Falsifying footage

Sara - posted on 11/13/2009

"Fox News: We alter reality. You are sold a preconceived narrative". LOL...anybody watch the Daily Show last night?

ME - posted on 11/13/2009

Hannity's show did the EXACT same thing a couple of months ago for Fox's 9/12 Rally...they showed old footage with more people in attendance...after making that mistake once, wouldn't you be EXTRA careful not to make the same mistake again...particularly 2 months later??? I'm not sayin...I'm just sayin...

Dana - posted on 11/12/2009

Sean Hannity has apologized for the mess up with the clip saying" We screwed up". "John Stewert you were right, we apologize". Guess that's the best we get! :)

Jenny - posted on 11/12/2009

I totally agree Christa, standards for journalism should be extremely high. Do you have any sort of code of ethics for broadcasting like we do in Canada? Aside from an F-bomb dropping or a nip slip?



Fox just takes the brunt of it because they are currently the worst offenders.

Isobel - posted on 11/12/2009

I didn't give Dan Rather the benefit of the doubt. :)

Sara - posted on 11/12/2009

Well, at least they apologized and made an apology to their viewers...

Jenny - posted on 11/12/2009

And the background in the clips were two cleary different weather patterns. It should have been very obvious.

Amie - posted on 11/12/2009

I think the reason behind why people are willing to believe that Dan Rather didn't know is that the source that was used for his show admitted afterward that he wasn't entirely truthful when he divulged information. Hannity didn't use a source, he used clips while he did a commentary.

Sara - posted on 11/12/2009

Quoting Christa:

Quoting Sara:

Quoting Jenny:

Judging by Hannity's response today I'm going with he knew http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/12...

"It was an inadverdent mistake, but a mistake none the less".  I'm not saying Hannity knew, but give me a break, somebody knew that wasn't the correct footage!

I agree with you, but I'm wondering why you are willing to believe that Dan Rather didn't know, but Hannity did?  Like I said I think they both knew full well what they were reporting, but I wonder why you will give Dan Rather the benefit of the doubt but not Hannity?

I didn't say I thought Hannity knew...I just think someone did.  But with the Dan Rather situation, the guy that provided the false documents lied to the producers and Dan Rather, so that's why I'm not so sure that they knew.  Should they have dug a little deeper for a story of that magnitude?  Absolutely. But I don't believe based on what I have read about the situation they intentionally misled people... in my opinion.

Amie - posted on 11/12/2009

Oh here's one about MSNBC and all the Limbaugh crap that went on.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drenne...

Sara - posted on 11/12/2009

Quoting Jenny:

Judging by Hannity's response today I'm going with he knew http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/12...

"It was an inadverdent mistake, but a mistake none the less".  I'm not saying Hannity knew, but give me a break, somebody knew that wasn't the correct footage!

Dana - posted on 11/12/2009

It is possible but, I do doubt anything will happen to him either way. They might, might, fire the person who adds the clips. As we all know though, generally these people just read what is put in front of them.

Jenny - posted on 11/12/2009

Judging by Hannity's response today I'm going with he knew http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/12...

Amie - posted on 11/12/2009

Here's something I read some time back too. I'll look and see if there's any type of list for other news stations in the interest of being fair.

The Ten most Egregious Distortions by Fox News (not pundits, satirists, etc. the actual News portion)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/20...

Amie - posted on 11/12/2009

Christa,

Thank you for posting an example. That's all anyone asked.

And not to sound like a parrot. He did get fired over it. Is anything happening to Hannity?

Jenny - posted on 11/12/2009

I also heard about ACORN a long time ago and not from Fox, we don't even get the Fox News where I live. I wonder if some of those other stations are not so rabid for the story because they don't want to come across as fear mongering. Either way, that story does not excuse their overall blatant bias.



Here is a good example. This how a few different headlines read when health care passed recently. One of these things is not like the others:



Around the Web:

Rep. Stupak Amendment to Article III of H.R. 2454



Open Left:: Stupak Amendment Fight (11th Update)



Op-Ed Columnist - After Reform Passes - NYTimes.com



Sweeping Health Care Plan Passes House - NYTimes.com



KRUGMAN: What to expect after reform passes | PressDemocrat.com ...



Landmark health insurance bill passes House - Health care reform ...



Kiss Your Freedoms Goodbye If Health Care Passes - FOXNews.com



House passes health care reform bill - CNN.com



Obama, House Dems confident on health care vote - Yahoo! News



Health Care Passes House





How about the other report from TDS where Jon Stewart shows examples of FOX "reporting" things that were actually said by their commentators in previous broadcasts. Add the tea bagger promotions in with that and you have eivdence that they are now trying to make their own news.

