Look, I know it’s easy to bash Fox News, and we’ve surely had a lot of fun pointing out their missteps and flaws around here, but I kind of feel some sympathy for them here. After all, live car chases are TV news gold. We all love watching them, so of course news stations air them when they take place.
With that said, a car chase that ended with a man shooting himself in the head was aired live during Shep Smith’s show today. Shep, without question the most likeable on-air personality at Fox News, saw it coming and desperately tried to have the cameras pull away, but something went wrong with the 5-second delay and a man taking his own life was aired live on national TV. (I won’t post the video here but you can surely find it on YouTube.) This led to a visibly shaken Shep Smith issuing a solemn apology when his show returned from a commercial break.
We really messed up. And we’re all very sorry. That didn’t belong on TV. We took every precaution we knew how to take to keep that from being on TV. And I personally apologize to you that that happened. We see a lot of things that we see that we don’t get to you because it’s not time-appropriate, it’s insensitive, it’s just wrong. That was wrong. And that won’t happen again on my watch, and I’m sorry.
I suspect that Shep is flogging whoever was in charge of the delay button with wet bamboo at this very moment. Here’s full video of the apology…
Well okay then have a lovely weekend, everyone!
