Several Philadelphia Eagles players were angry over the way a FOX News report presented images of them kneeling in prayer as if they were national anthem protests, and the network has since apologized for the misleading coverage.
As defensive lineman Chris Long noted, no Eagles players chose to kneel during the national anthem in 2017. An executive producer at FOX acknowledge that in a statement on Tuesday.
.@FoxNews apologizes for showing photos of @Eagles kneeling in prayer in their segment about the national anthem protests pic.twitter.com/2cN3LRUFRf
— Tasneem N (@TasneemN) June 5, 2018
“During our report about President Trump cancelling the Philadelphia Eagles trip to the White House to celebrate their Super Bowl win, we showed unrelated footage of players kneeling in prayer,” the statement read. “To clarify, no members of the team knelt in protest during the national anthem throughout the regular or post-season last year. We apologize for the error.”
Long and Eagles tight end Zach Ertz, one of the players who was shown kneeling in FOX’s report, took to Twitter on Tuesday to unload on the network for using propaganda to back Trump.
Trump’s decision to cancel the Eagles’ White House visit likely had to do with how few players were expected to show up. Many players had already decided to pass on the event long before the NFL implemented its new national anthem policy, which is another reason some of them were so frustrated with FOX’s framing of the story.