Isobel - posted on 11/12/2009

But that's exactly my point...he was fired. Hannity should be too but FOX doesn't seem to care.

Sara - posted on 11/12/2009

Dan Rather believed the documents to be real though, he didn't know they were fake until after the story. He took a leap and it bit him in the ass. That's a little different, in my opinion. Watergate could have been a big lie, it just turned out not to be because they had a source that wasn't lying to them.



Here's something from that link:



"Burkett, a retired National Guard lieutenant colonel, also admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents’ origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source."

Christa - posted on 11/12/2009

Quoting Sara:

But Fox needs to take some responsibility in the fact that a lot of people don't think of them as REAL news because they pull crap like this. It's their own fault. If you want to beleive they are not taken seriously because they are conservative, then fine. I personally, as someone from the other end of the spectrum, don't take them seriously because of crap like this other egregious stories they have focused on. In my opinion, they are detracting from many issues instead of bringing light to them.

I agree with you Sara.  I do think there are somethings that Fox needs to clean up.  Although I bet they aren't all the same things that you think. ;-)

Christa - posted on 11/12/2009

I know that Laura. :-) It's easy when you know exactly what you are looking for.

Isobel - posted on 11/12/2009

Christa, here's the secret...go to youtube...type in the words you are looking up (ie..hannity false footage) and a whole bunch of options will come up. Then you pick the one you like best. :)

Sara - posted on 11/12/2009

But Fox needs to take some responsibility in the fact that a lot of people don't think of them as REAL news because they pull crap like this. It's their own fault. If you want to beleive they are not taken seriously because they are conservative, then fine. I personally, as someone from the other end of the spectrum, don't take them seriously because of crap like this other egregious stories they have focused on. In my opinion, they are detracting from many issues instead of bringing light to them.

Christa - posted on 11/12/2009

Quoting dana:

Quoting Christa:

I'm sorry I'm not a google queen and can't find something at the drop of a hat. If I come across something I will let you know. But all you have to do is open your eyes to see that ALL the stations omit certain stories to benefit their political agenda. As far as the LYING, I don't think Hannity lied. He misled us by some false video, but I don't think anything in the story is a lie. As far as how many people were there, the Washington Post says 10K they say 20-45K, who's right? Were any of you there doing a head count? It sounds like a bunch of estimates (best guesses) to me. Now I'm not excusing what Hannity did, it was terribly stupid of him or his staff to think they could use old footage like that and get away with it. But I doubt he's the only person to ever show old footage with a new story because they didn't have enough footage of the actual event they are talking about.

When did it change from falsifying stories to omitting stories?

  I think he did lie when he commented on the amout of people when the footage clearly showed more than there actually was.  Using old footage and misleading with old footage are two different things.   

It's all tied together in the lack of ethics and journalstic responsbility.

If you want to call it a lie, I'm ok with that it was misleading.  But I'm sure that others have shown misleading footage to make their point.  Hannity was an idiot for making it so obvious, but when you are shown footage you assume it is what they are telling you.  I don't have the resources Jon Stewart does to verify what is correct or not.  For the record I don't like Hannity and I do think he should loose his job for this.  I guess I'm just sick of hearing how Fox is such a joke, but the other stations are respectable news stations.  They are all terrible, they all omit or bias stories for their own political agendas.  I will try and find some footage, but like I said I'm not a google queen, like some of you seem to be. :-)

Dana - posted on 11/12/2009

Quoting Christa:

I'm sorry I'm not a google queen and can't find something at the drop of a hat. If I come across something I will let you know. But all you have to do is open your eyes to see that ALL the stations omit certain stories to benefit their political agenda. As far as the LYING, I don't think Hannity lied. He misled us by some false video, but I don't think anything in the story is a lie. As far as how many people were there, the Washington Post says 10K they say 20-45K, who's right? Were any of you there doing a head count? It sounds like a bunch of estimates (best guesses) to me. Now I'm not excusing what Hannity did, it was terribly stupid of him or his staff to think they could use old footage like that and get away with it. But I doubt he's the only person to ever show old footage with a new story because they didn't have enough footage of the actual event they are talking about.

When did it change from falsifying stories to omitting stories?

  I think he did lie when he commented on the amout of people when the footage clearly showed more than there actually was.  Using old footage and misleading with old footage are two different things.   

Isobel - posted on 11/12/2009

hmmm in both of my media/journalism courses, using fake footage was defined under lying. And yes, while we were in the ethics part of the course we did find evidence that these things happen in every type of publication and broadcast. The difference is, in most cases I learned about, the person responsible was fired for bringing the publication/broadcast's credibility into question. I haven't heard of any negative reaction from FOX news.

