Editor&Publisher: O'Reilly Show, AP Fix Mislabeling of Disgraced GOP Pol in Different Ways
By E&P Staff
Published: October 06, 2006
NEW YORK -- Did the "The O'Reilly Factor" air a correction after mislabeling Republican Mark Foley a Democrat under a photo of the disgraced ex-Congressman?
"Once it came to our attention, we removed the incorrect chyron immediately," said David Tabacoff, executive producer of the Fox News Channel show hosted by Bill O'Reilly, who also does a newspaper column distributed by Creators Syndicate. "We didn't run a correction per se."
Foley was mislabeled on O'Reilly's Tuesday show. When the program was rebroadcast, the Democrat label was scrubbed but not replaced with a Republican one.
Soon after the Tuesday show aired, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting asked: "
ssuming it was an honest mistake ... how come when the show was re-aired, the lower third was removed entirely -- rather than replaced by one with the correct information? If it was important to identify Foley by party when he was thought to be a Democrat, why isn't it just as important to correctly identify him as a Republican?"
Tabacoff told E&P late Thursday that "everyone knows" Foley -- who resigned his House seat after revelations that he sent sexually charged messages to teen Congressional pages -- is a Republican....An Associated Press story Wednesday also erroneously called Foley a Democrat. AP issued a correction about three hours later, according to BradBlog.com.
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