Marine Corps Tried to End the Spread of Fox News Lie (Updated)

Military.com reports that the United States Marine Corps has been working to try and get Fox News to retract its false story, claiming a Gold Star family was forced to pay $60,000 to ship the remains of a Marine killed in Afghanistan.

A service spokesman notified the news network that it was pushing an incorrect story and accused it of using the grief of fallen Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee's family to draw in readers, according to email exchanges obtained by Military.com, that were released through a Freedom of Information Act.

Fox News eventually deleted the story with no correction, and it never reached out to the Gee family with an apology as the Marine Corps requested, the family said.

Gee's family never paid a dollar to transport her remains, and the Marine Corps let Fox News know -- in no uncertain terms -- that the July 25 story was false in a series of emails over the following days.

"This headline correction is still misleading and your story is still false," Maj. James Stenger, the lead spokesperson for the Marine Corps, wrote to Fox News in an email after the publication changed the headline and body of the story in an attempt to soften the accusation.

"Using the grief of a family member of a fallen Marine to score cheap clickbait points is disgusting," Stenger wrote. The spokesman was one of several military officials frustrated with the story, according to the documents.

Update: Fox News tells FTVLive that they released this statement, “The now unpublished story has been addressed internally and we sincerely apologize to the Gee family.” 

No word on what “addressed internally” actually means.