Fox has apologized for its shockingly racist chart showing how much the stock market gained after various African Americans have been murdered. The network said nothing about the rest of its racist programming.
The chart aired on Friday's Special Report as correspondent Susan Li talked about the stock market “hitting new highs” despite the George Floyd tragedy and nationwide protests. She followed up by noting what else the chart showed: that the market had also gone up after the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, after the death of Michael Brown and after police officers were acquitted in the Rodney King beatings.
“Historically there has been a disconnect between what investors focus on and what happens across the rest of the country,” Li assured viewers.
The Hollywood Reporter noted that the graphic was “widely criticized on social media and resulted in the hashtag #FoxNewsIsRacist.” Our friends and colleagues at Crooks and Liars caught some of the Twitter outrage.
Saturday, Fox News anchor Eric Shawn made an on-air apology:
SHAWN: Last night, Fox News Channel aired an infographic attempting to show that the stock market, on occasion, gained ground in the midst of turmoil, civil unrest, and even tragedy. Well, in trying to make that point, the program Special Report failed to explain the context of the times we are living in and should not have used that graphic.
Fox News has issued a statement saying, “The infographic used on FOX News Channel’s Special Report to illustrate market reactions to historic periods of civil unrest should have never aired on television without full context. We apologize for the insensitivity of the image and take this issue seriously.”
Take this issue seriously? Maybe Fox will fire the lowly staffer who made the infographic and/or mete out some punishment to a producer who approved it.
But tonight's white power hours in prime time will almost certainly proceed as usual.
You can watch the offending segment below, from the June 5, 2020 Special Report, via Crooks and Liars. Underneath is Shawn’s June 6 apology.
