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As many of you know, earlier in the week, there was a very negative piece about Key West on the Bill O'Reilly show done by his colleague, Jesse Watters, in one of his installments of "Watters' World," which O'Reilly clearly endorsed. Rather than rehash the whole thing here, you can read my initial reaction here.
Because some people couldn't keep their comments non-fratchable, I have decided to post this update here in fratching. So, with that said, on to the update!
This past Friday, there was a front page article on the whole thing in the Key West Citizen, our daily newspaper down here. I would post a link to it, as they have an online edition, but to read a whole article, one must actually subscribe to the online edition, so that won't really work for our purposes here. So I'll basically just repost the article here:
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Fox News outrages locals, leaders
Fictional New Yorker article also unflattering about island
City leaders on Thursday were divided over whether to send a formal response to the Fox News network over a recent segment that mocked Key West as a haven for low-rent drunks who can't identify Vice President Joe Biden.
Host Bill O'Reilly also concludes in the show that Key West is no place for families to vacation.
"People on vacation with kids?" O'Reilly asks. "No. You go to Islamorada, Key Largo, fine."
In a piece only four minutes and 43 seconds long, Fox correspondent Jesse Watters, a regular on "The O'Reilly Factor," interviews several purported locals about life on the far-flung tropical island.
"Hookers and blow," says one visor-wearing man when asked what Key West residents do for fun. Another man readily admits to scamming his food stamp card for cash to buy vodka and cigarettes and asks, "What's that?" when Watters brings up Obamacare.
But city leaders say they don't know anyone who is laughing.
"It's kind of a cheap shot," said city Commissioner Billy Wardlow.
"There are too many good people in this town that work very hard to keep this town afloat."
Wardlow has asked City Manager Bob Vitas to prepare a letter to present to the commission, which doesn't meet again until January. The commissioners could sign something in the interim, Wardlow suggested.
But although he was among the first in Key West to post his disgust for the piece on his Facebook page, city Commissioner Tony Yaniz on Thursday asked locals to post their favorite memories about Key West and put the Fox slam behind them.
Key West High School senior Brock Guzman, however, plans to make a video response to the Fox piece that includes interviews with locals such as Mayor Craig Cates, whose recorded segment was excluded from Watters' final piece.
"While both insulting and embarrassing, the video also conveys false information that will easily hurt the reputation of Key West," Guzman said in an email to the mayor.
"The good that came out of this show is how our community came together to defend our reputation and show their pride," said Cates, who recalled watching "Watters' World" live Monday night only to be stunned by its direction.
"They don't have telephones, the Internet, they don't even have bank accounts," Watters tells O'Reilly while laughing. "They're running from the law most of the time. I didn't see one police officer."
Cates bashed the segment on his Facebook page. "They found the roughest and drunkest people to interview and led them on to say what they wanted. They interviewed myself and others that were normal but didn't choose to use that footage."
But by Wednesday, the mayor was saying that perhaps the city shouldn't formally respond.
That's what the Monroe County Tourist Development Council (TDC) decided after leaders held some meetings and made some calls for counsel to those in the tourism industry outside the Florida Keys.
"We've seen it, we've chosen not to react to it," said TDC Executive Director Harold Wheeler.
"The question is: Do we think the segment will have a negative impact on tourism to Key West? We do not believe that it will do any harm."
Wheeler said he was familiar with the show.
"It's obviously intended to be humorous and pick out certain issues that have been in the news," he said. "They always get that Joe Biden question."
The "O'Reilly Factor" edition opens with O'Reilly describing Key West as "the end of the USA in more ways than one, a notorious outlaw town."
Watters folds in clips from movies like "Animal House" and "The Breakfast Club" and a scolding Tony from "The Sopranos," presenting the segment as shtick.
O'Reilly said after the segment that he has been visiting Key West since 1971.
"I go down there undercover, though," he said, adding that no one in Key West knows him because they don't watch television.
