Before admitting a "breakdown," Fox aggressively denied prematurely covering Sherrod story
Fox News Senior Vice President Michael Clemente has now admitted that a "breakdown" allowed Foxnews.com to run a story about Shirley Sherrod's comments before she resigned. Prior to this statement, a barrage of Fox personalities aggressively pushed the claim that Fox had not run with the story before Sherrod's resignation.
Clemente admits a "breakdown" led FoxNews.com to cover Sherrod video prior to resignation
Clemente: A "breakdown" led to FoxNews.com covering Sherrod story prematurely. As Media Matters previously reported, FoxNews.com ran an article headlined "Video Shows USDA Official Saying She Didn't Give 'Full Force' of Help to White Farmer," before the USDA announced Sherrod's resignation on July 19. On July 28, Clemente told Politico that that story was "a mistake" and that "There was a breakdown in the system and it is being addressed." Politico added: "The breakdown occurred following Fox's afternoon news meeting that day, when Clemente, according to The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz offered the following advice: 'Let's take our time and get the facts straight on this story. Can we get confirmation and comments from Sherrod before going on-air. Let's make sure we do this right.' Clemente said he gave the advice in the meeting, not in a memo to staff, and his guidance clearly did not make it down to the reporter and producers who put the story on FoxNews.com."
Prior to Clemente's admission, Fox aggressively claimed it did not cover the story prior to Sherrod's resignation
Perino: "The timeline of all of this is really important. Before the news even broke, she had resigned." On the July 21 edition of Fox & Friends, Dana Perino asserted that Fox did not cover the story until Sherrod resigned, saying "The timeline of all of this is really important. Before the news even broke, she had resigned." Perino added that "I think we should all look before we leap, and nobody likes a double standard."
Doocy: "Fox News did not do the story until after she had already resigned." During the same program Doocy asserted that it is "such an important point" that Fox did not cover the story before she resigned, adding:
DOOCY: Yesterday, the NAACP came out and they said that we are now apologizing to her and they say they were snookered by Fox News and Andrew Breitbart but as Dana mentioned, there's a timeline problem. Fox News did not do the story until after she had already resigned. So she was pressured by the Department of Agriculture to quit, she quit, and then we did the story. So for anybody to say that Fox News pressured her out, that is simply a lie.
Doocy misleadingly claims "Fox News Channel did not touch this story until she had actually quit." On the July 22 edition of Fox & Friends, Doocy misleadingly claimed that Fox News Channel had not reported on the controversy until after Sherrod had resigned, but did not acknowledge the network's coverage on its website:
DOOCY: [T]here have been a lot of criticisms leveled at Fox News. Fox News Channel did not touch this story until she had actually quit. I mean, Fox News -- some of the commentators started doing this story after she had resigned. It was the White House, it was the NAACP, that drummed her out.
Rosen: It's a "myth" that "Fox News was somehow a catalyzing agent in this." On the July 22 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, correspondent James Rosen misleadingly asserted that it's a "myth, the idea that Fox News was somehow a catalyzing agent in this when in fact Miss Sherrod had resigned long before the first segments on this channel started to run about this story." Rosen did not address Fox's online coverage of the story.
Beck: "The first Fox report came after she had already resigned." On the July 22 edition of his Fox show, Glenn Beck asserted that "The first Fox report came after she had already resigned. How did Fox dupe the White House into firing her when we hadn't aired it?"
Yes, but let's not forget who originally threw this particular Molotov cocktail onto the blogosphere.
That would be Breitbart.
No, that ball was slung into motion bey brietbart.
Keep trying to defend your FOX lords.
We've repeatedly said that it was on FOX before she resigned when people and media on YOUR side of the aisle misinformed their listeners by saying that it wasn't on Fox before she resigned.
You're a liar. No shock there.
So your criticisms of Fox and Breitbart are hollow, you were practically in bed with them.
A piece of work.
You do realize that the Wodehouse was making fun of the useless rich in all those books right?
But thanks for showing everyone how much of a clone of RightON you are - keep on reinforcing that so that you can never have any credibility here! Please, don't stop digging even though it's clear that the hole you're in is really deep!
She will either haul off and hurl an expletive that will shake the moderators into banning her; or she will expose herself as a complete fraud with multiple screen names or some other illuminating feature where she will then just stop posting.
Then it's back to her book of aliases and she will attempt to resurface again - she starts out respectful, just under the radar, but she soon is full throttling her hall monitor directives and her bullying name calling only to reveal herself as our beloved Sue.
She will be back.
Is FoxNews.com a part of FNC? Yes
Did FNC constantly deny covering the story before Sherrod's resignation? Yes
What's the problem?
BTW Illinoise,, do you still swallow after savoring your upchucked swill before of hiding it under your pillow for later?
So she resigned. SO WHAT? Did Fox THEN (or at any time) go and do the proper investigation before running teh story? Uh... NO! They picked up the narritive that Breibart wanted them to sell. OK, WOW, so they didn't help build up the pressure for her to resign. All they did was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in terms of getting to the truth and exonerating her. And while they may not have "jumped the gun" on TV anyway, they sure were quick to join the pile-on.
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At worst, Fox may have gontte more criticism that was entriely warranted - although their reputation and record is against them on that front - but they have done NOTHING worthy of any CREDIT either!
And lets not forget that!
IF you watch Fox, be aware that when it comes to many issues, they really are not too concerned with getting the facts straight... or getting facts at all...
