Fox News Apologizes After Chyron Touts Trump Aid Cuts to “3 Mexican Countries”

The right-leaning cable network's gaffe was seen as a telling slip about its immigration coverage.

Fox and Friends chyron from March 31, 2019 mistakenly referred to U.S. aid cuts to "3 Mexican Countries." (Photo credit: Screenshot, Fox News)
Fox and Friends chyron from March 31, 2019 mistakenly referred to U.S. aid cuts to "3 Mexican Countries." (Photo credit: Screenshot, Fox News)

Sunday morning’s episode of Fox and Friends made some news—but not in a good way if you’re a news organization.

During a segment on President Trump’s immigration policy and his just announced plan to cut aid to the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, the show put a chyron that mistakenly called them “3 Mexican countries.)

The obvious gaffe ignited a fusillade of parody on social media, as people weighed in on the network’s basic failure of geography. Not long after the sarcastic term “North Mexico” began trending on Twitter.

Some media critics found the mistake a revealing slip for a network that has consistently supported the Trump administration’s draconian immigrations policies and greatly contributed to his “migrant caravan” invasion narrative in the run up to the 2018 midterm elections.

Fox News did issue a correction and apology for the mistake shortly thereafter, saying: “We want to clarify and correct something that happened earlier in the show. We had an inaccurate graphic on screen…we just want to be clear the funding is being cut off to three Central American countries. We apologize for the error it never should have happened.”

 

 

 

The InsideHook Newsletter.

News, advice and insights for the most interesting person in the room.