Fox News has apologized to the family of a fallen Marine for publishing a false news story claiming that the family had to pay the cost of shipping the soldier’s remains home from Afghanistan because the Pentagon refused to pay, CNN reported.
“The now unpublished story has been addressed internally and we sincerely apologize to the Gee family,” a Fox News spokesperson said in a statement.
The statement was in reference to the the family of Sgt. Nicole Gee, who was one of 13 service members killed in a terror attack at the Kabul airport as the U.S. was withdrawing in 2021.
From CNN:
The apology came after a Military.com report this week drew attention to the issue and indicated that the right-wing outlet’s top executives had repeatedly been notified by senior members of the Marine Corps that it was pushing a false story.
In an email to Fox News President Jay Wallace and other network personnel, Marine Corps spokesman Maj. James Stenger privately accused the outlet of capitalizing off Gee’s death “to score cheap clickbait points,” according to documents obtained by Military.com through a public records request.
…
Initially, after being notified about the false report, Fox News only changed the headline on the story to attribute the claims to Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida, who had advanced the narrative but later recanted. The outlet later scrubbed the story from its website without a correction or explanation. It remained deleted on Saturday after the apology.
Read the full report at CNN.
Image: US Marine Corps, Sgt. Nicole Gee/AP
