Saturday, September 29, 2012

Fox News blames live airing of suicide on "severe human error"

(Reuters) - Fox News apologized on Saturday for a 'severe human error' that resulted in viewers seeing a suspected carjacker fatally shoot himself after a police chase.

The coverage of the Friday incident, which sparked outrage on social media and a quick on-air apology by anchor Shepard Smith, showed a man stumbling from an allegedly stolen car into the desert near Phoenix on Friday.

As a camera in a helicopter provided live coverage, the man stopped a short distance away, pulled the trigger of a gun pointed to the right side of his head and crumpled face-forward into the ground.

'We took every precaution to avoid any such live incident by putting the helicopter pictures on a five-second delay,' said Michael Clemente, Fox's executive vice president for news editorial.

'Unfortunately, this mistake was the result of a severe human error and we apologize for what viewers ultimately saw on the screen,' he said in a statement.

A Phoenix police spokesman confirmed the man, who authorities said fired at officers and a police helicopter at one point during the pursuit, died at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Bill Trott)



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