Fox News temporarily deleted online videos Thursday of an interview it had heavily promoted the previous day with an anonymous man who said he'd attended the same mosque as the suspect in a beheading in Oklahoma.
But the videos weren't taken down out of concerns about accuracy -- rather, it was about the guest's safety.
The interview was televised on the prime time Fox News program "The Kelly File." "We are protecting his identity at his request, and for the interviews' purposes we will call him 'Noor,'" anchor Megyn Kelly said as she introduced him.
The man's face was blacked out during the interview, making him look like a whistleblower. He made a number of incendiary claims about the mosque and its attendees, so the video of the interview gained attention on the Internet before it was taken down.
"'Noor' knowingly agreed to appear on 'The Kelly File' in silhouette and was given the option to disguise his voice, which he chose not to do," Tom Lowell, the program's executive producer, said in response to questions about the video's disappearance on Thursday.
"Following the interview, 'Noor' expressed apprehension about his voice not being disguised and in response, a producer removed the video out of concern for the guest's personal safety. This was an error in judgment," Lowell said.
"Once management was made aware of the situation, the video was put back up in its original form."
The editor of conservative blog The Right Scoop originally noticed the missing video Thursday morning. (Links to the FoxNews.com video of the interview -- "Inside Oklahoma beheading suspect's mosque: Former attendee speaks out" -- were resulting in an error message.)
There was some speculation about the anonymous guest's credibility before Fox commented on the reason for its removal.