The reason she was asked to resign for having initially discriminated against the white farmer before realizing that she had to help all poor, disadvantaged farmers to her full ability regardless of their skin color was because the Obama Administration had passed the message around that they don't want any distractions from their message.
And FoxNews, in the past, has taken things out of context, and not vetted stories before running with them, and once that misinformation is out there, it's hard to extract it from the brains of some in the American public.
So, the issue about WHEN she was forced to resign becomes one of the Obama Administration sort of saying that they were forced to ask her to resign because of the behavior of FoxNews, and FoxNews and their defenders saying that in THIS case, FoxNews had nothing to DO with her being forced to resign.
See, they're saying that because THEY hadn't reported anything about her THIS time, they COULDN'T be the reason that she was forced to resign.
But they don't have to have done any reporting in order for their previous behavior to influence the decisions one might make.
Where do you come up with this stuff? "Passed the message around", what kind of vague crapfull of nonsense is that? Your still clinging to that enormously silly PR baloney only shows you for the tool you are.
You crapped all over this woman and bought her bosses' public relations spin and have yet to show it makes one lick of sense. Because it doesn't.
You and Fox and Breitbart are no different. You are just on opposite sides of the street.
It's not my fault you're too poorly informed to have heard this.
Vilsack hasn't ever said that Sherrod shouldn't have been fired. He said that he should have thought about it longer, done a better cost/benefit analysis, and talked with her personally.
But there's no doubt that the REASON she got fired was because they were concerned about the distraction keeping her on the payroll would cause. President Barack Obama said yesterday that Sherrod should be an example to all of how we need to "overcome our own biases". Guess what THAT means? That HE is admitting that what I've repeatedly said, that she WAS exhibiting her biases, that she WAS initially discriminating against that white farmer because of the color of his skin.
I did NOT "crap all over this woman", not in any way, shape or form. Now, I understand that you'd like to paint what I did that way, and I understand that some people who have poor reading comprehension didn't understand what I said, but those failures weren't mine!
She corrected her initial error before it disadvantaged the white farmer, and eventually she went all out for that guy, as she should have initially! But she didn't do that initially.
She's NOT a racist now. But she DID initially discriminate against that guy because of the color of his skin. And she got fired because of the fear that her behavior 24 years ago would distract too much if she stayed on the payroll.
It's the ONLY explanation that makes ANY sense. And I figured it out before anyone else did. I never thought she should have been fired, and I said that in my VERY FIRST POST on the topic.
But thanks for showing everyone that you are DESPERATE to slam me any way you can.
You dragged this woman through your meat grinder of mud on several posts on this topic, and that was pointed out to you by several people, again, not just my "clones". You artfully tried to wiggle around it, but you did not succeed. Your words were very clear.
I think pretty much everyone on here has blamed the Ag department and Obama administration and the NAACP for jumping to conclusions before the full story was out. I don't see anyone defending them.
But let's not forget, they would not have jumped to conclusions without Breitbart's posting of the video, and FoxNews' hyping of said same video.
Not to mention the fact that the Obama administration and the NAACP issues unequivocal apologies as soon as the truth came out. Breitbart and Fox, on the other hand, are still trying to defend their actions.
Not that it matters, they still ran with a story they didn't check to see if it was true (it wasn't), and they are, allegedly, a news channel. Pretty big black eye. Makes them look like a bunch of liars with a partisan agneda.
Oh, wait...
The video was shot down too strongly, and I believe too quickly for the follow on from the conservative media.
Without this we'd have been treated to questions of how many other black, brown or asian racists are in the Obama administration for enough days for it to imprint on the public. Before anybody shot through the holes in the story.
CNN gets my thanks for this.
MMFA has evidence and claimed that "FOX" ran the story too early. By "FOX," MMFA meant Fox News Channel and Foxnews.com.
Fox people said they didn't run the story early, perhaps thinking only of FNC.
Lots of commentors have made accusations back and forth, depending on their interpretation of "FOX."
However, after Shirrod resigned, FNC broke the story, but then the white house, MSNBC, and various other people didn't check all of the facts or dig and look for truth. Shepherd Smith said he didn't break the story because of previous unethical activity by Breitbart. Keith Olberman came on, during his vacation, and said that eveyone screwed up.
Fox looks as bad as they always have, since much of their programming is smearing and conspiracy. MSNBC surprised a lot of people because they usually check facts. MMFA documented most everything so that facts can be relatively easily checked. The White House, CNN, MSNBC and other organizations apologized to Ms. Shirrod.
Glenn BEck says he supported MS. Shirrod, which is not the opinion that I get for what MMFA shows that he actually said. Bill O'Reilly did not apologize for the smear, only for not doing his homework. The Whitehouse and many reputable news organizations made mistakes and will react to the problems by fixing making sure they check sources for accuracy. Fox, generally won't, since many of them (Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, a Fox lookalike) don't care much if the facts disagree, since they rarelylet facts interfere with their opinions anyway.
People here are making a tempest in a teapot, making much about possible misunderstandings. With cookie crumbs all over his face, Breitbart says that the cookies jumped out and attacked him, than that the problem is with the cookie crumbs the problem is that the crumbs weren't chocolate chip, when everyone thought they were peanut butter.
Breitbart says that the problem he was pointing out is not Shirrod's alleged racism but the reactions of the NAACP audience; therefore, he owes no apology since his intention was not to smear Ms. Shirrod. Only unhinged people would believe that.
with few exceptions, Fox's reputation suffers little since they did not have one for "fair and balanced" coverage anyway. Breitbart maintains that the means justifies his views and his reputation has probably sunk to the bottom.