Watters sums up his Key West findings with an analogy he just learned: "If you shake the country, all the sediment winds up in Florida," he tells O'Reilly. "And then if you shake Florida, the rest of the mess goes to Key West."
Wardlow said: "Some say it's tongue-in-cheek, but this is our community. I don't think we deserve that kind of publicity."
Another longtime city leader said Key West should shake it off and move on.
"Let it die. What are you going to respond to?" said Virginia Panico, executive vice president of the Key West Chamber of Commerce.
"It happens to everybody. You can't control the press. Take your shot and move on."
Panico said she talked with Watters at the chamber's holiday party while he was in town.
"He loved Key West and said he was going to come on vacation with his wife and two little children," Panico said. "I think he better come in disguise."
Other locals declared the Fox segment political fodder, and they said Key West's reputation was just collateral damage in the war on the poor.
"It has absolutely nothing to do with Key West," said John Martini, a sculptor who also used his Facebook page to respond to the piece.
"The Republicans want to cut food stamps and they already have. It has to do with keeping the right wing excited about food stamps. They want to eliminate the safety net entirely."
On the other end of the publishing spectrum, another national outlet with a widely different demographic than Fox News unleashed another sting to Key West, although via a work of fiction.
Also released on Monday, The New Yorker magazine published a short story depicting a circle of Key Westers in an unflattering light.
"The Late Novels of Gene Hackman," was written by Rivka Galchen, a 2012 panelist at the annual Key West Literary Seminar.
"...the locals were relatively unfit. And a little flushed in the face. Like alcoholics."
"J," the protagonist, a writer visting Key West as a guest of a conference, also notes that "locals are called Bubbas," and that everyone seemed to feel superior to them.
"And I think for a time, supposedly, this was a fashionable town," J tells her stepmother, Q. "Artists and gay people."
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So I'm currently not sure if the idea of passing a resolution to "ban" O'Reilly and Watters from Key West is actually going to come to fruition, but I think it would be great if it did. Sure, it wouldn't be legally binding, but it would get us some positive publicity as we took a shot across their bow. Whether or not the city leaders do that, I am trying to talk my boss into doing something like that.
Something tells me this story is far from over.....
Because some people couldn't keep their comments non-fratchable, I have decided to post this update here in fratching. So, with that said, on to the update!
This past Friday, there was a front page article on the whole thing in the Key West Citizen, our daily newspaper down here. I would post a link to it, as they have an online edition, but to read a whole article, one must actually subscribe to the online edition, so that won't really work for our purposes here. So I'll basically just repost the article here:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fox News outrages locals, leaders
Fictional New Yorker article also unflattering about island
City leaders on Thursday were divided over whether to send a formal response to the Fox News network over a recent segment that mocked Key West as a haven for low-rent drunks who can't identify Vice President Joe Biden.
Host Bill O'Reilly also concludes in the show that Key West is no place for families to vacation.
"People on vacation with kids?" O'Reilly asks. "No. You go to Islamorada, Key Largo, fine."
In a piece only four minutes and 43 seconds long, Fox correspondent Jesse Watters, a regular on "The O'Reilly Factor," interviews several purported locals about life on the far-flung tropical island.
"Hookers and blow," says one visor-wearing man when asked what Key West residents do for fun. Another man readily admits to scamming his food stamp card for cash to buy vodka and cigarettes and asks, "What's that?" when Watters brings up Obamacare.
But city leaders say they don't know anyone who is laughing.
"It's kind of a cheap shot," said city Commissioner Billy Wardlow.
"There are too many good people in this town that work very hard to keep this town afloat."
Wardlow has asked City Manager Bob Vitas to prepare a letter to present to the commission, which doesn't meet again until January. The commissioners could sign something in the interim, Wardlow suggested.
But although he was among the first in Key West to post his disgust for the piece on his Facebook page, city Commissioner Tony Yaniz on Thursday asked locals to post their favorite memories about Key West and put the Fox slam behind them.
