Fox Apologizes for Conyers/Jefferson Flub
by Josh Gerstein
Tue, 5 Jun 2007 at 1:30 PM
updated Tue, 5 Jun 2007 at 1:30 PM
Fox News has issued an on-air apology for using video of the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers of Michigan, to illustrate the network's coverage yesterday of the corruption indictment of Rep. William Jefferson of Louisana. The mix-up was first reported on this blog yesterday.
The offending videotape is here, with a bit of critical commentary from Talkingpointsmemo.com. Liberal bloggers have used the episode to pillory Fox. Both congressmen are African-American Democrats. Mr. Conyers is 78. Mr. Jefferson is 60.
More details on Fox's brief mea culpa below.
"Yesterday at this time, news of the indictment of Congressman William Jefferson came down. We mistakenly ran the wrong video to accompany this story and we apologize for that error," a Fox anchor, Martha MacCallum, told viewers at about 1:20 p.m. today. The 10-second apology made no reference to Mr. Conyers and did not explain why or how the erroneous video made it to air.
An aide to Mr. Conyers said the network had called to express its regret over the incident. "They indicated that they had a staffer in New York who just hit a button and ran the wrong B-roll. They were very contrite about it and we take them at their word," the aide, who asked not to be named, said.
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