Fox News inadvertently aired a live suicide while broadcasting helicopter footage of a carjacking suspect in Arizona.
Anchor Shepard Smith, visibly upset, calls for the live shot to be pulled, but not in time — Viewers saw Smith repeating “get off it,” after the gunshot, indicating he was watching the video on a delay.
The network cut into commercial immediately after.
Smith says Fox was on a five-second delay, but the video was not stopped in time, he later apologized for airing the suicide, saying “That was wrong, and that won’t happen again on my watch, and I’m sorry.”
Update: Fox News issued this statement Friday afternoon:
“We took every precaution to avoid any such live incident by putting the helicopter pictures on a five second delay. Unfortunately, this mistake was the result of a severe human error and we apologize for what viewers ultimately saw on the screen.” – Michael Clemente, EVP, News Editorial
Shepard Smith’s On-Air Apology
“Well, some explaining to do. While we were taking that car chase and showing it to you live when the guy pulled over and got out of the vehicle we went on delay. So that’s why I didn’t talk for about ten seconds. We created a five second delay as if you were to bleep back your DVR five seconds that’s what we did with the picture we were showing you so that we would see in the studio what was happening five seconds before you did so that if anything went horribly wrong we’d be able to cut away from it without subjecting you to it. And 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. Sometimes we see a lot of things that we don’t let get to you because it’s not time appropriate, it’s insensitive, it’s just wrong. And that was wrong and that won’t happen again on my watch and I’m sorry. We’ll update you on what happened with that guy and how that went down tonight on the FOX Report. I’m sorry.”
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