Key West High School senior Brock Guzman, however, plans to make a video response to the Fox piece that includes interviews with locals such as Mayor Craig Cates, whose recorded segment was excluded from Watters' final piece.
"While both insulting and embarrassing, the video also conveys false information that will easily hurt the reputation of Key West," Guzman said in an email to the mayor.
"The good that came out of this show is how our community came together to defend our reputation and show their pride," said Cates, who recalled watching "Watters' World" live Monday night only to be stunned by its direction.
"They don't have telephones, the Internet, they don't even have bank accounts," Watters tells O'Reilly while laughing. "They're running from the law most of the time. I didn't see one police officer."
Cates bashed the segment on his Facebook page. "They found the roughest and drunkest people to interview and led them on to say what they wanted. They interviewed myself and others that were normal but didn't choose to use that footage."
But by Wednesday, the mayor was saying that perhaps the city shouldn't formally respond.
That's what the Monroe County Tourist Development Council (TDC) decided after leaders held some meetings and made some calls for counsel to those in the tourism industry outside the Florida Keys.
"We've seen it, we've chosen not to react to it," said TDC Executive Director Harold Wheeler.
"The question is: Do we think the segment will have a negative impact on tourism to Key West? We do not believe that it will do any harm."
Wheeler said he was familiar with the show.
"It's obviously intended to be humorous and pick out certain issues that have been in the news," he said. "They always get that Joe Biden question."
The "O'Reilly Factor" edition opens with O'Reilly describing Key West as "the end of the USA in more ways than one, a notorious outlaw town."
Watters folds in clips from movies like "Animal House" and "The Breakfast Club" and a scolding Tony from "The Sopranos," presenting the segment as shtick.
O'Reilly said after the segment that he has been visiting Key West since 1971.
"I go down there undercover, though," he said, adding that no one in Key West knows him because they don't watch television.
Watters sums up his Key West findings with an analogy he just learned: "If you shake the country, all the sediment winds up in Florida," he tells O'Reilly. "And then if you shake Florida, the rest of the mess goes to Key West."
Wardlow said: "Some say it's tongue-in-cheek, but this is our community. I don't think we deserve that kind of publicity."
Another longtime city leader said Key West should shake it off and move on.
"Let it die. What are you going to respond to?" said Virginia Panico, executive vice president of the Key West Chamber of Commerce.
"It happens to everybody. You can't control the press. Take your shot and move on."
Panico said she talked with Watters at the chamber's holiday party while he was in town.
"He loved Key West and said he was going to come on vacation with his wife and two little children," Panico said. "I think he better come in disguise."
Other locals declared the Fox segment political fodder, and they said Key West's reputation was just collateral damage in the war on the poor.
"It has absolutely nothing to do with Key West," said John Martini, a sculptor who also used his Facebook page to respond to the piece.
"The Republicans want to cut food stamps and they already have. It has to do with keeping the right wing excited about food stamps. They want to eliminate the safety net entirely."
On the other end of the publishing spectrum, another national outlet with a widely different demographic than Fox News unleashed another sting to Key West, although via a work of fiction.
Also released on Monday, The New Yorker magazine published a short story depicting a circle of Key Westers in an unflattering light.
"The Late Novels of Gene Hackman," was written by Rivka Galchen, a 2012 panelist at the annual Key West Literary Seminar.
"...the locals were relatively unfit. And a little flushed in the face. Like alcoholics."
"J," the protagonist, a writer visting Key West as a guest of a conference, also notes that "locals are called Bubbas," and that everyone seemed to feel superior to them.
"And I think for a time, supposedly, this was a fashionable town," J tells her stepmother, Q. "Artists and gay people."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
So I'm currently not sure if the idea of passing a resolution to "ban" O'Reilly and Watters from Key West is actually going to come to fruition, but I think it would be great if it did. Sure, it wouldn't be legally binding, but it would get us some positive publicity as we took a shot across their bow. Whether or not the city leaders do that, I am trying to talk my boss into doing something like that.
Something tells me this story is far from over.....
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