On Sunday, NewsBusters broke the story about NBC's Bob Costas blaming guns for the previous day's murder-suicide by an NFL football player.
During a Grapevine segment involving the incident on Fox News's Special Report Monday, host Bret Baier quoted NewsBusters' associate editor Noel Sheppard (video follows with transcript):
BRET BAIER: Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine. Sportscaster Bob Costas is taking a lot of heat after using his segment on NBC’s Sunday Night Football to advocate for gun control after a murder-suicide involving Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher. Listen as he quotes extensively from Foxsports.Com writer Jason Whitlock.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOB COSTAS: “Our current gun culture,” Whitlock wrote, “ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenient store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenager boys bloodied and dead. Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it. In the coming days, Jovan Belcher's action and their possible connection to football will be analyzed. Who knows, but here,” wrote Jason Whitlock, “is what I believe: if Jovan Belcher didn't process a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would be alive today.”
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: NewsBusters’ Noel Sheppard says of the segment quote, “Costas is entitled to his opinion, but does he have to give it during halftime of a nationally televised game?”
