What a difference a word makes

Did anybody else catch this? I had Fox News on earlier this evening with the ongoing coverage of top stories, when suddently an aerial shot of a large rally appeared on the screen. The blue banner below identified it as a “Pro-Hizbollah Demonstration in San Francisco,” and I did a double-take. Literally.

What?! This couldn’t be true.

To his credit, Fox News anchor Gregg Jarrett had a similar reaction. Right in the middle of reading this breaking news item, he seemed uncomfortable with its veracity, which saved the moment. After a few awkward moments of speculating on what this crowd might be supporting, Jarrett promised they would check it out, and he quickly moved on to other news.

After the next commercial, Fox came back on with that same aerial shot of a rally, but the banner identified it as a “Pro-Lebanon Demonstration in San Francisco.”

Mighty big difference. And a dangerous one to get wrong, whether by sloppy reporting or hasty assumptions. Fox heralds its reputation as the “Fair and Balanced” network, and I think it usually does a pretty fair job. This slip was so glaring, it showed either the ignorance or the bias of some production staff member(s) who let it air first time around.

To their credit, Jarrett and his team turned it around in the span of about five minutes. These are extremely flammable times. We need to cool the sparks, not fan the flames.