When announcing the death of former Pittsburgh Pirates All Star Frank Thomas, Fox showed an image of the very-much-alive former baseball player and former Fox analyst Frank Thomas. (Updated)
Guest hosting on yesterday’s Faulkner Focus, Julie Banderas had to correct quite an embarrassing error made during the annual “In Memoriam” segment.
BANDERAS: We also need to quickly issue a correction in the In Memoriam feature that we showed just a few minutes ago. We misidentified the late Frank Thomas, the three-time All Star for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Frank Thomas we showed you, unfortunately, was also a former pro baseball player. He is very much alive. We apologize for that mistake.
The still-living Thomas posted on Twitter, "I'm very sorry my ex employer Fox would be this irresponsible on National TV this morning. Yes I'm alive and doing well. This blows my mind also."
Fox News should have known the difference, besides the fact that the tweeting Thomas is about 40 years younger than his deceased namesake. As The Independent noted, the younger Thomas worked as a studio analyst for Fox Sports for a decade. Nevertheless, "Fox showed footage of the 55-year-old former Chicago White Sox slugger next to the graphic: Frank Thomas: 1968 — 2023.'"
This is not the first time or even the second time Fox News has done something like this. When Aretha Franklin died, the “news” network posted a photo of Patti LaBelle in its so-called tribute. Several months later, host Jesse Watters apologized after praising Gayle King for an interview actually conducted by Robin Roberts.
Are you sensing the same pattern we are here?
You can watch Banderas apologize below, from the December 29, 2023 The Faulkner Focus.
12/31/23 UPDATE and EDITOR'S NOTE: I took the liberty of adding to Brian's post the paragraph about the mix-ups of Aretha Franklin/Patti LaBelle and Gayle King/Robin Roberts. I have since learned that the deceased Frank Thomas was white, unlike the living Black man. I'm not sure if that makes Fox's error better or worse. (From Ellen)
