Fox apologises to Obama for third time in two weeks

Rupert Murdoch's Fox News television station has been forced to apologise to Barack Obama for the third time in a fortnight after screening a racially tinged caption referring to his wife Michelle as his "baby mama".

Bill Shine, senior vice president of programming at Fox, said in a statement on Thursday that a producer "exercised poor judgment" during the segment.

The statement came as Obama established a website to help counter what he referred to as smears and rumours.

One of his first moves was to defend Michelle by debunking a persistent rumour that there is a video showing her speaking from the pulpit of the Trinity church in Chicago in which she allegedly refers to whites as "whitey". He said she had never spoken at Trinity or used such a phrase.

The apology comes just over a week after one of Fox's anchormen expressed regret for a comment on the night that Obama won the Democratic nomination. Obama, in a show of affection, lightly touched his fist against Michelle's and the anchorwoman referred to it as a "terrorist fist jab". Previously, a Fox contributor Liz Trotta had to apologise after making a joke about Obama being assassinated.

The trio of apologies is embarrassing for Fox. Murdoch last month praised Obama but stopped short of endorsing him, though his New York Post came out for Obama in January.