Fox News Mistakenly Aired Graphic Showing That Ruth Bader Ginsburg Had Died
Fox & Friends, the Fox News morning show, briefly aired a graphic on Monday morning with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the years 1933-2019, implying that Ginsburg had died. According to Mediaite, the graphic aired for a few seconds as the show was coming back from commercial, coming into a segment unrelated to Ginsburg, in which a college professor complained of liberal bias on college campuses.
The show’s hosts apologized later on the show, calling the error a mistake that had been made in the control room.
“We need to apologize,” host Steve Doocey said. “At the beginning of Ainsley’s interview with the professor, a technical error in the control room triggered a graphic of Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a date on it… that was a mistake, that was an accident, we believe she is still at home recovering from surgery.”
“We apologize, big mistake,” Ainsley Earhardt added.
Television news organizations offer prepared obituaries and graphics, in an effort to prepare for their coverage once those people pass away. Occasionally, the work is published early by accident, such as when Bloomberg News accidentally published an obituary of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in 2008, three years before Jobs’ actual death.
Ginsburg, who underwent surgery in December to remove cancerous nodules from her lung, has been recovering at home while continuing to work during the current Supreme Court term.
Fox & Friends Apologizes for Accidental Graphic Saying Ruth Bader Ginsburg is Dead https://t.co/mR2CxtLbKJ pic.twitter.com/mVZFSbbygQ
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) January 21, 2019
“Her recovery from surgery is on track. Post-surgery evaluations indicate no evidence of remaining disease, and no further treatment is required,” a Supreme Court spokesperson said earlier this month.
Last week, the Inquisitr noted that a website called the Santa Monica Observer reported that Ginsburg had been diagnosed with pneumonia and was “fighting for her life.” However, the report was completely unsourced and at odds with all other reporting on the state of the justice’s health, and came from an outlet with a history of not sticking to the facts. The Observer had claimed that it “broke” the news of Ginsburg’s cancer diagnosis last year, but in fact, it published a report about the justice having cancer months before she was diagnosed, and did not accurately report what type of cancer she had.
The 85-year-old Ginsburg, a longtime liberal lion of the court, has emerged in recent years as an unlikely icon among young people. The justice was the subject of a pair of movies in 2018, the documentary RBG and the biopic On The Basis of Sex.
Editor’s note: a Fox News Channel spokesperson reached out to the Inquisitr with the following statement.
“This was a technical error that emanated from the graphics team.”
