Fox News Apologizes for Falsely Reporting Marine Corps Charged Dead Soldier’s Family $60,000 for Return of Remains
Fox News has issued an apology for a story that falsely reported that the U.S. Marine Corps. charged a Gold Star family $60,000 to have the remains of a soldier killed in Afghanistan returned to them.
“The now unpublished story has been addressed internally and we sincerely apologize to the Gee family,” a Fox News spokesperson told TheWrap in a statement.
According to a report by Military.com, which acquired emails between the Marines and Fox News via a Freedom of Information Act request, the Marine Corps had warned Fox News it was publishing an inaccurate story regarding the return of fallen Sgt. Nicole Gee’s remains. In addition to telling Fox News that the story was inaccurate, the Marine Corps accused the outlet of taking advantage of the Gee family to gain readers.
Later, the news network quietly took down the online article, but didn’t publicly disclose that nor issue an apology to the family until now.
Published on July 25, the Fox News story was based off information provided by Republican Rep. Cory Mills. He said the fee was set after a meeting with the families of soldiers killed at the Abbey Gate victims outside of the Kabul airport in 2021. Gee was one the 13 killed in the suicide bombing.
Mills wasn’t alone in spreading the false narrative, Military.com pointed out. Here’s an X, formerly Twitter, post in which Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville links to the now-deleted story.
The post Fox News Apologizes for Falsely Reporting Marine Corps Charged Dead Soldier’s Family $60,000 for Return of Remains appeared first on TheWrap.