FOX News Slammed, Then Later Apologizes, For Purposefully Misleading Viewers Over Philadelphia Eagles & NFL Protests
By Kimberly Ross (redstate.com) / June 5 2018
There is no news outlet that is unbiased, and that truth was clearly demonstrated Monday night on Fox News.
As you’re probably well aware, FOX News is President Trump’s mouthpiece. They routinely go to bat for the president (can you say, Sean Hannity?) and are rarely – if ever – critical of him. Though the Trump faithful like to cry out “fake news!” and accuse other media outlets of falsehoods just like the president enjoys doing, the channel they hold close to their hearts engages in it, too.
What an inconvenient truth for the MAGA crowd.
On Monday night, FOX News anchor Shannon Bream was on the air explaining President Trump’s decision to rescind an invitation to Super Bowl champs, the Philadelphia Eagles. The 45th president is absolutely incapable of accepting that some in the National Football League have kneeled in protest during the national anthem. As Joe Cunningham correctly pointed out this morning, Trump’s obsession with the issue is incredibly petty. He should just steer clear of it.
But of course, he can’t keep his mouth shut.
While discussing the president’s decision to disinvite, FOX News showed a montage of Philadelphia Eagles players kneeling. The problem is, these photos were of players kneeling in prayer. Furthermore, not a SINGLE player on the team knelt during the national anthem this past year.
Not a single one.
More details on this gambit here: https://t.co/IbMDczHuna
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) June 5, 2018
This purposeful misleading was nothing but a gross attempt at spreading fake news and stoking anger. Period.
On Tuesday, players like Eagles tight end Zach Ertz called the network out for their disrespectful error. Not long after the uproar, the executive producer of Bream’s show, Christopher Wallace, apologized.
“During our report about President Trump canceling the Philadelphia Eagles trip to the White House to celebrate their Super Bowl win, we showed unrelated footage of players kneeling in prayer,” Wallace said. “To clarify, no members of the team knelt in protest during the national anthem throughout regular or post-season last year. We apologize for the error.”
The original tweet on the FOX News Twitter account, showing a clip of the segment, was deleted not long after the apology.
There is nothing helpful about a network focused only on negative reporting when it comes to the Trump administration. The same exact thing can – and should – be said about only reporting positively on the president. In this case, FOX News didn’t care what they showed on screen so long as it supported the president’s misplaced outrage against a team that took no part in protesting.
And worst of all, these pictures, purported to be players kneeling in protest, were actually of them praying. Isn’t that what the Evangelical faithful within the FOX News crowd should go out of their way to support?
If we want to hold news outlets to higher standards when they criticize Trump, we also need to be honest about fake news when it comes to praising Trump.
And this display from FOX News was nothing but fake news.
https://www.redstate.com/kimberly_ross/2018/06/05/fox-news-slammed-apologizes-misleading-protests/
