Not long after Democratic presidential candidate and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and his campaign received backlash for their misuse of a Kenyan woman’s stock image, MSNBC is now caught up in a photo faux pas of its own.
Richard Spencer, the co-organizer of the deadly Unite the Right rally back in August 2017, has received increased attention over the past two years following his polarizing appearances on CNN and other Western media.
However, the self-proclaimed white nationalist has recently found himself being referenced not for his controversial views and discriminatory language, but for the fact that he shares a name with former US Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer. In a Sunday broadcast of “AM Joy” concerning the recently ousted Navy secretary, the show’s producers apparently dropped the ball and mixed up their Spencers.
“I want to make a quick correction. This is a pretty big correction. Earlier in the segment as we were talking about former Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, we mistakenly showed the wrong image of white supremacist Richard Spencer,” Reid said during the Sunday broadcast, adding that MSNBC was “very, deeply sorry for that mistake.”
The latter Spencer also commented on the matter.
“On some deep, unconscious level, America wants me to be in charge of the U.S. Navy,” the white supremicist said in a Sunday tweet.
Despite Reid’s apology, many netizens were not convinced that MSNBC simply made a careless mistake.
Other Twitter users revisited Reid’s not-so-distant history of “mistakes,” such as those unearthed in 2018 through scrutiny of her old blog - which included conspiracy theories on 9/11 and anti-LGBT remarks.