[Infowarrior] - Did Fox News alter footage of a conservative rally?

[Richard Forno]

(Not being political by posting this - rather raising the issue of  
perceived reality in the media's presentation of events as something  
to think about.  I'm sure it's happened elsewhere, too.   --rf)

Did Fox News alter footage of a conservative rally?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20091111/ts_ynews/ynews_ts977

Wed Nov 11, 4:52 pm ET
"The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart pointed out inconsistencies in  
alternating "Hannity Show" shots of a recent conservative rally on the  
steps of the Capitol Building. This has led to accusations of Fox News  
splicing video footage shot at a larger Glenn Beck rally held in  
Washington two months ago with video shot at last week's rally, thus  
falsifying footage to make the more recent protest appear bigger than  
it was.

Watch "The Daily Show" clip:

The controversy stems from an anti-health-care reform rally held last  
Thursday on the steps of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.,  
which Rep. Michelle Bachmann termed the "Super Bowl of Freedom." The  
Washington Post estimated that the rally drew roughly 10,000  
attendees, but Fox News commentator Sean Hannity claimed on his show  
that the event drew 20,000 people, while Bachmann, appearing as a  
guest on Hannity's show, estimated that number to be much higher, up  
to 45,000. In the process of lauding the turnout "in the middle of the  
day on a Thursday," Hannity showed footage of scores of people  
assembled in protest, presumably at last week's rally.
But "The Daily Show" pointed out an oddity in the footage during their  
broadcast last night: The condition of the sky and the coloring of the  
leaves lacked consistency in some of the shots, leading Stewart to  
insinuate that Hannity incorporated footage from coverage of Beck's  
"9/12" rally into his show's segment on Bachmann's event, in order to  
bolster the perception of its turnout.

Stewart and "The Daily Show" have been quite critical of Fox News in  
the past, often using its vast archive of past video clips to lampoon  
the cable news channel's famous "Fair and Balanced" claims, with Fox  
News hosts like Bill O'Reilly occasionally allocating airtime to  
fighting back, claiming that "The Daily Show" often takes what he and  
his colleagues at Fox News say out of context to make them appear  
hypocritical and to paint their news coverage as partisan.

A Comedy Central spokesperson says that they weren't tipped off to the  
footage shown on Hannity's show, and that it was simply the work of  
one of " the eagle-eyed staffers" on "The Daily Show" who noticed the  
discrepancies during a routine check of Fox News programming.

When contacted by Yahoo! News about the matter, a Fox News  
spokesperson declined to comment, but added that Hannity will address  
the issue on his show airing Wednesday night.

-- Brett Michael Dykes is a contributor to the Yahoo! News Blog