With the Alabama Senate election taking place in less than a week, the news has been dominated by the scandal and allegations of sexual assault directed at Repubican candidate Roy Moore. On Friday, Fox News came under fire for jumping the gun on a story about one of the women who accused Moore of harassment and assault.

Fox News on Moore

Heading into this Tuesday's special Senate election, the original consensus was that Roy Moore would walk away with an easy win in the red state of Alabama. Then came the Washington Post story that claimed Moore had been attempting to engage in various sexual acts with underage girls for the better part of the last 40 years.

Since then, additional women have come forward to tell their own stories, including Beverly Young Nelson who claims Moore sexually assaulted her in a locked car when she was only 16-years-old. Doubling down on her story, Nelson provided her high school yearbook as evidence which shows a message allegedly written by Moore. The Republican candidate has denied all wrongdoing, and claims he doesn't even know most of the accusers. On Thursday, Nelson came forward to admit that she added additional notes to the yearbook, including writing in the date, which was enough for Fox News and others in the conservative media to accuse her of forgery. As reported by Mediaite on December 8, Fox News has walked back their fake news reporting after accusing Nelson of forgery.

In a headline reading "Roy Moore accuser admits she forged part of yearbook inscription attributed to Alabama senate candidate," Fox News posted the story to various social media platforms which received thousands of likes, shares, and comments in return.

Other right-wing news outlets like Breitbart ran similar stories, incorrectly casting doubt on the validity of the yearbook signature.

In response to the backlash from critics on social media and in the press, Fox News altered their original headline, this time writing that "Roy Moore accuser admits she wrote part of yearbook inscription." Despite this, the damage appears to have already been done as Moore supporters and other conservatives have been pushing the fake news "forgery" story since the original report was posted.

According the most recent round of polling, Moore and Democratic opponent Doug Jones are running in a tight race, with both polling within the margin of error.

Trump support

With the election just days away, Roy Moore does have the support of Donald Trump, who went all in during a Thursday morning tweet. The president called on Alabama voters to "vote Roy Moore," while bashing Doug Jones in the process.
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