Cuppacafe

They say to err is human, and we all know that we all make mistakes, and well, since News organizations are made up of humans who, well occasionally make mistakes. Still, when Fox News makes mistakes, they tend to suspiciously tilt in a consistent direction, that is to say, favoring conservatives and Republicans over liberals and Democrats.

It happened again Wednesday, when host Gregg Jarrett, introducing a segment on Happening Now, described the "huge crowds" that were turning out to greet Sarah Palin on the promotional tour for her book, Going Rogue. "These are some of the pictures just coming into us," Jarrett said as images of Palin surrounded by throngs of supporters flashed across the screen.

While Palin may indeed be drawing big crowds, it didn't take long for liberal watchdog blogs like Think Progress and Media Matters to point out that the masses Jarrett touted on Happening Now had nothing to do with Palin's book; the footage was from a 2008 campaign rally. Called on the switcheroo, Fox blamed it on a "production error" and issued an on-air apology.

The whole thing might have gone unnoticed had it not been for an eerily similar incident last week in a much more prominent venue, Sean Hannity's primetime show. In this case, the crowd Hannity was hyping was the one that gathered to attend a rally against the healthcare bill on November 5. The footage he showed, however, was from the much larger Sept. 12 "tea parties." In that case, it was The Daily Show that blew the whistle, forcing Hannity to apologize on the following day's show.

At some point you have to wonder if they actually employ fact-checkers or what. Anyway, you can read more about what a crappy, sloppy “news” organization Fox is here.

The Perfessor

This entry was posted on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 9:24 am and is filed under Dance A Little Side Step, Network Madness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.