Jon Stewart Catches Sean Hannity Falsifying Footage To Make GOP Protest Appear Bigger (VIDEO)

The tea party protests continued last week, as Congresswoman Michele Bachmann held an anti-health-care-reform rally on the steps of the Capitol. While she estimated that 20,000-45,000 people attended the event, the Washington Post reported it was actually more like 10,000.

Still, that is a sizable number of Americans exercising their right to free speech and assembly, and that warrants news coverage. But Sean Hannity and his team did more than cover the event. They not only inflated the number in attendance with their words, but actually used footage from a heavily-attended protest this summer to make this health care rally appear more popular. Hannity even pointed out that this was a huge crowd for a Thursday, when the protest footage they used was from a Saturday.

Jon Stewart and his team caught this discrepancy and ran with it, pointing out neither the color of the leaves nor sky in the tacked-on video matched that of the actual footage. They went on to mock Fox by adding more video to the interview, this time from Woodstock and the movie "300."


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Comments

[AN2009]

Just further proof that Sean Hannity is a joke.

[Australian2]

Lies here:

1. The rally was "word of mouth". Wrong. Bachmann's office bussed people in from all over the Northeast, and from other parts of the country.

2. The teabaggers were "polite": They weren't, by all (independant) reports.

3. Pages of the actual healthcare bill were passed around, then explained by Bachmann: Given Bachmann's previous record on the healthcare issue, she's the last person I'd choose to "explain" the facts. Out of three health-related statements, one was rated False by Politifact.com, and the other two "Pants on Fire" - the worst rating they can give, reserved for wilful, deliberate and indefensible misrepresentations of the truth.

Rep. Bachmann, if you said that the healthcare bill mandated insurance purchase, I'd check for myself.

[SonnyBono]

You know its actually kind of a sad comment on the state of the world where one of the few places you can get an honest news report is Jon Stewart's "fake" news show. What would Ed Morrow say?

[boblobslaw]

This site is full of propaganda, and is too conglomerated of a mess for me to stare at and figure out what blogs/articles I want to read. Too many images/ topics, and no it's not because I can't handle this much information. It's more a long the lines of we are being bombarded with tons of information and it is more important too never forget that everyone that writes has a bias and agenda. So great job at getting all these people to your site, but i'm sorry that most of them are probably brainwashed and wouldn't actually be able to hold "real" conversations and "debate" in real life. Thnks bye.

[adamson]

This site obviously has a liberal bias. No one ever debated that fact. But the truth is represented here. Just as it is on other internet sites.
If you don't like it, you can go

[booboo111]

MZABODUBA YRXEXASA ADUBU............

[Poorsarah]

I have a strong bias against Fox News because they do not report factual news as it is; I am biased against their misinformation, lies, half-truths, lunacy. I have an agenda against dishonesty.

[HHUA]

Sorry boblo, but looks like even H@nn!tty couldn't deny the truth here (oh excuse me "propaganda")... And now they've done it AGAIN with the Palin book signing. Ya see, funny thing about video footage... it can't be DENIED even by the consummate liars at Fox.

I think you have your "propaganda" mixed up!

[WindmillSlayer]

Ignorance is Strength.
He who controls the past, controls the future.
~Orwell

[esilversurfer]

No wonder the Obama administration had to call out Faux News. There has never been a "news channel" with the sole purpose of disseminating false information specifically to destroy a presidency. Unbelievable.

[oldpol2]

the most important link I have seen on Faux news
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6737097743434902428&ei=BSP#

[ssol4569]

I have bigger news than this lame story.
In Obama's own words: Check it out

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tCAffMSWSzY#t=28

[oldpol2]

LAME!!!

[Entitlement]

Okay, I asked to have Palin's story and photo taken off the front page of the HP site. I got scrubbed. Maybe it was how I asked. I don't know. This is the only story I can hide in tonight. It's definitely Friday the 13th!!! That's some truly scary stuff.

