‘Fox & Friends’ Forced To Issue Humiliating Retraction Over COVID Lies

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The do-nothing Republican legislators have been willing to stand by and watch 200,000-plus Americans die a terrible coronavirus pandemic death. They stand silent as Donald Trump has bombed the US Postal Service, the Department of Justice, the State Department, and far more. Today, even as the nation grieves with the family, Trump attacked Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s granddaughter. The Republicans stood silent. Disgusting.

Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy actually stepped out of that silence and took the hit for a massive Fox reporting error. He had to apologize Monday morning after a number of Fox hosts falsely reported about Nashville’s Democratic mayor being involved in a coronavirus cover-up. Doocy had to admit that the mayor was not guilty as they charged.

Last week, a Nashville station owned by Sinclair made the allegation that this mayor was falsely hiding the coronavirus numbers about 19 city bars and restaurants to justify the business lockdown. The story relied on “selective misreading of emails.” It caught the attention of the national outlets: The Daily Wire, The Breitbart News, and even Fox News’ opinion shows, The Daily Beast reported.

Thursday, Tucker Carlson started with the story, claiming there was “conclusive proof” the Nashville city government, including Mayor John Cooper, covered it up. Carlson called for the mayor’s impeachment.

Fox’s Laura Ingraham leaped upon the story too, saying:

‘[It was] a sinister COVID cover-up [like] you’d expect from communist China [or] Soviet Russia.’

Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade claimed the emails were proof the mayor “lied” and called for Cooper’s resignation, too.

Yet, it did not take long for other news outlets to debunk the story. The actual numbers had been reported in a July 2 press conference and again in a local publication on August 4. The station fully retracted their accounting in this statement — finally:

‘In a segment that aired earlier this week, we incorrectly asserted that Mayor Cooper’s office withheld COVID-19 data from the public, which implied that there had been a cover up (sic). We want to clarify that we do not believe there was any cover-up, and we apologize for the error and oversight in our reporting.’

‘We continue to have questions about the level of transparency that the government showed to the restaurant and bar industry—whose livelihood was on the line. As journalists, we will continue to ask those questions and hold elected officials accountable.’

Monday Doocy talked about the retraction during the Fox & Friend’s starting hour:

‘We wanted to give you update on a story last week. On Friday, we reported on allegations that the mayor of Nashville had hidden coronavirus numbers. That was according to our local Nashville fox affiliate.’

‘They have since retracted their story. And we now know the mayor’s office did apparently not conceal those numbers and did release them to the public and so this morning on this Monday we wanted to apologize for any confusion.’

A Fox News spokesperson told the Daily Beast that both Carlson and Ingraham will also be addressing the retracted story on their programs Monday night. Senior Fellow at Media Matters, Matthew Gertz (R-FL) tweeted:

‘Here’s Steve Doocy spending 30 seconds admitting the story they ran last week about a Nashville coronavirus “cover-up” was totally wrong. Fox had used it to demand the mayor’s resignation and speculate that similar “cover-ups” are happening everywhere.’

Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.

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