It’s pretty obvious Fox News “reporter” Michael Lee either hid the truth or never bothered to do any actual reporting when he dutifully took down the comments of GOP Congressman Cory Mills and came up with the false headline, ““Family forced to pay to ship body of Marine killed after Pentagon policy change; ‘Egregious injustice.’”
In reality, the family never paid to ship the body of Sgt. Nicole L. Gee. The Washington Post has more:
Neither Pentagon officials nor Gee’s family were quoted in the original story.
Marine Corps officials say the family did not face any financial burdens to have Gee’s body shipped to Arlington National Cemetery. They disputed the story in a series of emails to Fox executives — including Fox News president and executive editor Jay Wallace and editor in chief Porter Berry — shortly after the story was published.
“The allegations originally published turned out to be false, which I suspect Mr. Lee knew in the first place, and was the reason he did not seek comment from the Marine Corps,” wrote Marine Corps spokesman Maj. James Stenger in an email to the Fox executives.
When caught in their lie, Mills blamed the military and the Gee family for being “confused.” Fox News first amended its story without noting the change, then removed it from its website altogether, “ignoring Stenger’s request for a correction, retraction or an apology to Gee’s family,” The Post reported.
You know who did apologize? Gee’s family. "I am truly very sorry,” Gee’s mother-in-law told Military.com about the misunderstanding.
