DENNIS MYERS Against the Grain Advertisement

Last week we watched an urban myth unfold right before our eyes.

Fox News and a little known member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Trent Franks of Arizona, claimed that federal stimulus money was being used for a railroad running from Disneyland to a brothel in Lyon County, Nevada.

"Critics say it [stimulus legislation] contains over 9,000 earmarks, and they say one of those is based in Senate majority leader Harry Reid's home state of Nevada -- a super-railroad, of sorts, a line that will deliver customers straight from Disney, we kid you not, to the doorstep of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch in Nevada," Fox anchor Megyn Kelly said. She then hauled out the obscure Mr. Franks.

"When you raise this criticism with anyone from the Obama administration, they don't like it, they say it's not fair, because there is no line item in this budget that specifically directs the project out to that rail line," Kelly asked Franks. "They say there's $8 billion in there for, you know, railroad projects, but not specifically for that one. Is their defense valid?"

Franks then replied: "Well, no. The majority leader of the U.S. Senate, Harry Reid, has fought for this publicly and is committed to this project and even in the face of criticism and it's always astonishing to me -- you know, at one point we had the bridge to nowhere, now we have the train to the Moonlite Bunny Ranch."

There it was -- the sound bite that is always needed to give someone his 15 minutes of fame. Had the hapless Mr. Franks gotten his facts straight, it would have been a much more pleasant 15 minutes. But he came no closer to the truth than Fox comes to journalism and was soon a nationwide joke. It's not often that newspapers can flat out call someone a liar, as the Las Vegas Sun did Franks last week ("Congressman lies about Las Vegas railroad"), but the Texas man gave his critics the ammunition they needed.

It's not clear why Fox chose Franks instead of someone familiar with the stimulus for this story. His committees are Judiciary and Armed Services. Someone on Appropriations would have worked better, unless the network wanted someone unfamiliar with the stimulus bill. In that case, Franks was their guy.

There are a few things that are important to note here.

One: There is a plan for a tourist railroad running from Gold Hill to Carson City. Officials plan to name it after the historic Virginia and Truckee Railroad that used a somewhat different route. If constructed, it will pass through the hamlet of Mound House, home of the Moonlite.

Two: There is a plan for a high speed train between Southern California and Las Vegas.

Three: The two projects are unrelated and there is no plan for a railroad from Disneyland to the Moonlite.

Four: The anchor lead-in to this story (third paragraph above) was so melodramatic and emotionally loaded that it tainted the whole report.

Five: The stimulus package contains $8 billion for high speed trains, representing a change in federal policy intended to encourage more mass rail transit and less highway construction. "The money represents the first major step toward establishing a genuine high-speed train network in the United States ..." reports the Washington Post. Both of the Nevada rail projects are eligible for this money, but the Gold Hill project employs older slow moving locomotives and probably would not received funding. The Las Vegas project is a more likely contender. Neither project is guaranteed any of the money. There are no "earmarks" for the two projects.

Fox reported a claim that there IS an earmark for a "Disneyland/Moonlite" railroad and also reported a claim that there is NOT such an earmark. It gave the viewer no basis on which to judge who was right. It did not bother to check the language of the legislation itself and report the results.

Fox further did not contact the two railroad projects to get their responses, nor did it have a spokesperson for Sen. Reid present to respond to Franks' claims, raising ethical questions.

The network had time to schedule an interview with Franks, had time to dig up a photo of scantily clad women which was apparently meant to represent the women at the Moonlite (though there was no caption saying so, which may mean it is just a generic photo of scantily clad women), but did not go to the trouble of doing any reporting on the story -- except, apparently, to call some prostitutes at Moonlite (Kelly: "The bunnies are very happy about this development").

Does it matter? Well, what is done to Harry Reid is also done to others. George Bush the Younger, for instance -- the Snopes urban legend site lists common false claims about him like these: Bush refused to sell his home to blacks. Bush had the lowest IQ of any president in the last half century. Bush said, "The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur." Bush once waved at Stevie Wonder. There is a photo of Bush holding a book upside down.

And these things never seem to die out, even after they are disproven. "Myths are stories that express meaning, morality or motivation. Whether they are true or not is irrelevant," said Michael Shermer, author of the book "Why People Believe Weird Things."

Franks had the grace and integrity to admit error. Fox did not, which speaks volumes about the network's lack of professionalism and integrity.