Well, this is embarrassing.
Fox News issued an apology Friday morning after a man who claimed to have served heroically in Vietnam as a Navy SEAL was outed as a phony.
The man they interviewed earlier this month, John Garofalo, is neither a Navy SEAL, nor is he a veteran of the Vietnam War, nor is he the recipient of two Purple Hearts.
But not everything about him is a lie. He is, in fact, a glassmaker. He also really likes President Trump. Those two details about himself are true. So there’s that, at least.
Here’s the apology Fox issued Friday:
On Sunday, Oct. 8, Fox News Channel aired a story about John Garofalo, a glass artist who created a presidential glass seal in the hopes of gifting it to President Trump.
Garofalo claimed he was a Vietnam veteran, a member of the first U.S. Navy SEAL team, and a decorated war hero who was awarded two Purple Hearts.
Unfortunately, all of Garofalo’s claims turned out to be untrue. The fact is that he did not serve in Vietnam. He was never a U.S. Navy SEAL. Even though he showed us medals, Garofalo was not awarded two Purple Hearts or any of the other nearly two dozen commendations he claimed to have received, except for the National Defense Service Medal.
It is true that Garafalo is a glass artist and a veteran. He served in Spain and he gifted two presidential seals to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Over the last two weeks, we’ve worked with Garofalo’s family and the National Personnel Records Center to get to the bottom of a military past that Garofalo had claimed to be covert.
We apologize to our viewers, especially veterans and servicemen and women.
Though we appreciate the correction and the apology, we still have so, so many questions about how Garofalo was able to dupe Fox on basically every level.
It’d be one thing if the Navy SEAL lie slipped through the cracks. It’d be one thing if Fox glossed over just his claim he served in the Vietnam War. It’d be one thing if they slipped up and didn’t check on his double Purple Heart boast.
But all three lies went unchecked? Did anyone do any homework on this story? Apparently not. As is usually the case with media missteps of this magnitude, it’s nothing more complicated than a case of too good to check. Someone heard that a Navy SEAL hero wanted to honor President Trump, and the guys at Fox came running. What a story! A veteran and respect for our president! Get the cameras.
Never let it be said that left-leaning news organizations have a stranglehold on journalistic sloppiness.
