Fox News Channel has apologized for displaying an onscreen graphic showing stock-market gains following assassinations and killings of Black people.
The conservative cable television news channel issued the apology on Saturday after receiving criticism over the use of the onscreen chart during a Friday broadcast of Special Report With Bret Baier.
The graphic displayed a bar graph to show the percentage change in the S&P 500 one week after the following events: the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.; the 1992 acquittal of the Los Angeles police officers who beat Rodney King; the police shooting of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014; and George Floyd’s death on May 25 while in police custody in Minneapolis.
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“The infographic used on FOX News Channel’s Special Report to illustrate market reactions to historic periods of civil unrest should have never aired on television without full context. We apologize for the insensitivity of the image & take this issue seriously,” a statement from a FOX News spokesperson read.
During his Fox News program, America’s News HQ, Eric Shawn said, “Last night, Fox News Channel aired an infographic attempting to show that the stock market on occasion gained ground in the midst of turmoil, civil unrest and even tragedy. In trying to make the point, the program, Special Report, failed to explain the context of the times we are living in and should not have used that graphic.”
Following the segment’s airing, the graphic was widely criticized on social media and resulted in the hashtag #FoxNewsIsRacist. Bobby Rush, the Democratic representative from Illinois, tweeted on Friday the graphic “makes it clear that Fox News does not care about Black lives.”
Other news outlets have also recently pointed out market reactions following episodes of civil unrest, including Bloomberg, CNBC, Fortune and The Wall Street Journal.
This graphic makes it clear that @FoxNews does not care about black lives. https://t.co/gYqC2B0n4F
— Bobby L. Rush (@RepBobbyRush) June 6, 2020
June 6, 3:59 p.m. Updated with Shawn’s comments.
