Fox News Airs Jackson Dissing Obama

Fox News Channel aired audio of the Rev. Jesse Jackson dissing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on The O'Reilly Factor Wednesday night.

Jackson said Obama was "talking down to black people" and he threatened to cut off a certain part of the senator's anatomy. Fox News said Jackson made the comments while he was miked and awaiting a Fox & Friends interview from Chicago Sunday.

Jackson said he did not know his mike was live when he made the comments, before a Fox News interview, and he went on CNN to apologize to Obama for the remarks after the story got out.

The incident overshadowed another Obama-related story: his vote to support a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) bill that included immunity for telecommunications companies that helped the government to tap into phone calls.

Obama initially opposed the bill and attempted to excise the phone-company protections from it, but he eventually voted for the larger bill, which passed Thursday.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.