As GamePolitics alerted you to late Tuesday, yesterday’s Fox & Friends morning show aired a segment covering Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

The short segment was introduced by host Steve Doocy, who began, “A popular new videogame actually allows you (points at camera) to be a terrorist and kill people.” He asked, “Is this fantasy game just a little too real and is it appropriate?” before kicking off a “fair and balanced” debate on the subject with Jim Steyer of Common Sense Media and John Christensen from SlashGamer.com.

Steyer was concerned about the age of the person playing the game, while a flummoxed Christensen attempted to explain the context of the scene in question.

Doocy followed up with the question, “Is it ever appropriate to simulate killing people?”

Steyer replied, “We live in a world of free speech so you can create these games. The issue for violent videogames is there’s no question that there is a correlation between videogame violence and screen violence and aggression in real life. The American Academy of Pediatrics just came out with a statement about that. The violence is the issue… you need to use common sense in terms of using games like this.”

GP: Of course, other researchers have refuted a suggested link between violent games and aggression. Overall, a less than engaging debate. What do you think?

Thanks KayleL

It was only a matter of time before Fox News got involved in the issue of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and we have confirmation that they will tackle the game tomorrow morning during the Fox & Friends show.

The ECA, which operates GamePolitics, received an email from FOX News around 11 a.m. EST today asking to speak to an "expert gamer" about the controversies surrounding the game. The pertinent part of the email:

Hello,

I write to inquire about a possible interview tomorrow on Fox & Friends. We're the morning show of the Fox News Channel, and are planning on doing a segment on the new Xbox game, Modern Warfare 2. We're hoping to have a debate on the game, and would love to speak to an expert gamer on the controversies surrounding the game. The debate is for 6:50am tomorrow morning, on camera.

The email came to Jason Andersen, the ECA's director of PR. When he responded that the ECA might be interested but they needed more information, he did not receive an answer. So it appears that the ECA will not be the representative side of the games industry.

Hal Halpin, president of the ECA, said that he heard from other sources that FOX wanted to "discuss the ethics and morals that game developers employ when making decisions about what content/direction to employ when they're creating games."

GP: We all know what a pillar of integrity FOX News can be when it comes to covering video games, remembering in particular their coverage of the alien sex simulator that was Mass Effect. Cooper Lawrence, an author used by FOX to bash Mass Effect, later recanted her comments saying:

"Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it's like pornography. But it's not like pornography. I've seen episodes of Lost that are more sexually explicit."

So it will be interesting to see how they handle this, seeing as there is already a lot of misinformation about the Modern Warfare 2 terrorist sequence in the mainstream press. Hopefully, whoever responds for "the gamer" will be able to hold their own as well as Geoff Keighley did against Cooper Lawrence.

Watch the episode tomorrow at 6:50 a.m. and tell us what you think.

Update: For a cartoonist's take on the Fox News coverage, check out Crispy Gamer's Backward Compatible.

Last Sunday morning, a Utah police officer chased a car that blew through stop signs and narrowly missed a pedestrian.  Imagine the pursuing cop’s surprise when the car came to a stop and out popped a 7-year-old boy.

On Thursday, Captain Klint Anderson of the Weber County Sheriff’s Office spoke of the incident to Fox News.  Young Preston Scarbrough told police he had taken the family car because he didn’t want to go to church that morning (he later told his mom he just wanted to give driving a go).

Fox News: “How did he even learn how to [drive]?”

Anderson: “Well, we’re not exactly sure except that his father has grounded him from one of his video games which involves operating vehicles so…”

Fox News: “Something like a Grand Theft Auto, something like that?”

Anderson: “I have no idea.  I didn’t ask the father what game it was but some of those video games are pretty realistic.”

The following day, the Scarbrough family appeared on NBC's Today Show.  Preston’s father, who initially thought the police sirens outside were coming from one of his boy’s video games, confirmed that the little lawbreaker had been grounded for four days with no TV or games.

We’re going to throw away those driving video games for sure.

Preston, for his part, explained how he learned to drive.

Watched my mom. Watched my sister.

Video of the Today Show segment can be seen here and here.

-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics Correspondent Andrew Eisen…

Cleveland's Fox 8 has a video report (not embeddable, unfortunately) - including courtroom footage - on yesterday's sentencing of Daniel Petric.

The 17-year-old was sentenced by Judge James Burge from 23 years to life in prison for the 2007 murder of his mother and wounding of his father. The incident was apparently sparked over the parents refusal to permit their son to play Halo 3.

On Fox and Friends this morning the debate over Six Days in Fallujah is back in the news.

Joining host Gretchen Carlson are Atomic Games president Peter Tamte, retired USMC Capt. Read Omohundro, an advisor on the project and Tracy Miller, who lost a son in the Fallujah fighting.

Via: Kotaku

Fox News offers its take on the cancellation of Rendition: Guantanamo, including an interview with Pete Hegseth of Vets For Freedom.

