Stephen Colbert on Monday took Fox and Friends’ “chief friend” Steve Doocy to task for fabricating a quote by President Obama.
“Unlike some people, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth,” Doocy quoted Obama during an interview with Mitt Romney last Thursday. But Obama never said those first three words.
“So, he didn’t say ‘unlike some people’ … unlike some people,” Colbert said. “But that does not mean it was poor journalism. Doocy was practicing journalism+ by quoting the subtext.”
And the subtext must have been true, Colbert said, because the quote was picked up verbatim by The New York Post and The Washington Post. “I believe in journalism that’s called ‘picking up a ‘dooce’ with your bare hands.’”
Doocy corrected the quote on-air Tuesday morning.
Watch the video:
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Steve Doocy’s Subtext Reporting | ||||
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David Taintor
David Taintor is TPM’s News Editor. He contributes to TPM’s Livewire coverage, among other areas. David is from Chanhassen, Minnesota, where, yes, it gets very cold. Reach him at taintor [at] talkingpointsmemo.com
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