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May 25, 2013

Hannity gets caught by Jon Stewart ... and apologizes?!?

by Danny Gallagher, posted Nov 13th 2009 8:33AM

Hannity, Jon Stewart
Once again people, I'm forced to ask the obvious question: what the hell is going on here? Have we crossed over into the bizarro world? Is up now down? Has black become white? Did Lou Dobbs just announce that he's leaving CNN to take over the host chair of G4's Attack of the Show?

The other day, Jon Stewart called out Sean Hannity and his self titled show for what appeared to be doctored footage of Michelle Bachmann's recent health care rally dubbed the "Super Bowl of Freedom" (does that have anything to do with the Tostidos Fiesta Bowl of Human Rights?) spliced together with images from Glenn Beck's "9/12 Rally" to make the crowd look bigger.

As Stewart pointed out, the two images were clearly different, since one crowd was significantly larger than the other and the skies alternate from light to dark several times. If they were trying to fake the footage -- and I'm not saying they were, but if they did -- Ed Wood could have done a better editing job.

Hannity not only admitted that the images were from two separate rallies, but he also (gasp!) confirmed and apologized for the mistake. He also thanked Stewart and his writers for watching his show. I'm assuming they are still waiting for a second apology from Mr. Hannity for having to watch his show.

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Steve

Gotta love those Fox fanatics! When will the 'masses' realize that Hannity, Beck, Rush, et al are just doing whatever it takes to get ratings, and to hell with accuracy and balanced reporting. Rupert Murdoch is corrupting the US political system, and many voters are thanking him! Ridiculous.

December 30 2009 at 9:56 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Melody Warbington

Danny, why don't you write a story about how Dylan Ratigan used fake photos of Sarah Palin on last Friday's edition of Morning Meeting? (see www.mrc.org/biasalert/2009/20091113035138.aspx)
Did you ever write a story about how Dan Rather doctored information about Bush's National Guard service? Maybe because nobody's heard of Ratigan and Rather is just a loser. Hannity has a huge audience and had the integrity to apologize immediately. Ratigan waited 3 days and Rather's still whining.

November 17 2009 at 2:56 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
segsig

What is amusing is Hannity not understanding the COMEDY writers are PAID to watch his farce! They could also turn it around and thank him for paying attention to their show. Really there is no way old footage is mistakenly edited into a broadcast.

November 14 2009 at 1:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
logan

midwich, you're comparing TV Squad to the Huffington Post? Seriously? Don't you think that's a bit of a stretch.

I'm not fond of any news coverage on TV Squad myself but Hannitty and the whole FOX clan are considered entertainers not journalist so be definition they're fair game here.

November 13 2009 at 3:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
King Zilch

His "apology" was a load of santorum. He was trying to deflect criticism by claiming it was an "inadvertent" mistake. So, a lying liar tried to cover a lie with another lie.

November 13 2009 at 1:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
midwich

How unsuprising: another sub-HuffPo article on what's supposed to be a TV review site. I don't care who said what to whom, this article (and many others) has no place here.

November 13 2009 at 10:31 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to midwich's comment
Gill

TV News isn't TV? Interesting logic you have.

November 13 2009 at 10:34 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bcarter3

How unsuprising. Another whiny Fox fan trying to dictate content on a site he doesn't own.

November 13 2009 at 11:06 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
shadowracer

How can any news organization think that something like this is OK, not just Fox news, any things that has "news" in the title. It's blatant manipulation, it is by definition propaganda. WTF is this Starship Troopers(man that movie is great)?

Why don't they have their own organization to police themselves? Like the MPAA(ok maybe not like the MPAA) or ESRB?

FOX makes sh!t up, CNN just plain quit, MSNBC is so-so, Time Warner took away HDNET...looks like PBS and BBC news are the only two journalistic outlets left on TV.

November 13 2009 at 10:25 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Torsten

No, this is quite typical - Hannity admits only what cannot be denied anyway. He calls it a mistake, failing to explain how such a "mistake" could even happen. He tries to bury the issue before someone can ask him if he deliberately tried to manipulate his audience. Typical Fox tactic.

November 13 2009 at 8:52 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply

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