Dana - posted on 11/12/2009

Quoting Traci:

Quoting dana:

Quoting Christa:

No, Fox was talking about ACORN for months. They were talking about them during the election, that is WHY those people brought their story to Fox. The other networks ignored it completely for MONTHS. It wasn't until the proof was on video that they finally admitted, hey there might be a story here.

I've got to disagree, I had been hearing quite a bit about ACORN also and I don't watch FOX.

yeah...a LOT later...when the networks could no longer ignore it.  Fox and talk radio are what brought that story to light. 

Uh, no.  I had heard about it before that.  I think I made that clear already. 

Isobel - posted on 11/12/2009

Do they ALL really do it? I'm taking a broadcasting/journalism course this term and we did a section on ethics (specifically altering photos). I thought it was a HUGE deal because it is standard ethical practice to avoid it at all costs and people routinely get fired for this very issue. But then again, I supposed the course is specifically about Canadian content (cry for me it's boring as hell LOL).

I will agree that they all have the slant that their advertisers and owners want, and that's a little sad, but LYING is different.

Isobel - posted on 11/11/2009

Traci...I am genuinely curious. Does the breaking of the Acorn story over ride the falsifying of the story which happens to be the topic of this thread. Because if we are simply adding up good vs evil...this could go on forever.

Real news journalists are held to a standard of truth. Either you are saying truth is not important or you are saying Fox journalists are not news journalists...which is it?

Amie - posted on 11/11/2009

I see no one has as of yet posted anything about the other stations. I'll make sure to remind you every time one of you harrass us for examples that NONE OF YOU want to give examples. At least WE have the decency to find and post examples for you guys. You just want to throw stuff out there and not back it up. I've been away all day, this thread has been up for 9 hours now. Where's the examples?

Traci - posted on 11/11/2009

Quoting dana:

Quoting Christa:

No, Fox was talking about ACORN for months. They were talking about them during the election, that is WHY those people brought their story to Fox. The other networks ignored it completely for MONTHS. It wasn't until the proof was on video that they finally admitted, hey there might be a story here.

I've got to disagree, I had been hearing quite a bit about ACORN also and I don't watch FOX.

yeah...a LOT later...when the networks could no longer ignore it.  Fox and talk radio are what brought that story to light. 

Dana - posted on 11/11/2009

Christa for the second time now, Everyone agrees that it's not just FOX. I asked if you had examples of other stations, I nor anyone else didn't say that they were all as clean as a whistle.



And, it's not conservative bashing, it's FOX bashing. lol

Dana - posted on 11/11/2009

Quoting Christa:

Again I'm not excusing Fox I know they are far from perfect, but it's this dividing the citizens that gets nothing done. If we could ban together and simply say, we aren't going to put up with it from anyone we might actually get something done. Instead of just making this a witch hunt for Fox news while ignoring the wrongs of other stations.

Feel free to come up with something about the other stations, it just happens that this thread is about FOX.

Dana - posted on 11/11/2009

Quoting Christa:

No, Fox was talking about ACORN for months. They were talking about them during the election, that is WHY those people brought their story to Fox. The other networks ignored it completely for MONTHS. It wasn't until the proof was on video that they finally admitted, hey there might be a story here.

I've got to disagree, I had been hearing quite a bit about ACORN also and I don't watch FOX.

Jenny - posted on 11/11/2009

It wasn't just "some gay rally". It was 75,000 protestors demanding equal rights. Surely that justifies a camera crew.

Jenny - posted on 11/11/2009

Why would you give an example of somethnig they didn't ignore to my post about them ignoring stuff? Clearly that would not be a good example. Other networks covered it as well but Fox broke the story. I'm sure they were salivating when they got ahold of the footage from those students. So anything anti-Obama sure they'll be all over it. Now show me the postive government stories.



The fact is, they gave more air time to an empty field where the tea baggers held a rally earlier that day than to the the gay rights march. They used footage from another network when they even have a branch IN Washington. And they are not just covering the tea bagger rallies, they are promoting them.

Dana - posted on 11/11/2009

No one has said they are innocent. I think we've all agreed on that. As far as ACORN, FOX broke the story that 2 independent "reporters" brought to them. After that all the other news stations talked about it.

Sara - posted on 11/11/2009

It's all about ratings...Fox is getting the most viewers so the other stations are following suit and copying the formats. I don't think Fox is the only offender, but I do agree with you Dana.

?? - posted on 11/11/2009

I agree Christa, it is frustrating. I think more and more people are getting lazy about finding "REAL" information too, because it doesn't show up on the 1st google hit, so people just, 'give in' (so to speak) to whatever information seems to be most widely spread.



Critical thinking also seems to have become a lapse in judgement rather than an essential tool to take advantage of while researching accurate information :(

Jenny - posted on 11/11/2009

I'm the same way Dana. You can sometimes feel the political bias in the reports on other networks but I have yet to see the extremes of falsifying footage or ignoring events, such as the recent gay rights march.

