On July 18, 2013, Tyrone West was pulled over for a routine traffic stop in Baltimore. An unarmed black man, he somehow ended up dead. Some witnesses say they saw police (Baltimore city police and Morgan State University campus police) beating him. They say he did not resist arrest. They say he was sprayed with Mace or pepper spray, and that he screamed for help. A long-delayed autopsy says he died of “positional asphyxiation.”

Tyrone West’s grieving family does not believe driving while black is a death-penalty offense. Every week, there’s now a “West Wednesday” demonstration in the Baltimore area, to protest such deaths. His sister, Tawanda Jones, a teacher, has taken part in these and other peaceful protests. “One piece of me died when my brother was brutally murdered,” she says.

Recently Jones was videotaped in a Washington-area protest, leading a crowd in a chant:

We won’t stop!

We can’t stop!

‘Til killer cops

Are in cell blocks!

The Baltimore Fox affiliate, Fox45 WBFF, ran a segment on “the increased risk in being a police officer in light of recent grand jury rulings” in which the chant was abbreviated to the first three lines, and reporter Melissa Roeder did a voice-over saying the words were:

We won’t stop!

We can’t stop!

So kill a cop!

Jones heard about this when her ex, a police officer, sent her the video. She was horrified. She was also afraid to send her kids to school, in case a “crazed” person thinks she advocates killing cops and attacks her children. (She got them make-up assignments. She’s a teacher.)

She called the station to correct the record. They put forth a series of apologies and did an interview with her.

First they put something on Facebook that is not an apology or even a correction:

Last night on Fox45 News at Ten we aired a story regarding the increased risk in being a police officer in light of recent grand jury rulings and the shooting deaths of two police officers in New York City. We aired part of a protest covered by CSPAN that appeared to have protesters chanting “kill a cop”. We spoke to the person in the video today and she told us that is not what she was chanting. Indeed, Tawanda Jones, says she was chanting, “We won’t stop ‘til killer cops are in cell blocks”. We invited Tawanda to appear on Fox45 News… for an interview so we can discuss the video and the recent violence in New York City. She has kindly accepted and we will bring you that tonight.

Notice they don’t say their story was wrong, just that Jones says it’s wrong. Then they posted this, which has an admission of “error,” a distanced apology, a that’s-not-the-real-us claim, and a vague excuse:

Fox45 is apologizing for an error made on Fox45 News at Ten last night. We aired a clip from a protest in Washington, DC where we reported protesters were chanting “kill a cop”. We received a phone call from Tawanda Jones, who is in the video, who informed us that the chant was actually “We won’t stop….We can’t stop…. ‘til killer cops…. are in cell blocks”. We here at Fox45 work hard every day to earn your trust and bring you fair and comprehensive news from around the country. Although last night’s report reflected an honest misunderstanding of what the protesters were saying, we apologize for the error. We have deleted the story on our webpage and we offered to have Ms. Jones on Fox45 News at 5:00 tonight for a live interview….

SorryWatch’s friend Frances Montell, a keen observer of apologies, paraphrases: “We were caught doing something truly egregious and outrageous, something that calls into question the very idea that we are actually legitimate journalists, so we are forced to publish this pro forma acknowledgment of our teensy tiny little mistake. We also want to take this opportunity to tell you how awesome we are and all the great things we do All. The. Time. Even though we didn’t actually do anything “wrong” we are somehow forced to “apologize” anyway. So here it is. Our apology…. Happy now?”

On air before the Jones interview, Fox45 anchor Jeff Barnd said:

We have a correction tonight on a story we aired last night on Fox 45 News at 10. We aired a story regarding the increased risk police are experiencing following the grand jury decisions in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases. Now, we aired this clip of a Washington protest that recently took place…

Amazingly, the clip they air with this is the wrong clip, one that includes the last line of the chant they originally cut out. Not the one that they aired before. The wrong clip. Almost as if no one did any creative editing. The wrong clip. They’re still telling a dishonest version of events. Lying.

You might say they should not re-air a doctored clip. But in that case they need not to claim that they’re showing us the clip Jones complained about, and they need to say what the problem was. But they don’t.

Barnd goes on:

Now after we aired this clip, we got a call from Tawanda Jones… Tawanda says she was misrepresented in this video clip, by us. She agreed to come on the air and speak with us tonight with her attorney. And we welcome them both to our studio…. First of all, before we get started any farther in this interview, we want to apologize for airing that video and having misrepresented the way it was. Our airing of that video does – do nothing to promote the peace in the streets between police and the people they are supposed to protect. So we certainly hope you take our apology sincerely because we don’t like being wrong like that. And in this case we were wrong and we do apologize.

Jones accepted the apology, but said “The interesting part that really gets to me is, where you guys edited it and stopped — like, how could that be a mistake? Once you play that whole thing, you would know that’s not something that’s being said.”

No explanation.

The interview with Jones that follows Barnd’s intro contains these remarks from a condescending Fox45 reporter:

So here you are today. You were misrepresented – you say you were misrepresented in that video. And you were. We apologize for it. And you came in. You were on the air. You had your moment. How are you feeling now?

Among other things, Jones eloquently remarked, “I never had my name tattered and torn in the media… I don’t know if that can ever be fixed.”

…As my boss indicated earlier, he apologized, and you had a public apology from Jeff Barnd. [Oh wow, JEFF BARND!] And I, as part of Fox45, also apologize for this having happened to you, because you seem sincere in what you’re doing. And you’re right, the only thing you have is your name….

Again, we apologize….

These are terrible, inadequate apologies.

What they did is never named. No one ever says “we edited and narrated this clip to give a false impression of what Jones said.”

There was an “honest misunderstanding.” An “error.” It “happened to you.” Something that requires “correction.” Okay, they “misrepresented the way it was.” Somehow they “were wrong.”

The reporter throws in random insults: “You were on the air. You had your moment.” Because being libeled is so worth it if you get to be on TV!

Not only do they not name the sin, they never address how it happened. How does an “honest misunderstanding” like this take place?

The chant was repeated over and over. In some repetitions – like the one Fox45 aired – the line “’Til killer cops” could easily sound like “So kill a cop” – if you take it out of context.

Someone did an evil thing. They deliberately selected and chopped video to make it seem Jones was chanting “So kill a cop.” That’s a lie. A lie that fans flames of hatred, that polarizes the situation. It also libels Jones. This presumably happened at Fox45.

I suppose it’s barely possible they couldn’t understand all of the chant, and just made up what they thought was being said, and cut off the part that confused them the most, in order to clarify what they guessed was being said. If so, that selective editing is a piece of stupidity so huge and careless that it still qualifies as an evil act. Not to mention a firing offense.

Fox45 “apologized.” But unless they say what they’re apologizing for, unless they say how it happened, unless they say what they’re doing to make sure it doesn’t happen again, those apologies are as false as the reporting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjx9MyJtyr4