Busted! Fox News Caught Making Al Sharpton Look Like He Was Stirring Up Violence Against Cops

If you watched Sunday morning’s edition of Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” you probably thought that a large number of people listening to Al Sharpton’s speech at the “Justice For All” march the day before were calling for the mass lynching of police. There’s just one problem–it never happened. What actually did happen was one of the most ham-handed attempts at deceptive editing in recent memory.

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The show led off with co-host Anna Kooiman teasing footage of Sharpton’s speech. Just a few seconds into the open, the video flipped to people chanting, “What do we want?/Dead cops!/When do we want it?/Now!” The message was obvious–Sharpton worked up the crowd into a frenzy, to the point they wanted to beat and kill cops. See for yourself (courtesy of Media Matters).

Later on, co-host Tucker Carlson introduced a package about Sharpton’s speech. As in the open, while Sharpton was talking the video flipped to people calling for cops to be lynched. It then flipped back to Sharpton declaring that he wasn’t anti-police, but “anti-brutality”–and demanding that the federal government be able to step in during instances of egregious police misconduct. If Fox News was trying to make it look like Sharpton was trying to start a riot, it didn’t do a very good job. Raw Story noticed the calls for killing cops actually took place at a separate rally held in Manhattan. But apparently that detail was lost on Carlson, who preceded to slam Sharpton for inciting violence against the police. Watch here.

Kooiman, to her credit, chalked up those chants in New York to a few “bad apples” in the crowd. But apparently that message didn’t get to whoever was running the character generator. When the package started, the graphic read, “Fueling the flames.”

Near the tail end of the show, it looked like someone had finally gotten word these were actually two different protests. Kooiman mentioned that the “dead cops” video came to them from none other than Andrew Breitbart. Sharpton’s pleas that he wasn’t anti-police didn’t sound sincere at all to co-host Clayton Morris, who said, “You’re not anti-police, but you’re calling to kill cops.” Carlson wasn’t buying it either, sarcastically saying, “And you’re anti-brutality too.” Watch here. Notice what was on the screen at the very beginning? “Fueling the flames.”

We’ve come to expect bias from Fox News. But this crossed the line into outright falsiffication–and fact this was coming from the news half makes it even more egregious. It only proves what most of us already know–Fox News is as far from being “fair and balanced” as you can get. Any responsible news organization would have given the video editor and the character generator operator a severe tongue-lashing, at the very least. But considering it’s Fox News, that would be expecting too much.

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Darrell Lucus.jpg Darrell Lucus, also known as Christian Dem in NC on Daily Kos, is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.