Hegseth, who served with the U.S. military in Iraq and as a guard at Guantanamo Bay, was also interviewed by conservative newspaper the Washington Times:

[Rendition: Guantanamo] looked like to us a blatant attempt to twist reality and change the perception of the American soldier...

 

We need to keep [pressure] on guys like [former Guantanamo detainee] Moazzam Begg and what they are trying to do in rewriting history at Guantanamo: That our troops are oppressors and that the detainees are all victims.

GamePolitics readers will surely recall numerous incidents of the mainstream media getting its undies in a twist over some video game issue or another.

GamesRadar has a roundup of some of the more memorable dust-ups between the game sector and T.V. talking heads.

The Top 7 Hated Habits of the Mainstream Media is worth a look and will probably be familiar to GP readers since some of the source material for the piece originated here.

On Fox News program The O'Reilly Factor, pundit Bill O'Reilly tries to drag Heidi Klum's Guitar Hero commercial into the culture wars, but even his two conservative female guests don't want to go there.

At issue is Heidi's Risky Business-inspired Guitar Hero shredding routine. O'Reilly is apparently concerned about the the moral effects of the commercial, featuring a lingerie-clad Klum, airing in prime time.

Then again, O'Reilly has never been much of a fan of video games. Or iPods. Or Blackberries. But Mr. Morality does enjoy a good loofa.

GP: Thanks to GP jack-of-all-trades Andrew Eisen for the sharp eyes...

Famed Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto (#73) and Activision Blizzard Chairman Bobby Kotick (#72) are the only two video game luminaries to make the Vanity Fair 100, writes Newsweek's N'Gai Croal:

[Miyamoto & Kotick's] respective rankings...sandwiched between architect William McDonough and the aforementioned cybergossip Matt Drudge--are a full 40 spots below where [former CEO Larry] Probst and Electronic Arts placed just a few years ago. (For what it's worth, EA CEO John Riccitiello did not make the list, which may provide more incentive to close that deal with Take-Two.)

 

And this despite the videogame industry tracking to record revenues for the year. We're not sure what the solution is--it's difficult to picture Vanity Fair's silver-haired editor Graydon Carter raiding in WoW, rocking out with Guitar Hero or working out to Wii Fit--but videogame's top talents can't outrank on-their-last-legs performers like Robert De Niro (#59) and Mick Jagger (#61), something's rotten at [deal-making restaurant] Michael's.
 

GP: On the other hand, Sony's Howard Stringer (#39) and Bono (#36), who owns a piece of Pandemic (Mercenaries 2) are also on the list. True, games may not be their primary focus, but still...

At #2 is Rupert Murdoch who owns the game-hatin' Fox News.

Jim Adkisson, the man who carried out a horrific church shooting in Knoxville on Sunday, is apparently a fan of conservative pundits Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage and Sean Hannity.

The Knoxville News-Sentinel reports that investigators found books written by all three while searching Adkisson's home. The 58-year-old killer told police that his rampage was sparked by feelings of outrage over liberalism.

So, did the conservative writings whip him into a killing frenzy?

It's a stupid question, of course. But if Adkisson was 40 years younger and the cops found Grand Theft Auto 4 and Halo 3 in his room, would some conservative pundits - or perhaps their game-hatin' guests - be speculating that the killer "trained" on video games?

You bet they would.

Overcompensating has a great comic on this...

A fist bump?

A pound?

A terrorist fist jab?

With those words, Fox News talking head E.D. Hill ignited a bit of a controversy last month. Hill was referring to a small, celebratory bumping of fists between Barack and Michelle Obama. The "terrorist fist jab" comment would eventually lead to an on-air apology from Hill.

A parody video has placed Obama in a Mortal Kombat setting with the terrorist fist jab as his special attack.

GP: Pretty funny stuff and we thank reader Scott Snell for the heads-up...

When violent video game controveries flare, it's often said that critics are unintentionally increasing traffic to the game in question.

Such appears to be the case with The Torture Game 2.

The amateur, online game has been attracting no small amout of attention lately, including a parental alert from watchdog group the Parents Television Council.

The free game is available at online gaming portals Newgrounds and Kongregate.

But a message posted by Newgrounds guru Tom Fulp documents that the controversy is actually bringing many new players to the game:

The latest controversy has been surrounding The Torture Game 2, a fun little ragdoll physics engine that lets you do all sorts of horrible things to a lifeless dummy. Sensible Erection put together a gallery of all the fancy artwork you can create with TG2... at which point Derek Yu made a post about it on TIGSource and a whole debate erupted.

 

MSNBC picked up on the TIGSource debate and posted their own article about the game, but the real fun came when FOX News weighed in with a Fair & Balanced video, expressing their disgust while showing real-time footage of the person being tortured. Hey! At least we slapped a MATURE rating on the game and made you click a link to view it... Fox just dumped it into every living room in America!

 

As a result of their efforts, many more people are now enjoying The Torture Game 2.

 The Fox News video mentioned by Fulp appears at left.