Sean Hannity Apologizes For ‘Inadvertent’ Use Of Crowd Footage
As Mediaite reported yesterday, the eagle eyes of The Daily Show noticed that Sean Hannity substituted news footage from the 9/12 rally for last week’s much-lower-attended Super Bowl of Freedom. The effect was that the latter event seemed like a much bigger deal than it was.
Last night, Hannity apologized, claiming that the footage had been used “inadvertently.” Here’s specifically what Hannity had to say:
“And finally tonight, although it pains me to say this, Jon Stewart? Comedy Central? He was right. Now on his program last night, he mentioned that we had played some incorrect video on this program last week while talking about the Republican healthcare rally on Capitol Hill. He was correct, we screwed up, we aired some video of a rally in September, along with a video from the actual event. It was an inadvertant mistake, but a mistake nonetheless, so Mr. Stewart. you were right, we apologize. But by the way, I wanna thank you, and all your writers, for watching. (Laughter)”
Hannity’s claim that they “played some incorrect video,” is a bit of an oversimplification of the production process. Since the video they played was part of a pre-edited package, this most certainly wasn’t a case where the technical director simply hit a wrong button. The footage for this package was selected by someone, then edited by an Editor.
So — was this an honest mistake? Given the recent debate about the distinctions between Fox News’ opinion programming and its news programming, its at least worth another look. Here’s the original segment.
You may recall the name Griff Jenkins from a previous flap involving Fox News: it was his crew that was “reprimanded” for whipping up a 9/12 crowd for the cameras.
While the White House took some lumps over their treatment of Fox News, incidents like this certainly seem to underscore their overall point. One of the linchpins of Fox News’ defense is the idea that there’s a wall between their news and opinion programming. Problems with their news programming notwithstanding, this defense isn’t exactly air tight.
The “opinion show” defense is only really operative when it comes to opinions. When it comes to news content on opinion shows, they retain some duty to present facts accurately and fairly. For example, MSNBC recently drew criticism for dishonestly editing footage of a gentleman who was carrying a gun at a Town Hall event. And similar criticism of blurry lines between news and opinion at MSNBC exist when day time news anchor David Shuster fills in to guest host Keith Olbermann’s Countdown. Even The Daily Show has been called out for blurring the line between facts and opinion (or comedy in this case.)
Fox’s news personnel are frequent guests on Fox opinion programs, which lends traditional journalistic credibility to opinion programming of Hannity or Bill O’Reilly. While it makes programming sense to promote shows and personalities across the network — which Fox News does better than any network — it also blurs the line between the two sides of Fox programming for a less informed or critical viewer.
Sean Hannity certainly deserves credit for the quick and earnest apology for the footage miscue, and while he’s clearly on the opinion side of FNC, it is legitimate to ask whether this mistake also harms the credibility of Fox News “news desk.” This mistake not only gives rise to Fox News fiercest and most vocal critics, which until recently, included the White House, but raises a larger question: shouldn’t there be any concern about this expressed by FNC News Desk?
17 comments
Jim R says: Props for the “apology” Sean.
Inadvertant? Yeh, right! I brought in my Bill-O body language expert who determined your smirky face said deliberate but busted while your mouth was saying something different.
Try Rachel Maddow’s approach, even when she’s expressing her opinion she fact checks herself and apologizes regularly for any mistakes – like journalists do.
ImNotBlue says: He was correct, we screwed up, we aired some video of a rally in September, along with a video from the actual event.
I think this is the key line here… specifically the “along with a video from the actual event.” That makes it sound like an editor got his/her hands on footage that was poorly catalogued (probably as “Tea Party rally,” or something generic like that), and that’s how the mistake came to be. I know FNC does most everything off servers now, so having mislabeled catalogued footage is very probably.
Jim R says:
November 12, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Try Rachel Maddow’s approach, even when she’s expressing her opinion she fact checks herself and apologizes regularly for any mistakes – like journalists do.
You’re joking right?
Like the non-apology she did for lying about Limbaugh… the one she DIDN’T actually apologize for?
