At 3:15pmET today, CNN’s Rick Sanchez delivered an impassioned editorial regarding the Fox News ad we reported on earlier today that claimed ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN “missed” the story of the 9/12 protests.
Sanchez said the ad is “an offense to myself and to my colleagues who risked their lives for our viewers in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world to break the news. They’re actually telling people that we didn’t cover a rally on Washington. Really?” Sanchez then showed a series of clips from CNN’s 9/12 reporting. He also showed a clip of Bill O’Reilly discussing CNN’s coverage of the event.
At one point, Sanchez even says the Fox News marketing folks used a CNN image for the ad. If you look at the pictures below – the left is from one of CNN’s tower cams. The right is an image that is part of the FNC ad.
On Saturday, a Fox News executive responded to Sanchez’ response saying, “‘Thank you very much’…and a special thanks to Rick Sanchez who has always been a sucker…he’s a gift that keeps on giving.”
• See the whole Sanchez segment after the jump…
> Related: WaPo’s Howard Kurtz writes about the ad, which appeared in his own paper and reports ABC is asking for an apology. “ABC [spokesman Jeffrey] Schneider told the newspaper in a letter that The Post exercised ‘zero due diligence’ in assessing the truth of the ad and that it ‘should have been rejected according to your professed standards. Now the Post should make it right by apologizing quickly and recognizing that it made a grave error that tarnishes the reputation of five other news organizations.'”