Dana - posted on 11/11/2009

Quoting Christa:

Jo, I think we have those same guidelines but they aren't enforced. I think over time the stations have found loophole after loophole and exaggerations slowly have been excused and it has resulted in a complete breakdown in any sort of ethics. It is all about the ratings you know. :-)

Also I think part of the problem with researching and finding your own info, is that can be hard to. There is so much crap on the internet that sometimes you don't have any idea what is true and what’s not. You've got X site saying on thing and Y site saying another and how do you know who is telling the truth. It's all very frustrating.

I agree, Christa.  I generally have to use common sense to wade through all the crap I hear or read.

Dana - posted on 11/11/2009

I too think that all news stations have their low points but, FOX news is a joke for a reason. They've brought it upon themselves and unfortunately other news stations have followed suit. Although, I would LOVE to see someone show me a clip of CNN or another station trying to pull that kind of crap. I keep hearing that they all are equally bad but, I need evidence. I'm not saying I don't think it's possible but, I need to have facts.

?? - posted on 11/11/2009

I don't know if it is the same in the states as it is here, but our stations are binded to a set of broadcasting ethics and any Canadian citizen can report any show from any Canadian station as going against those set of ethics, at any point.



There are strict guidelines in the set of ethics so that citizens can't complain about just anything, but we can hold stations responsible for airing programs that go against those set of ethics. I think it keeps the stations in line, the programs more reliable and over all allows the entire country a base reason to feel as though we're being fed garbage through our news stations, we're getting reliable information.



If the disclaimers are there, then you take it as you will, but a News Program - isn't supposed to have any agenda other than giving the people of a nation ACCURATE INFORMATION - there shouldn't be any more to it than that and our set of broadcasting ethics, at least attempts to keep that a reality.



Obviously, personal research and gathing your own information is the responsible thing to do. But for the most part, people don't just RANDOMLY research information on just anything - they hear it somewhere first, on the news or word of mouth (and chances are word of mouth came from the news too lol).

JL - posted on 11/11/2009

I have found myself watching news less and less the last few months because I am tired of the jumping to conclusions, attacks, reporting of rumours, the editing of speeches and footage, and the constant yelling at one another. I am tired of the decisiveness and the pitting of groups. I get tired of the hired political pundits coming on to voice their opinions on a subject. I just want plain boring news reports with facts. I don't care what former political advisor to the Edwards campaign or the current political advisor to Romney have to say on the subject. I don't want to see the talking heads on the side of the screen yelling at eachother about which party is right. I am done and I am over all the sensational news reporting.



I mean yes it is entertaining to watch Chris Matthews blow a gasket, but do I take everything he is saying or reporting as the end all of the truth. Do I even really consider watching his show as me watching the news, No. The viewer does have the responsibility to do research and think for themselves, but it is just getting to the point that it is RIDICULOUS to sort through what is or is not factual....what happened to the News..to the doom and gloom report I used to watch. I mean it is getting overboard when you have to lie about the number of protesters. Though I do not agree with the protestors, I deplore the signs they use, and I think Michelle Bachmann is well I won't say... I do have to say that I think that ten thousand voices of opposition are just as significant as 45 thousand voices. SO what was the point besides making the show just look stupid.





I just feel like Alice in Wonderland lately and that this is all some bizarre joke.. and I am just waiting for the punch line and hoping it is actually funny.

Maleasha - posted on 11/11/2009

I agree with Christa that there needs to be rules put into place and they need to be enforced. Also, people need to realize when they are watching shows like; Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, or Glenn Beck, that these are shows based on their opinions. They do their own research and let the audience know what they believe to be true. And everyone is guilty of reading an article or watching the news and then interpreting it into their own views. And as I stated in my first post, people need to figure out for themselves what is fact and what isn't. I do believe that a regular news program needs to have rules set forth to prevent them from being bias.

Jenny - posted on 11/11/2009

Not even close to the extremes that Fox goes to though.

Jenny - posted on 11/11/2009

It does an extreme disservice to people for sure. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to just know what happened around the world. Is that so much to ask?

Maleasha - posted on 11/11/2009

All news stations are guilty of this. It's not only Fox. It's up to the people watching these shows to do some research and figure out for themselves what is actual facts and what is just propaganda.

Jenny - posted on 11/11/2009

It is a prime example of why I do not take anything off of Fox as news. They have a blatant agenda and should be forced to change their name and stop advertising themselves as a news network. The Fox Opinion Network would be more accurate.

Sara - posted on 11/11/2009

There are standards that news agencies are supposed to use for guidance, they're called "ethics".