The comments went unnoticed in the control room, Bill Shine, Fox News' senior vice president for programming, said Thursday.
The scathing remarks first came to the attention of an employee working the overnight shift Sunday, who transcribed the tape as part of training for the network's ongoing digital conversion. Otherwise, "it potentially would have not been discovered," Shine said.
On Tuesday, a staff member in the digital department e-mailed Jackson's comments to a producer for "The O'Reilly Factor," who was vacationing in France. The producer alerted the show's staff back in New York later that day.
News executives immediately realized the import of the footage.
"I looked at it and thought, 'This is going to be news,' " Shine said. But the cable network did not put the material on the air right away.
