Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly has apologized for his role in being one a large number of conservative talkers and bloggers who said no Republicans were invited to the ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington:
The mistake — entirely on me,” O’Reilly said on his show Thursday. “I simply assumed that since all the speakers were liberal Democrats, Republicans had been excluded. So here’s the tip of the day: Always check out the facts before you make a definitive statement and when you make a mistake, admit it.”
O’Reilly said the Republicans made a mistake, too. He said they should have been there.
Don’t expect a sea of corrections on this one. Most likely, O’Reilly be blasted for “caving” (acknowledging the facts amid a partisan mantra).
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.