TV Reporter Loses Job After Faked Video 'Slur' Against AG Eric Holder
A FOX News radio host never actually compared U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to a monkey who had escaped from a Seattle zoo as he discussed the AG’s recent comments about the U.S. being a “nation of cowards.”
But after a doctored video was posted on the Internet, falsely making it appear as if host John Gibson had indeed done so, many believed the seeming racial slur had indeed occurred, according to a Washington Post columnist.
The doctored video was made as a joke by a Baltimore television reporter, who posted it on his YouTube page with a disclosure explaining that Gibson didn’t really make the monkey comparison, writes columnist Howard Kurtz. But as others picked up on the video, that explanation was lost.
Among those who publicized the doctored video was the Huffington Post, which neither included the disclaimer nor checked with Gibson or FOX beforehand, the newspaper writes. The blog subsequently apologized for doing so, after the footage was revealed to be false. And the WBAL-TV reporter who admittedly created the clip as a joke has apparently lost his job over the incident.
Gibson says he has been damaged by the viral video, since many people who saw it will never hear about the correction. “A kid made a mistake and did something goofy, fine,” he states. “But these guys [at the Huffington Post] claim to be and are regarded by many as a legitimate news organization. It spoke to their bias against me that they went ahead with it.”
A spokesman for the blog says it obtained the footage from a credible website, TVNewser, and made a correction and apology as soon as it realized the clip wasn’t factual.
