respect for the dead” stuff come from? The guy killed himself at Burning Man, and his friends thought it was art. Outside of the comparably infinitesimal amount of people who actually knew this guy, it’s pretty funny. I’m sure you’ve never laughed at a Darwin Award or anything.

Reply

12 diebold September 8, 2007 at 1:30 pm

Go figure.. can’t say anything about the beloved right wing propaganda machine without unearthing the web nazi’s to try and discredit you. Similarly annoying is how many people loathe the right wing fascists and the News Corp. cronies while operating MySpace (owned by News Corp.) profiles.. convenient indignation.

Reply

13 Joel September 8, 2007 at 3:15 pm

I’ve been to Burning Man and think it’s great. I think Fox News is largely despicable and that this clip was stupid, but completely unremarkable and not really that offensive.

Reply

14 John Hell September 8, 2007 at 5:39 pm

I have no interest in watching the whatsoever. I just thought everyone should know that.

Reply

15 sharon rafferty September 9, 2007 at 11:26 am

Its a shame that they ridicule Burning Man and what they assume the demographic to be when they openly admit that they have never been. In my experiences at Burning Man, the average age approximates 40 years, and the IQ level supersedes that of most communities of 50,000. It is however, a largely caucasian event, but that is slowly and surely changing.

Reply

16 david September 10, 2007 at 9:15 am

Fox distorted the basic nature of events, his friends did not watch a suicide and think it was art. The guy who took his life did it in the camp of strangers, in one of their public structures. He was alone at the time. One person, also a stranger to the camp, came in later and mistook the dangling body for a mannequin.

Reply

17 James Ballenger September 10, 2007 at 3:14 pm

Eh, I do think that you are mis-representing the subject matter. It is on the FOXNEWS channel but this is their “answer” to the Daily Show. It’s supposed to be irreverent and a little low brow. I did think the joke calling any man who dated her a “burning man” was damn funny, though. Not an apologist for Fox at all, but all of the so called news channels are equally as offensive.

Reply

18 Christopher Swyer - Jarrow September 10, 2007 at 6:37 pm

I think we need to question the media and the press more often! It’s amazing how much power and influence they have over the public, and these shows that give so called celebs a soap box to air their opinions are just adding to the trash. Question everything you read and see people!

Reply

19 Mike September 10, 2007 at 9:26 pm

First off the I highly doubt that the friends of the deceased thought the act was art, more along the lines a fake body suspended from a ceiling, Tool used to do the same thing.

The mere fact that any news network would poke fun at and make light of the loss of life of anyone is totally uncalled for and should face some sort of social recoil.

The most disgusting part of this aspect is that such filth can be aired without a backlash. I’ve written this, rather poorly, in hopes of stirring an anit-FOX like effort. I, personally will not watch FOX after tomorrow, where I will spend the day writing down the companies who air their commercials on the FOX network so I can remember whose products I refuse to buy.

But hey its America and anyone can say what they want, however I don’t have to listen or financially support it.

Reply

20 Ross Williams September 11, 2007 at 5:18 pm

Having the opportunity to broadcast over the airwaves is a privilege not a right.

The privilege is maintained by reporting factual information. I am constantly amazed at how far we have veered off course from this basic notion.

Opinions are one thing…. and we are all entitled to express our perspectives, but these people just make asses out of themselves by expressing their perpectives that are more poorly informed than most 5 year olds.

Ignorance is always ugly …. and it’s downright disgusting when coupled with arrogance.

They all strike me as your typical sorority chicks and frat boys that revel in their litle world and think themselves “all that” in their small little minds.

Reply

21 photo cindy September 12, 2007 at 8:36 am

The entire span of time when someone ‘found him and thought it was art’ was about 10 seconds. Someone took his pulse and cut him down. He was not hanging for a long time, and the people in whose camp he did this were very upset and disturbed, but strangely honored that he chose their tent as his final resting place.

Reply

22 Laura Blnchard September 12, 2007 at 1:30 pm

It’s so nice being lied to by Scott Beale.

As stupid as I think Foxes show is; they did not step over that line.
They ridiculed the Burning Man experience.

If there was ever an event that was an idiot magnet, it’s Burning Man.

As evidenced by the fact that they let that poor guy dangle for two hours.,

Thanks for manipulating me into reading that ridiculous article; it won’t happen again.

Laura Blanchard

Reply

23 vicki thompson September 13, 2007 at 12:56 pm

I know the mother of the young man that for what ever reason chose to end his life. Her pain is unbearable. Fox New’s total disregard for this man’s family makes me physically ill. How could any responsible reporter add salt to the wounds of a family that have already experienced not only losing a son and brother, but to know their loved one was so unhappy he chose to leave them? As much as your reporting makes me sick, I still would not wish this to happen to anyone, including you. There is nothing you can do to ease this families pain, but the least you could do is not make their pain worse. YOU REALLY DO MAKE ME SICK

Reply

24 Lori Dorn September 13, 2007 at 1:57 pm

Vicki -

I hope that when you say “you” that you are referring to Fox News and not to Laughing Squid as LS is only reporting on what was said on Fox’s not very funny “comedy show”, Red Eye.

I do agree with your point however, that they (Fox) are insensitive, disrespectful and callow to the point of extreme nausea.

Reply

25 vicki thompson September 14, 2007 at 9:39 am

Lori

LOUD AND CLEAR FOX MAKES ME SICK!!!!! I am delighted that LS gives me the opportunity to say so.

Reply

26 JeffDaChef May 14, 2009 at 4:02 pm

I think it’s great that they have learned to make fun of death, the dead, and the stupid stoners who thought he was doing performance art and didn’t know the guy was dead.

Reply

27 Riggs September 18, 2009 at 11:46 am

He was my friend.

In high school.

EscondidoLocos….

Reply

Leave a Comment

You can use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Moderation: All comments are manually approved, so if your comment is approved it may take a while for your comment to appear on this blog post.

Irrelevant, obnoxious, trolling, abusive and spam comments will not be approved. Let's keep things civil and on topic. Basically what we are saying, if your comment does not add to the conversation, it will not be approved.

Real Name & Website: For the most part do not post anonymous comments. Please list your real name and provide a link to your website, blog, Twitter account, etc. You know who we are, so we ask the same of you.

Corrections: If you want to point out a typo or correction, please email us instead. Typo or correction comments will not be approved since they are pretty much useless once they are corrected and then only tend to confuse things.

Gravatars: If you would like a Gravatar to show up with your comment? Just sign-up for an account and any comment with your email address will display your Gravatar.

Previous post: Sticky Toffee & Spotted Dick

Next post: Hi Fructose Volume 5