Blaming its own staff for an âappalling lack of judgment,â MSNBC apologized on Wednesday for reporting that a phrase used by Mitt Romney on the campaign stump was used in the past by the Ku Klux Klan.
The brief report during the 11 a.m. hour on MSNBC triggered internal turmoil at the cable news network, which is linked to NBC News, the home of the âTodayâ show and âNBC Nightly News.â It also prompted a call from a Romney campaign representative to âalert them of the misreporting,â a campaign spokeswoman said in an email message.
The MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews, who was not involved with the original report, read an apology to the Romney campaign during his 5 p.m. program, âHardball.â
The network, Mr. Matthews said, âreported on a blog item that compared a phrase used by the Romney campaign to one used by the K.K.K. way back in the 1920s. It was irresponsible and incendiary of us to do this, and it showed an appalling lack of judgment. We apologize, we really do, to the Romney campaign.â
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/msnbc-apologizes-to-romney-campaign-for-klan-report/
The brief report during the 11 a.m. hour on MSNBC triggered internal turmoil at the cable news network, which is linked to NBC News, the home of the âTodayâ show and âNBC Nightly News.â It also prompted a call from a Romney campaign representative to âalert them of the misreporting,â a campaign spokeswoman said in an email message.
The MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews, who was not involved with the original report, read an apology to the Romney campaign during his 5 p.m. program, âHardball.â
The network, Mr. Matthews said, âreported on a blog item that compared a phrase used by the Romney campaign to one used by the K.K.K. way back in the 1920s. It was irresponsible and incendiary of us to do this, and it showed an appalling lack of judgment. We apologize, we really do, to the Romney campaign.â
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/msnbc-apologizes-to-romney-campaign-for-klan-report/
