It seems every time I sit down to write an editorial something happens in such a way that I must re-write it all from scratch. I was doing what most other online journalists where able to do yesterday and that’s to condemn Fox News 411 writer Roger Friedman for reviewing a pirated copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. However, things have changed according to Deadline Hollywood ‘s Nikki Finke.
In my previous article I had posted a statement that AICN had received from Fox stating that what he had done was “reprehensible”. Early today Brad from Rope of Silicon received another statement which reads as follows:
“Roger Friedman’s views in no way reflect the views of News Corporation. We, along with 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, have been a consistent leader in the fight against piracy and have zero tolerance for any action that encourages and promotes piracy. Once we learned of Roger Friedman’s post we asked Fox News to remove it, which they did immediately.”
You could read the article, by using Google cache. However, it’s now showing the article that replaced it when Fox News pulled it down.
Finke has this statement from an unnamed source regarding what will become known as Friedman’s public hanging – “He promoted piracy. He basically suggested that viewing a stolen film is OK, which is absolutely intolerable. So we fired him”.
I must applaud Fox for its swift action regarding this matter.
