Joan Walsh Smacks Down Fox on CNN "Fox played a much bigger role than people want to admit.'

[kpete]

JOAN WALSH, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, SALON.COM: I think they bear a lot of responsibility.

WALSH: How Fox News or anybody else could run a story and not seek comment from a person that they were calling a racist, it's quite extraordinary. And, you know, a lot has been made about Fox didn't do -- Fox isn't the cause of her firing. I'm going to stipulate that. Let's say that that's true, but Fox played a much bigger role than people want to admit.

That story, the Breitbart version of the story, ran on FoxNews.com all day Monday. O'Reilly mentioned it. Sean Hannity went on to mention it. Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich had a lovely conversation about what a racist this woman was after she had resigned. "Fox & Friends" went crazy the next morning.

It doesn't matter that merely the Obama administration overreacted. It matters that's terrible that they did that. But there was this pouncing on Shirley Sherrod without getting her reaction or her response that I think is unconscionable.

..............

WALSH: The woman's father was murdered by a white farmer, and there were witnesses. And the white justice system never found the murderer guilty. She's entitled to talk about race any way she wants to.



much more:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/7/26/887363/-Joan-Walsh-Smacks-Down-Fox-on-CNN
.................

2 VIDEOS & COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/7/26/887363/-Joan-Walsh-Smacks-Down-Fox-on-CNN

[90-percent]

1. Question

Did Obama ask for Shirley's resignation before this smear made it past Breitbart and before there was any coverage of it on Fox?

Or was it already on Fox before the White House made the pull over to the side of the road phone call to Shirley?

My righty pals contend it was the former, therefore IT'S NOT FOX' FAULT!

-90% Jimmy

[Bluzmann57]

2. Listening to Boelert (sp?) on S. Miller's show

And he said that it ran on foxnews.com all day before it was broadcAst over the air. And fox "news" owns that website. So therefore, it was their fault.

[AlabamaLibrul]

3. To be entirely technical about it....

It ran on foxnews.com all day. O'Reilly's show was taped at 5pm for broadcast at 8pm, which ran with O'Reilly calling for Sherrod's resignation.

By 8pm, Sherrod had "resigned".

It's a sad commentary on both what passes for journalism on the TeeVee, and snap judgments made by the WH in this 24 hour news world.

[zipplewrath]

4. I believe it was before

Most chronologies I've heard have them firing her before the first mention is made on Fox. Obviously it was already on Briebart's site.

What the USDA did was unconscionable. However, let us not deny that the reality is that everyone, including the administration, knew exactly what treatment the story was going to get that day, if not the whole week on Fox. They were attempting to be pre-emptive and cut down the number of news cycles that the story would have. That was wrong, but it was a reaction (over reaction) to the past history of Fox news. And Fox DID behave just as everyone knew they would. They only stopped once the truth started to surface (and CNN was already on the story by that night).

Fox wants to try to duck this one because the White House got out in front of them. It's like the guy who gets cleared of murder because he shot a guy who was already dead. He wasn't innocent as much as he was lucky.

[seabeyond]

7. fox did have it on its internet news site. at the least. agree with you on rest of post. nt

[tridim]

5. Obama didn't ask for Shirley's resignation.

Careful, words matter.

[mzmolly]

6. Joan Walsh is an excellent advocate for truth.

She should have her own show. ;)

[Scurrilous]

8. K & R

:thumbsup: