"The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart pointed out inconsistencies in alternating "Hannity Show" shots of a recent conservative rally on the steps of the Capitol Building. This has led to accusations of Fox News splicing video footage shot at a larger Glenn Beck rally held in Washington two months ago with video shot at last week's rally, thus falsifying footage to make the more recent protest appear bigger than it was.
The controversy stems from an anti-health-care reform rally held last Thursday on the steps of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., which Rep. Michelle Bachmann termed the "Super Bowl of Freedom." The Washington Post estimated that the rally drew roughly 10,000 attendees, but Fox News commentator Sean Hannity claimed on his show that the event drew 20,000 people, while Bachmann, appearing as a guest on Hannity's show, estimated that number to be much higher, up to 45,000. In the process of lauding the turnout "in the middle of the day on a Thursday," Hannity showed footage of scores of people assembled in protest, presumably at last week's rally.
But "The Daily Show" pointed out an oddity in the footage during their broadcast last night: The condition of the sky and the coloring of the leaves lacked consistency in some of the shots, leading Stewart to insinuate that Hannity incorporated footage from coverage of Beck's "9/12" rally into his show's segment on Bachmann's event, in order to bolster the perception of its turnout.
Stewart and "The Daily Show" have been quite critical of Fox News in the past, often using its vast archive of past video clips to lampoon the cable news channel's famous "Fair and Balanced" claims, with Fox News hosts like Bill O'Reilly occasionally allocating airtime to fighting back, claiming that "The Daily Show" often takes what he and his colleagues at Fox News say out of context to make them appear hypocritical and to paint their news coverage as partisan.
A Comedy Central
spokesperson says that they weren't tipped off to the footage shown on Hannity's
show, and that it was simply the work of one of " the eagle-eyed staffers" on
"The Daily Show" who noticed the discrepancies during a routine check of Fox News programming.
When
contacted by Yahoo! News about the matter, a Fox News spokesperson declined to
comment, but added that Hannity will address the issue on his show airing
Wednesday night.
-- Brett Michael Dykes is a contributor to the Yahoo! News Blog
Click here for the video of Jon Stewart. Makes you wonder how trustworthy the media really is!!
Yep, I saw that too. I was looking at the video of something that was supposed to have taken place in DC LAST WEEK and I immediately thought, that was not last week. The leaves are on the trees.
It's full on late fall here and the trees are almost bare, and we are a bit chilly.
Why would Fox deliberately use old footage from another event and claim it was from last week, unless it was to, well, lie and make the event seem larger than it was?
Doesn't that seem biased at all? I'd love it if one of our hard-core Fox news fans could address this.
The only one on Fox that I appreciate at all is Andrew Napolitano.
Not!
I guess none of the loudly supportive Foxnews supporters want to touch this one.
Of course they won't address it. It would completely warp their minds to know admit that Fox news isn't fair and balanced. Besides that would require that they use evidence and critical thinking to form their opinions.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini
I'm going to bump the post about Glenn Beck's Phone to Nowhere. It was pretty funny/disturbing.
I hope you all will read it.
Quoting momandvet:
Of course they won't address it. It would completely warp their minds to
knowadmit that Fox news isn't fair and balanced. Besides that would require that they use evidence and critical thinking to form their opinions.
I did read it and well.... Why can't Canada have a warmer climate?
Quoting MissBearNMonkey:I'm going to bump the post about Glenn Beck's Phone to Nowhere. It was pretty funny/disturbing.
I hope you all will read it.
Quoting momandvet:
Of course they won't address it. It would completely warp their minds to
knowadmit that Fox news isn't fair and balanced. Besides that would require that they use evidence and critical thinking to form their opinions.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini
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on Nov. 11, 2009 at 10:05 PM