Fox News Honors Aretha Franklin with Photo of Patti LaBelle
After the tragic passing of legendary singer Aretha Franklin on Thursday, the cable news networks naturally offered a great deal of coverage of her life and career, as well as memorial tributes and graphics. In the case of Fox News, as Twitter users pointed out, one of those graphics pictured the wrong legendary singer.
Umm, is that Patti LaBelle in the corner? pic.twitter.com/PmUPpgc0zb
— Philip Lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) August 16, 2018
Mediaite did a search and found out that, yes, that was indeed Patti LaBelle in the background. And not only that, but the image they used is from her performance at the White House. With President Barack Obama.
Here’s a screenshot from an Australian news site that shows the exact source pose.
Here’s video from the event.
Patti LaBelle is alive and today offered her own tribute to her “sister in song,” the great Aretha Franklin.
Rest in peace Aretha. ❤ pic.twitter.com/QT7HeY5SIf
— Patti LaBelle (@MsPattiPatti) August 16, 2018
UPDATE:
Statement from Jessica Santostefano – Vice President, Media Desk, FOX News
“We sincerely apologize to Aretha Franklin’s family and friends. Our intention was to honor the icon using a secondary image of her performing with Patti LaBelle in the full screen graphic, but the image of Ms. Franklin was obscured in that process, which we deeply regret.”
It is not clear what was “obscured”, however. As can be seen in the video above, the photo was from a solo performance with backup singers. The original AP photo is located here. Aretha Franklin is not in the photo, although she was part of the event.
[Featured image via screengrab]
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