Phoenix:
Fox News apologised on Saturday for a "severe human error" that resulted in viewers seeing a suspected carjacker fatally shoot himself after a police chase.
The coverage of the Friday incident, which sparked outrage on social media and a quick on-air apology by anchor Shepard Smith, showed a man stumbling from an allegedly stolen car into the desert near Phoenix on Friday.
As a camera in a helicopter provided live coverage, the man stopped a short distance away, pulled the trigger of a gun pointed to the right side of his head and crumpled face-forward into the ground.
"We took every precaution to avoid any such live incident by putting the helicopter pictures on a five-second delay," said Michael Clemente, Fox's executive vice president for news editorial.
"Unfortunately, this mistake was the result of a severe human error and we apologize for what viewers ultimately saw on the screen," he said in a statement.
A Phoenix police spokesman confirmed the man, who authorities said fired at officers and a police helicopter at one point during the pursuit, died at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The coverage of the Friday incident, which sparked outrage on social media and a quick on-air apology by anchor Shepard Smith, showed a man stumbling from an allegedly stolen car into the desert near Phoenix on Friday.
As a camera in a helicopter provided live coverage, the man stopped a short distance away, pulled the trigger of a gun pointed to the right side of his head and crumpled face-forward into the ground.
"We took every precaution to avoid any such live incident by putting the helicopter pictures on a five-second delay," said Michael Clemente, Fox's executive vice president for news editorial.
"Unfortunately, this mistake was the result of a severe human error and we apologize for what viewers ultimately saw on the screen," he said in a statement.
A Phoenix police spokesman confirmed the man, who authorities said fired at officers and a police helicopter at one point during the pursuit, died at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
© Thomson Reuters 2012
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