MSNBC host Chris Hayes was compelled to apologize on air Thursday for blatantly taking a statement by Bill O'Reilly about the Confederate flag out of context.
On The O'Reilly Factor Monday, O'Reilly said, "For some other people who see it in a historical context, it represents bravery in war…"
On his show All In with Chris Hayes, the MSNBC host misreported O'Reilly's statement as if he had been expressing his own view of the flag rather than summarizing others':
HAYES: Now, almost as soon as the backlash against the Confederate flag started to gain momentum, the backlash to the backlash got underway, much of it from some predictable sources…Bill O’Reilly said it represents the bravery of Confederates who fought in the Civil War.
Wednesday, an angry O'Reilly blasted Hayes' "complete distortion" of his statement, adding that the marketplace has proven Hayes is "the biggest failure in cable news" (video above).
The next day, Hayes issued a contrite on-air apology:
HAYES: In a segment on the Confederate flag, I said that Bill O’Reilly said that it represents the bravery of Confederates who fought in the Civil War. And while it's true, O'Reilly literally uttered the words "it stands for bravery" while talking about the flag, it’s also quite clear from the context of the discussion he was having that he was not giving his own views, but talking about how some other people view or understand the flag. We should not have attributed that view to him. Fair is fair. I got it wrong, I apologize.
