NewsBusters Catches Piers Morgan's Falsity, Gets Him to Apologize
The MRC's blog, 
NewsBusters, reported that during a debate on guns, CNN's Piers Morgan
falsely claimed that according to FBI statistics, Virginia had the
highest murder rate in the country in 2009. Over 38 hours later, Piers
apologized and admitted "It didn't."
This came at a pivotal moment in the debate as Morgan's pro-gun
opponent had cited Virginia's falling violent crime rate coinciding with
its rising gun sales. By labeling Virginia the number one murder state
as of only four years ago, and appealing to authority to support his
claim, Morgan put his guest on the defensive with a completely false
statistic not anywhere close to the truth.
[Video below. Audio here.]
In his on-air apology Thursday night, Morgan simply called it an
"inaccurate fact" when Virginia wasn't even in the top 20 states for
murder rate that year.
This was Morgan's on-air apology: "[T]he other night I was involved in a
debate on Tuesday in which I said that Virginia had the highest murder
rate, according to the FBI in 2009, and it didn't. And that was an
inaccurate fact and I'm happy to correct it now on air."
Hours before, Morgan had owned up to his falsity on Twitter:
"My apologies to @AWRHawkins - I wrongly stated on Tuesday’s show that
Virginia had the highest murder rate in America in 2009. It didn’t."
