Fox News Blatantly Edits Speech Video To Frame Biden As Racist
Reprinted with permission from AlterNet
During a Veteran's Day speech, President Joe Biden wished Ambassador Donald Blinken a happy birthday with an anecdote about the great African-American baseball pitcher Satchel Paige — who famously threw a winning pitch when he was 47 in the early 1950s. Biden mentioned that Paige was a member of what was called the Negro Leagues back then, but Fox News shamelessly edited a video of that speech to make it seem like the president casually called Paige a "Negro" — and the right-wing cable news outlet is drawing sharp criticism for editing the video in a way that was both deceptive and sloppy.
The edited video aired during Fox News' morning show, Fox and Friends, which competes with MSNBC's "Morning Joe" and CNN's "New Day" in that time slot. Far-right pundits reflexively promoted that segment, claiming that Biden was a racist without bothering to vet the edited video.
BIDEN: "I've adopted the attitude of the great negro at the time... his name was Satchel Paige."pic.twitter.com/NOi6c09tBd— Benny (@Benny) 1636651802
But Mediaite's Tommy Christopher offered some context, noting that the Paige anecdote was Biden's way of telling Blinken that you're only as old as you feel and that mentioning baseball's Negro Leagues of the 1940s and 1950s isn't the same as casually using the term "Negro."
Christopher explained, "The president obviously began to say 'Great Negro League pitcher,' but then paused and shifted to saying 'at the time, pitcher in the Negro Leagues,' which was, in fact, the name of the league that Black players formed when they were shut out of Major League Baseball. That this needs to be explained is beyond absurd."
Christopher wasn't the only one who called out Fox and Friends for their outright deception and did some debunking. MSNBC's Chris Hayes noted how poorly the video was edited and the fact that Biden's hand mysteriously disappeared when he was speaking. This was because the clip removed the part of Biden's speech where he specifically referred to the "Negro League," in an attempt to make it look like Biden used an epithet.
This has me howling, THE PRESIDENT'S HAND DISAPPEARS MIDWAY THROUGH HIS SENTENCEhttps://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1459199560279023618\u00a0\u2026— Chris Hayes (@Chris Hayes) 1636745701
At 11 seconds he has a hand at 12 seconds it vanishes! Incredible work. Truly. Whichever @FoxNews production staffer did this deserves a promotion.— Chris Hayes (@Chris Hayes) 1636745886
Vox's Aaron Rupar tweeted:
i missed this last night but what Hannity calls one of the most "disturbing" Biden gaffes is total fake news. When Biden referred to Satchel Paige as a "great negro" he was clearly referring to the fact that Paige pitched in the negro leagues. Watch the clip for yourself.pic.twitter.com/qhvnniVzLQ— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1636735026
Then this morning Fox & Friends opted for full-frontal dishonesty, deceptively editing Biden's remarks to exclude his mention of the negro leagues and make what he said seem racially insensitive. Shameless lying.pic.twitter.com/dbbTtPhFnR— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1636735260
Attacking Biden for his comments about Satchel Paige is dishonest. Deceptively editing a video to do so is as shameless as it gets. \n\nI had to write about it:https://aaronrupar.substack.com/p/fox-news-biden-satchel-paige-negro?justPublished=true\u00a0\u2026— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1636739783
Here are some more reactions to Fox News' blatantly deceptive editing:
They didn\u2019t even mention that Biden\u2019s hand mysteriously vanished mid-sentence? Shouldn\u2019t THAT be the scandal?— Eric Williams (@Eric Williams) 1636735397
To point out the obvious here, they don't care that they're dishonest, they don't care that they are propagandists harming the nation they claim to love. As long as they have the power to influence thinking in a large subset of Americans, they will happily lie.— wizard prang (@wizard prang) 1636744137
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