Fox apologizes for using bogus teaparty protest clip

topic posted Thu, November 12, 2009 - 9:49 PM by  B
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Shocker: Fox News isn't always fair and balanced.

After Comedy Central's The Daily Show pointed out Tuesday night that Fox News' Sean Hannity program used footage from another GOP protest in a clip about a recent teaparty rally, Hannity admitted the network incorrectly used bogus footage in their interview with Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN).

"Finally tonight...Although it pains me to say this, Jon Stewart, Comedy Central - he was right," Hannity admitted Wednesday.

"On his program last night he mentioned that we had played some incorrect video on this program last week while talking about the Republican Health Care rally on Capitol Hill," Hannity continued.

"He was correct, we screwed up - we aired some video of a rally in September, along with a video from the actual event," he added. "It was an inadvertent mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. So Mr. Stewart, you were right… we apologize… and by the way, I want to thank you, and all your writers, for watching."

Stewart noted Tuesday that Fox showed clips of two rallies and pretended they were one and the same.

"I'm sorry, can we get back again," Stewart remarked. "That was weird. Because when that clip started, it was a clear fall day in Washington, D.C. Not a cloud in the sky, the leaves have changed.

"All of a sudden, the trees turn green again, and it's cloudy, and it looks like thousands and thousands of more people arrived," he continued. "If I didn't know any better, I would think they just put two different days together and acted like they didn't."

rawstory.com/2009/11/fox...rotest-clip/
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  • I would put this on a new thread, but I couldn't pass up the chance showing how FOX does the same old shit over and over.



    Again: Fox News uses old footage, makes Palin book tour look bigger

    By Daniel Tencer
    Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 -- 9:30 pm
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    palinfoxnewsbogusfootage Again: Fox News uses old footage, makes Palin book tour look biggerFox News was barely done licking its wounds from last week's embarrassing revelations that it had used old footage to make a Tea Party protest look bigger than it was, and now the network stands accused of doing the same thing again.

    During a Happening Now segment Wednesday, anchor Gregg Jarrett described "huge crowds" showing up to a Sarah Palin book tour event, and showed footage he described as "just coming in to us now" showing the former Alaska governor surrounded by adoring crowds.

    But, as Faiz Shakir at ThinkProgress reported, the images the network ran "appeared to be old file footage of Palin rallies from the 2008 presidential campaign."

    Media watchdog MediaMatters soon confirmed the report, displaying a screenshot of Fox's footage from Wednesday's broadcast with a nearly identical image from a Palin rally in Ocala, Florida, shortly before last year's election.

    While critics of Fox News will surely jump on this as further evidence that the network acts as a promotion tool for Republican politicians, network execs immediately declared that the incident was an innocent mix-up.
    Story continues below...

    "This was a production error in which the copy editor changed a script and didn't alert the control room to update the video,'' senior vice-president Michael Clemente told the Chicago Tribune's Swamp Politics blog. "There will be an on-air explanation during Happening Now on Thursday."

    Media observers pointed out that despite Jarrett's claim that the footage was "just coming in to us now," the mix-up may well have been unintended.

    "This appears to be little more than a momentary disconnect between newsreader and news producer than a conscious attempt to mislead," writes Jason Linkins at the Huffington Post. "Of course, the fact that Fox was caught manipulating footage in a misleading manner is only going to spur further suspicions when things like this happen."

    Last week, Fox News anchor Sean Hannity apologized to viewers after Comedy Central's Daily Show slammed the network for using footage of a Sept. 12 Tea Party rally in Washington evidently to make a Nov. 5 anti-health reform rally look bigger.

    "Although it pains me to say this, Jon Stewart, Comedy Central -- he was right," Hannity said.

    At that Sept. 12 rally, Fox News was caught stage-managing a crowd, with an off-camera producer waving instructions to chanting protesters.

    Swamp Politics reports that this latest incident could result in firings at the network. "It's highly like[ly] that serious disciplinary action will be taken for those responsible behind the scenes in the control room," the blog reports. "News executives there consider this to have been a sloppy and unnecessary error."

    The following video was broadcast on Fox News Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009, and upoaded to the Web by ThinkProgress.

    rawstory.com/2009/11/aga...ews-footage/