But, it’s funny you say she apologises… because we’re going to have a test to see if she does. It seems she recently lied… or misspoke about whether or not she hosts a radio show:
Now, a liberal cable talker, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, has directly told her audience something that isn’t true: that she still hosts a radio talk show.
One problem: Maddow gave up her radio talk show about a year ago and what Air America now runs is an audio version of her MSNBC program.
http://insidecablenews.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/rachel-maddows-radio-show-or-lack-thereof/
So now, let’s see if she corrects the record or not. So much for “fact checking”… although in this case, you’d think she’d know what SHE does herself.
ImNotBlue says: Hey DW… how’s the shoe?
germ says: >>Try Rachel Maddow’s approach, even when she’s expressing her opinion she fact checks herself and apologizes regularly for any mistakes – like journalists do.
Haha, yea right, like her non-apology apology line for every time she makes a mistake? Example: Using the false Limbaugh quotes then saying that the multiple falsehoods were what REEEEALY meant to say.
http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=GdSUaGQu2G
StewartIII says: The Radio Equalizer: MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Claims To Host Radio Talk Show
http://radioequalizer.blogspot.com/2009/11/msnbcs-rachel-maddow-claims-to-host.html
StewartIII says: “Can you imagine MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann apologizing for fake footage? Rachel Maddow? Remember when MSNBC cut off the head of a black guy with an AR-15 slung over his shoulder at an Obama town hall event to make a point about the gun-toting “radical right?” They wanted you to think he was white.”
“So here comes Sean Hannity manning up and apologizing to Jon Stewart…”
***
ChickaBOOMer: Hey! You! Get off of my cloud!
http://chickaboomer.blogspot.com/2009/11/hey-you-get-off-of-my-cloud.html
Good for Hannity for apologizing. But I do wonder how inadvertent this is. From my knowledge of video editing at major networks, either this was not an inadvertent mistake (the “Earlier” chyron makes me wonder how much of the case that is), or this was incredibly sloppy, slipshod, downright incompetent video cataloging combined with inattentive editors, producers, and other gatekeepers. Perhaps it’s because of the frequent bias of their “news” programming, but the former frankly seems like it’s a lot more likely. I may not be a fan of Fox, but I do think that they normally tend to be technically competent.
ImNotBlue says: Vidiot says:
November 12, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Vidiot… the fact that the Chyron said “earlier,” combined with Hannity’s statement that BOTH the wrong video AND the real video played, seems to suggest poor editing and catalogue, much more than a purposeful mistake.
I don’t see at all how that argues for a mistake; it could really have been either. but if this was a mistake, it was an insanely bad one, with gross incompetence from several layers of people completely missing the ball. Heads should roll.
Jim R says: Brilliant strategery Fox Keyboard Defenders!
Defend only the latest example of Fox deliberately lying to the American public to further Rupert/Roger’s rabid right wing agenda by repeatedly siting the one example of a quote falsely attributed to Limbaugh, who in twenty years has accumulated an unparalleled recorded and documented history of bigoted, misogynist hate speech – genius!
You’ve got us all there, Defenders, we succumb to your superior ability to insult, denigrate, belittle, and continually prove evolution is not a one way street – much like your apparent heroes who never stop striving to undermine American Democracy and Ideals.
Brilliant! “Hannity was framed! It was an innocent mistake! What about that commie liberal over there!? You’re all liars and stupid heads anyway!”
ImNotBlue says: Vidiot says:
November 12, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Well, I do agree that “head should roll.” I once toured FNC, and sat in on a taping of “Hannity and Colmes.” As they were going through their pre-production word, the control room graphics operator noticed that one of the graphics was mistaken left as, “Enter Date Here / Enter Location Here”… in other words, someone in the graphics department screwed up, and sent down an incomplete graphics package. The producer pulled in a VP of graphics (who happened to be walking by), who was so upset over the mistake, he promptly fired… FIRED… the guy who goofed. From my experience, hey take even little mistakes pretty seriously.
