APOLOGIES….The Wall Street Journal reports on increased scrutiny of the news media:
In this campaign cycle, television news organizations have issued at least 10 apologies in total over on-air expressions. On Tuesday, a Fox News anchor, E.D. Hill, said she regretted suggesting that a celebratory hand gesture between Barack and Michelle Obama might be a “terrorist fist jab.” On Monday, NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell apologized for calling southwest Virginia “redneck country.”
….Employees at Time Warner Inc.’s CNN and General Electric Co.’s MSNBC, and a contributor to Fox News have all confused “Obama” and “Osama” in the last year in one form or another, and apologized for the mistake.
The most-recent dust-up began Wednesday afternoon during a segment on Fox News by commentator Michelle Malkin about conservative attacks on Michelle Obama. At the bottom of the screen, a headline said, “Outraged Liberals: Stop Picking on Obama’s Baby Mama!”
Off the top of my head, I can add Chris Matthews to this list (for claiming that the only reason Hillary Clinton was a serious candidate was because “her husband messed around”) as well as David Shuster (for saying that Chelsea Clinton was “being pimped out in some weird sort of way”) and Keith Olbermann (who basically suggested that somebody needed to beat Hillary senseless to get her to drop out of the race). And then there was Bill O’Reilly’s apology for saying, “I don’t want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there’s evidence.” That’s ten. I don’t know for sure if it’s the same ten that the WSJ counted, but it’s probably close.
Notice a pattern? Aside from Andrea Mitchell’s crack about Virginia, which was offensive in a nonpartisan way, every one of the apologies has been about an offensive remark aimed at a Democrat. Funny, that.
