Sometimes it takes an international tragedy to reveal the stupidity of those among us who dare to put on clothes, eat with opposable thumbs and call themselves humans.
Add Fox’s Brit Hume to the list. During Fox’s coverage of the London bombings, Hume told Shepard Smith that his “first thought” upon learning of the attacks was that it’s “time to buy” in the futures market. And this from a guy whose name is “Brit.”
I would have thought Hume was joking, but then I remembered that Hume’s broadcasts have all the humor of a C-SPAN Booknotes marathon. Here’s a partial transcript of the conversation from Media Matters:
SMITH: Some of the things you might expect to happen, for instance, a drop in the stock market and some degree of uncertainty across this country — none of that really seen today, and I wonder if the timing of it — that it happened in the middle of the night and we were able to get a sense of the grander scheme of things — wasn’t helpful in all this.
HUME: Well, maybe. The other thing is, of course, people have — you know, the market was down. It was down yesterday, and you know, you may have had some bargain-hunting going on. I mean, my first thought when I heard — just on a personal basis, when I heard there had been this attack and I saw the futures this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought, "Hmmm, time to buy." Others may have thought that as well.
No, Hume, others did not think that as well. Others thought about the victims and their families. Others thought about terrorism and threats to their own safety. Others followed developments online via blogs and Technorati tags and Flickr photos, and sought out a deeper connection and understanding of an event that any right or left-minded person could see was a sad, tragic, cowardly act.
Either Hume was this ignorant when he worked for ABC, or joining Fox News makes people stupid (don’t get me started on Chris Wallace). But no matter the reason, Hume’s comment was at best ill timed and at worst egregiously insensitive, and he should apologize.
(Hat tip – James Wolcott).
Gary Goldhammer -- Strategic storytelling for brands, organizations and executives 
Even if deep down inside some of us did think ‘well there goes the markets,’ to actually SAY it on television… It just shows a complete lack of any filtering mechanism.
As for Chris Wallace, do you think his dad is demanding he drop the Wallace name?
Forget Janet Jackson and the Super Bowl — I think we need to put a five-second delay on Fox News 🙂 And yes, I think Mike walks around the house all day muttering to his slippers, “Son? I have no son.”