So much for "zero tolerance"

Apparently, Fox News has even less journalistic integrity than Andrew Breitbart.

Yesterday, Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson falsely claimed that ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis had visited the White House in September. Carlson's claim was presumably based on Breitbart's report that a "Bertha E. Lewis" - who he claimed was the ACORN CEO - turned up in the White House visitor logs released in December. As I've pointed out, Politico's Ben Smith reported days ago that he had checked out Breitbart's claim, calling up the White House, who told him that the Bertha Lewis in the logs wasn't ACORN's, and ACORN, who told him their CEO's middle initial wasn't E.

After Carlson regurgitated this right-wing falsehood that had been debunked days earlier, Ari Rabin-Havt, Media Matters' Vice President for Communications and Research, wrote a letter to Fox News Senior Vice President Michael Clemente asking how this error would be handled in light of the "zero tolerance" policy the network supposedly instituted in November.

We haven't heard back.

A funny thing happened in the last 24 hours, though. Breitbart issued a belated correction to his post, acknowledging that the White House says that the Bertha Lewis who visited wasn't the ACORN CEO, and that he has no evidence to the contrary. Meanwhile, Fox & Friends went quiet, issuing no correction to their false reporting.

It's pretty sad day for a national news network when you make Andrew Breitbart look responsible.