Oddly, if you do a search of Foxnews.com using the words knoxville tennessee shooting you get 36 hits but none are about this particular story:

If you search for the shooter by name you’ll find nothing at all on Fox’s website:

Go to CNN.com or MSNBC.com and do the same searches and you’ll find 4 or more hits.

So, why would Fox not want to publish any stories about this event? Well, actually, they’ve put up a few stories (here, here and here). I found them by going to Google and doing a search for knoxville tennessee shooting “Fox News”.

I wonder why Fox News wouldn’t want you to be able to find these stories by doing a search on their site? Hmmm, could the fact that the authorities found a book by Bill O’Reilly and one by Sean Hannity in Adkisson’s home have anything to do with it? After all, both work for Fox News.

From knoxnews.com

Inside the house, officers found “Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder” by radio talk show host Michael Savage, “Let Freedom Ring” by talk show host Sean Hannity, and “The O’Reilly Factor,” by television talk show host Bill O’Reilly.

None of the pieces you can find on Fox News by searching Google mention the books found in Adkisson’s home.

So why would Fox try to block these stories from their site? It would be easy enough to leave them up. After all, none of them mention the books written by Fox News employees. By not mentioning the books they’re already acting like Adkisson wasn’t a fanatic who may have found guidance in some of their hate filled words.

Blocking these stories from their own search engine, though, suggests that Fox News would rather no one even knew about the shooting. How better to hide the connection to the shooter however thin it may be? I’m surprised Fox News hasn’t taken the stories down altogether.

Am I trying to suggest that Fox or any of these writers made Adkisson snap? Not at all. But their writings could have easily given Adkisson the justification he needed for his attack.

Don’t agree? What do you think these quotes were promoting?

I just wish Katrina had only hit the United Nations building, nothing else, just had flooded them out, and I wouldn’t have rescued them. – Bill O’Reilly during his radio talk show on 9/14/05

Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you’re not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead. And if Al-Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we’re not going to do anything about it. We’re going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead. – Bill O’Reilly during his radio talk show on 11/8/05

I’ll tell you who should be tortured and killed at Guantanamo: every filthy Democrat in the U.S. Congress. – Sean Hannity on Hannity & Colmes show on 6/15/05

The Left may be sincere, but they’re sincerely wrong. And they must be challenged and defeated if we are to win this war on terror and preserve our way of life for this and future generations. – Sean Hannity from Let Freedom Ring

Let’s not forget that the full title for Hannity’s book is Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty Over Liberalism. By using the imagery of war, the title of the book and the quote above suggest that people need to die.

Fox News can’t hide the news by blocking their own search engine from showing anything to do with this tragic event. They can only make it look like they feel some level of culpability in Adkisson’s actions. Or shame.

Hat tip to my friend Bartleby who mentioned her own futile search in an e-mail to me.

Technorati Tags: Bill O'Reilly, Fox News, Jim Adkisson, Sean Hannity, Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church