Fox News’ media critic Howard Kurtz attributed a fake quote to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, predicting that she would have to answer in tonight’s presidential debate for calling primary opponent Bernie Sanders’ supporters a “bucket of losers.” But Snopes.com and BuzzFeed have already reported that this quote -- originally posted at a fake news site -- is fabricated, and Fox host Megyn Kelly apologized on Friday for pushing the quote on her own show.
On the October 9 edition of MediaBuzz, Kurtz said Clinton is certain to face debate questions about quotes taken from stolen emails that were recently released by WikiLeaks:
HOWARD KURTZ (HOST): Hillary Clinton will undoubtedly face a new line of questioning at tonight's debate here in St. Louis about her highly lucrative Wall Street speeches, parts of which were made public in hacked emails obtained by WikiLeaks. While running to the left against Bernie Sanders, she had said in these speeches that she favored, quote, “open trade and open borders,” a stunning contradiction with her public position. She also called Sanders' supporters a “bucket of losers.” And despite her tough on big banks rhetoric, Clinton said this in one speech: “Wall Street insiders are what is needed to fix Wall Street.” Clinton's spokesman said the, quote, “stolen documents” could have been orchestrated by Russian officials trying to help Donald Trump, but would not say they were fake.
But at least one of those quotes was fake. On October 7, BuzzFeed reported that the “bucket of losers” quote is from a fake transcript “published by the totally dubious site RealTrueNews.org,” and that “the transcript is clearly a hoax.” BuzzFeed also showed that the fake quote was published before WikiLeaks released the stolen emails containing speech excerpts. On October 8, internet rumor debunking website Snopes.com called this claim that Clinton demeaned progressive voters as a “bucket of losers” false, adding that right-wing media outlets including InfoWars, Gateway Pundit, and Fox News were duped into reporting the fake quote as true. Both websites credited the progressive website Crooks and Liars for publishing video of Fox host Megyn Kelly apologizing for airing the quote. Kelly admitted at the end of her show, “That was apparently a doctored quote and not real. And we apologize for that error.”
Kurtz should immediately do the same for airing a fake quote that his network already admitted was not real. And maybe he should read executive vice president John Moody’s January 2007 memo in response to a false Fox & Friends story about President Obama, which states in part: “For the record: seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC.”