RIP Deborah Yesner

This past Tuesday, we lost a key individual who made it her personal mission to try to keep exposing Fox News as anything but a "fair and balanced" news organization. After working as one of the researchers for Robert Greenwald's documentary, Outfoxed, Deborah and her fellow researchers decided to keep monitoring Fox's failed attempt at neutral journalism by setting up the News Hounds blog.

Following is an excerpt from a moving tribute posted by Melanie, a friend and colleague of Deborah's:

Deborah Yesner was one of us; one of the original eight. She taught special needs kids in her real life. She worked all day — five days a week — at that thankless job. Exhausted, frustrated, underpaid, she’d come home and — how she found the energy I don’t know other than to say that it was a testament to how much she believed in what she was doing — she’d monitor Bill O’Reilly; The Factor. (Can you imagine doing that after a hard day’s work?) She’d spend an hour watching the show and then an hour or three posting about it — for four years — for no pay mind you, other than the pittance in donations we’d split among us every quarter. (ChrisBG, another member of our group, figured it out at one point: we were bringing in roughly 6¢ and hour for the hours we worked.)

Every day that Fox News broadcasts is a day that we need someone as tenacious as Deborah to call them out on their bullshit.

Thank you, Deborah, for all you've done.

[H/T to BlueGal]