[Republitarian]

MSNBC runs fake Palin bikini picture:

http://www.breitbart.tv/msnbc-uses-fake-bikini-pic-of-palin-during-live-segment/

Awaiting apology from MSNBC, or for Hardball's zoom-in shot of the the black guy with a gun at the Obama protest claiming racism.

I'd just get a thrill running up my leg if thy apologized.

[familydad]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!, just found out who you are?.................don't it just make you sick?

[Megan97401]

Busted!

[Vernon Brown]

I worry that there are people who get their news from news programs.

[powercosmic]

Why are all the folks at these fox rallies old retired geezers that really don't have a "stake in the future" of this country?

They've already lived the "good ole days" 1950's - 1960's and have extracted some measure of security from the economy and the GOVERNMENT, like GOVERNMENT healthcare called Medicare. So they're all out protesting to prevent younger and much harder working Americans from getting some sense of security.

All these old geezers are doing is prostesting to help Wall Street and Insurance companies keep gambling with our money and our future.

Healthcare reform will help take valuable resources off the gambling table and put it in the pockets of hard working middle class Americans.

[Vernon Brown]

I agree

[oldpol2]

Most of us old geezers are supporting health care reform, supporting the reregulation of wall street, breaking up the big banks, and fighting global warming.Just because we are not all loud doesn't mean we aren't working to make improvements for our children and grandchildren. Remember your granny loves ya.

[billkarwin]

Doesn't HuffPo do something similar on a daily basis?

We hear a story about one of Obama's policy initiatives hitting a roadblock, and HuffPo adds a file photo of Obama looking sad. It isn't a photo of Obama reacting to that day's events, it's a file photo from weeks or months ago. I imagine HuffPo has a library of photos of many political leaders, indexed by approximate emotion.

When Fox News shows a video of a vastly larger crowd, this could be considered more deceptive, but I'm sure they would say it's just file footage, used to illustrate what a crowd on the National Mall looks like.

How can one distinguish these two practices objectively? How exactly is Fox News being deceptive in a damaging way, whereas HuffPo is not? I'm not condoning this behavior of Fox News, I'm just putting this out there as food for thought.

[Vernon Brown]

you're starving me

[Megan97401]

Ha! Took me a minute to get that.

I concur.

[ChristianEcon.com]

HP doesn't pretend to be "fair and balanced" at the same time.

[cbs2nd]

using a stock photo to represent the mood of the story is far different than using video from a different event while simultaneously inflating the numbers during discussion of the event in the story. The video is used to validate where you want the story to go, the photo is used to draw you to the story, not to misrepresent the story.

[billkarwin]

Thanks cbs2nd your response is the only one (so far) that took my question seriously and gave a reasoned reply.

Your distinction makes sense, that the photo on HuffPo is meant to draw the reader in, not to portray facts about the story. Especially since frequently the stock photo for a story appears on the front page, but not in the story after you click on it.

Whereas on the Fox News report, the video was a cutaway as Hannity describes the protest, clearly meant to show the actual event he was talking about.

I agree with you and the others on this thread that there's a qualitative difference, but it's worthwhile for us to be clear exactly what that difference is.

[Megan97401]

Apples and oranges. I could go on, but that about covers it.

[-swift]

I'm pretty sure Hannity is just a poser. I think he's just milking this teabagger persona for profit. That still makes him despicable, of course. But I think he's not that dumb. He couldn't possibly be so stupid that he wouldn't realize Stewart would catch him in something so blatant. If he were that stupid, he wouldn't have the brainpower to hold himself upright.

I mean, they must have had a production meeting. They must have, at some point, said, "We're going to use this old footage to make the numbers look bigger." Someone must have asked, "You think Stewart will notice?" Right? They can't all be that stupid. Right?

[the964kid]

'But I think he's not that dumb.'

Ummmm actually, I'm pretty sure he is exactly that dumb. He cant be that good of an actor.

[peener]

the entire team on the daily show are pretty damn talented. lets hope everyone there gets some major recognition. they definitely deserve some sort of accolades. trying to keep media outlets honest has got to be tough work.