One of my favorite programs is the Friday evening WGBH TV Boston program Beat The Press hosted by Emily Rooney the daughter of the late Andy Rooney. Each week BTP panelists critique the way the press covers recent news stories. Former ABC producer and Academy Award nominee Callie Crossley is an African American women regular panelist who brings a high level of race and gender consciousness to the program. This level of consciousness and self righteousness comes with risks.
Beat the Press has a segment called Rants and Raves, to which this blog owes a nod for its title, where panelists get to slam or complement a particularly egregious or praiseworthy example of press behavior. This is where Callie seems got herself in trouble.
Callie's rant this week was against Fox News for allegedly using a picture of ESPN's Stephen A. Smith in place of a picture of Stuart Scott the ESPN personality who recently died of cancer. Both men are African American. For Callie it was yet another one of those 'They all look the same' moments.
There's only one big problem. The story is a hoax by the satirical website Naha Daily as pointed out by Politifact and Snopes. This is the kind of non-fact checked lazy journalism Callie herself has railed against in the past. I don't know how she got the hoax story though I know it was widely tweeted. However, aside from its silly sounding name Naha Daily does have the following disclaimer at the bottom of its webpages:
"NahaDaily is a daily satirical news source. Meaning complete fiction. "
Read more at: http://nahadaily.com/world-news/fox-dead-wrong-rip/
Callie might want to use her rant time next Friday to issue a mea culpa about letting herself be swept up in an easy narrative then running with it. It would be the high road thing to do Callie.
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