CBS’S SCHIEFFER BLASTS “NEW MEDIA” ON SHERROD STORY

A week after Shirley Sherrod was forced to resign from her position at the U.S. Department of Agriculture after a video of her was posted on a conservative news site and was later broadcast on Fox News depicting her as a black racist, the story continues to have a life of its own. After it was revealed that the video was taken out of context, Fox commentators Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck apologized, and Fox newscaster Sheppard Smith attempted to distance himself from his colleagues. (“We here at Studio B did not run the video and did not reference the story in any way.”) On Sunday, CBS’s Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer delivered a commentary about the Sherrod affair. Saying that he was proud to be a member of the “old media,” he remarked, “Yes, we do operate differently than some in the new media…We still call people involved in a story to get their side, editors fact check, and we never publish or broadcast anything unless we think it’s true. Last week we saw what can happen when it’s done the other way.”