Fox Television's "library" statement

Trashy programmer Fox Television should reconsider their onair thoughts.

"US libraries hit back at Fox News"

Chicago official 'astounded' after report on channel questions spending of public money on libraries

by

Alison Flood

July 8th, 2010

guardian.co.uk

Chicago's public library commissioner has hit back at a report on Fox News that suggested libraries are a "waste of tax money", saying that the argument posed by the story was a "non-starter" and a contributor who suggested salaries in the public sector were higher than those in the private sector was "simply wrong".

Last week's Fox News slot on Chicago's libraries saw the rightwing American television channel question whether they were still needed. "There are 799 public libraries in Illinois. And they're busy. People borrow more than 88m times a year. But keeping libraries running costs big money. In Chicago, the city pumps $120m a year into them. A full 2.5% of our yearly property taxes go to fund them. That's money that could go elsewhere – like for schools ... police or pensions," the Fox report said. "Libraries are quiet havens for the community. They can take you to another world ... But should these institutions – that date back to 1900 BC – be on the way out?"

Now, the Chicago public library commissioner, Mary A Dempsey, has responded, saying that she was "astounded at the lack of understanding" the Fox report showed and pointing to the 12m visitors that Chicago's public libraries receive every year, the 10m items checked out from the libraries' 74 locations in 2009 and the 3.8m free one-hour internet sessions the people of Chicago used last year.

She took particular issue with an "undercover" section of the report, which counted about 300 visitors using the Harold Washington library over the course of one hour. "Most of them were using the free internet. The bookshelves weren't so busy," said Fox.

"Your 'undercover cameras' shots were taken in a series of stacks devoted to bound periodicals used for reference. Next time, try looking at the circulating collections throughout the building," responded Dempsey in a letter to Fox.

"The public library is supported by taxpayers for the common good of all the people of Chicago – just like public school. We don't ask our schools to make profit. Neither should we ask it of the public library," she said. "As journalist Walter Cronkite once remarked, 'Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.'"