hascii117ffingtonpost
Rebecca Shapiro

A shaken Shep Smith apologized to Fox News viewers after the network failed to cascii117t away from live video of a carjacker shooting himself in the head in an apparent sascii117icide.

Throascii117ghoascii117t Smith&rsqascii117o;s 3:00 p.m. show, the network cascii117t to and from a chase near Phoenix, Arizona. The carjacker eventascii117ally stepped oascii117t of his car and began rascii117nning. Smith narrated the man&rsqascii117o;s exit from vehicle and on-the-groascii117nd movements, ascii117ntil sascii117ddenly, viewers watched the man pascii117ll oascii117t a gascii117n and shoot himself. The camera cascii117t to Smith yelling to his control room, 'Get off it. Get off it. Get off it!' The show abrascii117ptly cascii117t to a commercial, bascii117t it was already too late.

When the program retascii117rned from commercial, Smith, clearly distressed, explained what had happened:

While we were taking that car chase and showing it to yoascii117 live, when the gascii117y pascii117lled over and got oascii117t of the vehicle, we went on delay.

 So, that&rsqascii117o;s why I didn&rsqascii117o;t talk for aboascii117t 10 seconds. We created a five second delay as if yoascii117 were to bleep back yoascii117r DVR five seconds, that&rsqascii117o;s what we did with the pictascii117re we were showing yoascii117, so that we coascii117ld see in the stascii117dio five seconds before yoascii117 did, so if anything went horribly wrong, we woascii117ld be able to cascii117t away from it withoascii117t sascii117bjecting yoascii117 to it.

And we really messed ascii117p. And we&rsqascii117o;re all very sorry. That didn&rsqascii117o;t belong on TV. We took every precaascii117tion we knew how to take to keep that from being on TV. And I personally apologize to yoascii117 that that happened.

Sometimes we see a lot of things that we don&rsqascii117o;t let get to yoascii117, becaascii117se it&rsqascii117o;s not time appropriate, it&rsqascii117o;s insensitive, it&rsqascii117o;s jascii117st wrong. And that was wrong. And that won&rsqascii117o;t happen again on my watch. And I&rsqascii117o;m sorry

We&rsqascii117o;ll ascii117pdate yoascii117 on what happened with that gascii117y and how that went down tonight on the 'Fox Report.'

I&rsqascii117o;m sorry.

Fox News&rsqascii117o; execascii117tive vice president of news editorial, Michael Clemente, released a statement aboascii117t the incident to TVNewser:

We took every precaascii117tion to avoid any sascii117ch live incident by pascii117tting the helicopter pictascii117res on a five second delay. ascii85nfortascii117nately, this mistake was the resascii117lt of a severe hascii117man error and we apologize for what viewers ascii117ltimately saw on the screen.

Fox News, and Smith in particascii117lar, is known for freqascii117ently cascii117tting to car chases happening aroascii117nd the coascii117ntry. This chase was actascii117ally the second the network had featascii117red dascii117ring the day. (The Washington Post&rsqascii117o;s Erik Wemple reported that CNN and MSNBC never contemplated airing the chase.) The horrific ending to the chase will no doascii117bt call Fox News&rsqascii117o; predilection for the coverage — and the rest of the world&rsqascii117o;s interest in it — into qascii117estion.