Sean Hannity’s Lies Exposed By Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart is on fire. About two weeks ago, Stewart put together one of the best presentations illustrating perfectly why Fox News is NOT news. Just last week Stewart gave us an hysterical portrayal of Glenn Beck’s diseased psyche. And last night Stewart proved, once again, that he is a far better journalist than most of those who actually call themselves journalists.

Why does Sean Hannity even still have a job? Anyone else, on any other network, would be fired for this sort of deliberate fabrication. Apparently on Fox it is acceptable to show video footage from a rally two months ago and pretend it is from a rally a few days ago, in order to falsely inflate the size of the attending crowd.

The propagandists at Fox are well aware that the nation overwhelmingly supports heath care reform, so they resort to dishonesty in pursuit of their unpopular agenda. If they can’t get enough Tea Baggers to show up, Fox will just falsify the video record to make whatever point serves their venal interests. It is the same disrespect for the truth that compels Hannity to assert, without any evidence, that 20,000+ people turned out to the protest, although neutral sources say it was no more than 10,000. Hannity’s guest, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), put the crowd estimate as high as 45,000. She also said that the event was the result of spontaneous word of mouth. What she left out was that Fox News promoted the affair repeatedly and anti-health care lobbyists like Americans for Prosperity funded the organizing efforts, including some forty buses to deliver the AstroTurfers to the Capital.

What’s truly depressing about all of this (besides Hannity keeping his job) is that the rest of the media has failed to report any of it. When Dan Rather aired a true story that was marred by a few poorly vetted documents, it became a media frenzy that eventually cost Rather his job. But when Hannity blatantly manufactures a false story, the media shrugs its shoulders and turns away.

This is why Jon Stewart is such a treasure and a model of journalistic integrity, despite his objections to being cast in that role. We definitely need more like him. It would be great if they were just as funny, but I’d settle for just being responsible reporters.

Update: Hannity has responded to Stewart’s exposé in a typically smug manner, saying that he had “screwed up” but that it was “an inadvertent mistake.” Then he thanked Stewart and his writers for watching. That’s a little like a heroin trafficker thanking a DEA agent for listening in on his phone calls.

More to the point, Hannity’s apology doesn’t pass muster. It stretches credulity to assert that he had merely used “some incorrect video” along with some that was correct. The event he was discussing was current news, footage for which would be at hand in the newsroom. In order to buy his excuse you would have to believe that someone accidentally stumbled into the video archives facility, mistakenly retrieved footage from an event that took place two months prior, and unknowingly spliced it onto the correct footage. Then everyone on the staff – editors, directors, producers, and Hannity himself – failed to notice the mishap even after the multiple viewings that these prepackaged segments are subjected to prior to going on the air. Yeah, right.

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7 thoughts on “Sean Hannity’s Lies Exposed By Jon Stewart

  1. I actually started a Facebook group dedicated to bringing attention to the Hannity scandal. On the Discussions page I left instructions for filing an online complaint with the FCC (they have a category of complaint specifically for this kind of media bias). Hopefully with enough complaints the FCC might put pressure on Fox News to take some kind of action

  2. If you are as outraged about this as I am, I strongly encourage you to file a complaint to the FCC here:
    http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm

    The appropriate Complaint Type is “Broadcast (TV and Radio), Cable, and Satellite Issues” and the Complaint Category is “Unauthorized, unfair, biased, illegal broadcasts” (the form states that this includes “Biased or distorted news stories by the media”). The original show aired on Fox News at 9:00 pm Eastern on November 5th 2009.

    We have an avenue to correct this type of falsification and to make change we must make a complaint.

    Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ybenjamin/detail??blogid=150&entry_id=51465#ixzz0WaoCl9M1

  3. Anybody with any intelligence knows “commentators” lie to juice up their stories. Remember how the far right said after Obama was sworn in that they were going to whatever it takes to destroy him.That certainly shows their intellect! One would think they’d do it quietly. They do it with absolutely no shame at all! All the hate they show tells us far more about them than our President. We use to call these people cowards and bullies. I guess this the way their mothers raised them. I’d love to know why Fox has all this freedom to harasse & show blantant hate to any & all Democrates, saying ANYTHING to them. Imus was fired for less. I feel the difference on Fox is they fall just short of calling anyone the N word. To think that Hannity has kids & has to go to school everyday & be picked on & he can’t say a word to defend them because what Hannity says is gospel. They are ashamed of their father.

  4. Did he ever live up to his offer to be waterboarded “for the families of the troops,” or does he really NOT care about them?

    • No way. Hannity is a coward with a big mouth.

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