As Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg continues to recover at home from a recent lung surgery to have cancerous nodules removed, it would appear that someone in the Fox News graphics department got a little overzealous. In a segment opener during Monday morning’s Fox and Friends, an apparent obituary graphic briefly flashed across the screen declaring “Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 1933 – 2019.”
Not that it matters, but Ms. Ginsburg’s surgery was announced to be a success in that there was no remaining evidence of cancer, and she is expected to return to the bench soon.
Fox News just slipped in Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s obituary segment opener pic.twitter.com/PfN6ICltYb
— Chip Douglas (@AreaMan_) January 21, 2019
Hosts Steve Doocy and Ainsley Earhardt apologized for the error in a later segment, blaming the incident on technical difficulties according to TV Line.
“A technical error in the control room triggered a graphic of Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a date on it. We don’t want to make it seem like anything other than that was a mistake, that was an accident,” Doocy said. “We believe she is still at home recovering from surgery. Big mistake in the control room.”
“We apologize,” Earhardt echoed. “Big mistake, yes.”
It’s common for media outlets to have graphics and obituaries planned for high profile figures, especially those getting up there in age. But even taking that into consideration and apology notwithstanding — it goes without saying that people were more than a little perturbed by the network seemingly getting ahead of itself to shuffle Ginsburg off the mortal coil.
Fox & Friends, like much of the right, seems to be rooting for Ruth Bader Ginsburg to die — this graphic proves it. There’s no excuse for running this. Why does it even exist in the first place? Apology not accepted. pic.twitter.com/8a5bhkU6Yw
— Adam Best (@adamcbest) January 21, 2019
Accidentally keying the wrong name for an interview or punching the wrong camera is a technical error. Putting up a false graphic, that someone *created* with the death date of someone who is still alive, is not a technical error. https://t.co/zTkuGgdWMl
— L.A. Goldenrod (@LAGoldenrod) January 21, 2019
https://twitter.com/CNNJason/status/1087361747533606912
https://twitter.com/UWBio/status/1087395665661984769
https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1087362828468715521
That is a mega mistake. Fox News announced Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. pic.twitter.com/gS2o9dbUnP
— Carmine Sabia (@CarmineSabia) January 21, 2019
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not dead. If you see this-it’s a real screengrab of Fox News jumping the gun. Don’t panic. It’s FOX. pic.twitter.com/CFKyZVyfcF
— Claude Taylor (@TrueFactsStated) January 21, 2019
Are you kidding me? For all of the talk about "FAKE NEWS" from Fox News commentators like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson, where is the outrage over their own Network doing this? https://t.co/ouSy5ffrj2
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) January 21, 2019
If it wasn’t already evident, people take the 85-year-old’s health very seriously. Last year when Ginsberg was hospitalized after falling and breaking three ribs, the internet banded together to try to keep her safe. But it’s clearly going to take a lot more than fractures, a cancer scare, and misleading graphics to take the old gal down.
A FOX News Channel spokesperson told Uproxx: “This was a technical error that emanated from the graphics team.”