Stuart Varney Finally Acknowledges Occupy Wall Street Had Nothing To Do With Embarrassing Craigslist Ad

Two days, two Voice articles, and four emails later, FOX Business Network host Stuart Varney has finally acknowledged that a Craigslist ad recruiting paid demonstrators for a “protest” in Zuccotti Park had nothing to do with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

However, he offers no apology for the embarrassment his linking the ad to OWS has caused the movement. Rather, he just hassles the guy who actually posted the ad for tricking him into thinking the occupiers were behind the ad.

If you’re not familiar with Varney’s show falsely linking the ad to Occupy Wall Street, click here (basically what happened is someone on Varney’s staff
stumbled upon a Craigslist ad recruiting paid protesters to go to Zuccotti Park earlier this week to “hang out” during a protest. No where in the ad does it mention anything about Occupy Wall Street, but because OWS rhetoric (the whole “99 percent” thing, Zuccotti Park, etc.) was used in the ad, Varney’s show determined it was the work of the occupiers. Oops — as we proved Wednesday, OWS had nothing to do with the ad).

Varney’s failure to apologize aside, we would like to make a clarification: in previous articles we posted about Varney and the OWS movement, we incorrectly stated that his show appeared on FOX News. Actually, it appears on the FOX Business Network. We’d also like to note that during the original broadcast, Varney did acknowledge that the ad was posted on Craigslist and “people may question the authenticity.”

That said, we did question the authenticity of the ad, and were able to prove (with a quick Google search) that Occupy Wall Street had nothing to do with it.

Varney, on the other hand, didn’t bother to do that. He suggested during the broadcast that OWS posted the ad and then it was presented as fact on his Facebook page, which has more than 10,000 followers.

See the image posted on Varney’s Facebook page — with the caption “”HELP WANTED! Even as the
weather gets warmer, the Occupy movement seem
to be having trouble finding fresh protesters. Just take a look at this
ad posted over the weekend” — below.

The photo has since been removed from Varney’s Facebook page — but not before it tallied 173 Facebook shares, 146 “likes,” and over 100 comments, the vast majority of which were mocking the OWS movement. However, Varney’s Facebook page doesn’t mention why the photo was removed, which undoubtedly has left (at least) hundreds of people believing the bullshit story.

As we mentioned in prior posts, Varney used the ad in an attempt to humiliate OWS by pointing out that the movement has lost a lot of steam recently and that it has resorted to paying people to protest. While he suggests the ad may not be authentic in the original broadcast, he ended the segment by saying “I hope it’s real.”

Well, it’s not real — and it seems someone owes the occupiers an apology.