That said, I’m not sure we can figure out who’s fault specifically it was (unless it wasn’t a mistake… but IMO that seems way unlikely). Sure we could blame the editor, but unless they’re the ones who catalogued the video in the first place, I’m not sure there’s a reasonable expectation that when cutting the b-roll for the package, they would have been able to tell the difference between the two protests. If I had to guess, I’d say fault lies with whoever databased the 9/12 protest footage… that’s most likely the source of the confusion.
Jim R says:
November 12, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Uh-oh… Hannity appologised for it, and there seems to be a rational explanation, so Jimmy is getting agitated! He started by suggesting this was different than his girl, Maddow… but she’s a proven unapologetic liar, so Jimmy’s getting even more upset.
You can almost picture him frothing at the mouth as he wrote his last post. “ARGH! HANNITY BAD! AHAGHHGHG!” and the situation gets painted to fit the crazy. Jimmy, it was a goof, he apologized for it… we know you hate Hannity and FOX… but you can’t get your britches in a bunch every time someone doesn’t agree with you. It will be okay, buddy… I’m sure you’ll find something to complain about tomorrow.
It took me a moment to realize what it was about this segment that struck me as significant. Then I understood that I could not remember how long it had been since I heard a talking head who was not only frank about the foul-up but also went ahead and mentioned John Stewart who called him out. That has not been seen in some time. Bonus points should also be awarded to Sean for not employing the contemporary sideways retraction of, “If my comments/ presentation happened to offend anyone . . .”
I’m in no way excusing the broadcast; the misrepresentation was bad and probably should lead to some accountability. But the apology given was notable.
Tommy Christopher says: When we asked Fox to comment on this Wednesday, they refused, referring us to Hannity’s upcoming show.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/hannity-tea-party-footage-daily-show/
By having Hannity apologize, Fox News gets to lay off any responsibility for misuse of news content by its other hosts. If Hannity hadn’t addressed it, Fox would have been forced to create and enforce a standard for them.
DWHarper says: What an apology!!! “Te he he! Oh boy, you caught us you rascal Jon Stewart. But it was just an “inadvertant” mistake!” What a crock of BS. The producers knew they were showing clips from 9/12, it is clearly marked on tape boxes and timestamped on the video itself. Hannity can get away with this because his audience is very gullible and wants to believe everything he says, but he was lying in his apology too.
You sound pretty definitive about that DWH, what proof do you have? And this was not a simple pass-off like you characterize it. He stated three times that Stewart was correct, adding, “We screwed up,” and, “We apologize”.
You should contrast that with Rachael Maddow’s weak fess-up to using false Limbaugh quotes. During a screed she mumbled a “Mea Culpa” before running numerous provocative Limbaugh clips to prove she was actually sort of right all along. “Ignore my professional lapse, he’s really a bad guy anyway, right?!”
ImNotBlue says: DWHarper says:
November 13, 2009 at 11:52 am
What a crock of BS. The producers knew they were showing clips from 9/12, it is clearly marked on tape boxes and timestamped on the video itself.
One, how do you know that the tape boxes were “clearly marked?” Were you there, did you see it?
Second, what would a time stamp have to do with anything? The time stamp only says the time of day… could it have not been the same time at both rallies?
Third, what evidence do you have that they “knew” it was wrong?
You’re making stuff up, buddy.
Hannity can get away with this because his audience is very gullible and wants to believe everything he says, but he was lying in his apology too.
And you know this how? Face it, it was a mistake and that’s all the evidence you have. Hannity APOLOGIZED for it, and you said he wouldn’t. In fact, it took you how long to come back to the site and address this?
This is what YOU said:
DWHarper says:
November 11, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I will eat my shoe if you see a correction on Hannity’s show. There is no possible way that will happen. Never and you know that, ImNotBlue.
So you were wrong there too. Where’s your apology? Where’s the, “I said he would never do it, and insulted INB in the process. I guess I was wrong. My apologies to Mr. Hannity and INB.” And then you can go on to rant about how it’s not fair and whatever else. In fact, you can just copy the apology I’ve written for you into your post! See, that way you can say it… but you won’t have to feel the sting of writing out those words.
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sarainitaly says: I wonder if Dylan Ratigan and Contessa Brewer will apologize for using fake photos of Sarah Palin in a bikini and short leather miniskirt on their sitcom?
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