UPDATE x2: Chris Matthews just replayed Jon Stewart's PWNage of Fox on Hardball, as predicted by many of the commenters. Yay! He summed it up succinctly:
"Jon Stewart, I salute you." -Chris Matthews
UPDATE x1: right after the jump.
Just when you thought it couldn't be any more obvious that Fox News is a Dime-Store Propaganda Lie Factory, there's this:
BIG UPDATE X1: Sean Hannity is going to respond to the Daily Show's smackdown on his show tonight! Teehee - here's a small excerpt from the New York Times article about it(h/t tomnobombadil):
"The Daily Show," which has become one of the media’s prime monitors when it comes to calling out misuse or manipulation of video, caught the Fox News Channel and one of its hosts, Sean Hannity, Tuesday night, in what appeared to be a blatant example of doctoring a report with inappropriate video to enhance an argument.
...
Fox News would not comment on the use of the video Wednesday beyond having a spokeswoman say: "Sean will address this on his show tonight."
and here's link to NYT article:
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.co...
In the above clip from last night's Daily Show, Fox News is caught using file footage of the better-attended Sept. 12 Tea-Party rally as if it were from the most recent Michelle Bachmann low-turnout event on the Capitol steps. We owe Jon Stewart and his crew an enormous debt of gratitude for breaking this story.
I believe there is a veritable snowball of Fox News FAIL that has been accumulating over the past few days - and it may have just reached critical mass with this discovery.
Yesterday we saw Rupert Murdoch (owner of Fox News & parent co. Newscorp.) agree with Glenn Beck that POTUS 'is a racist'. Here's a clip (h/t media matters):
We also just got details of Sandra Guzman's lawsuit against the Fox-owned NYC tabloid The New York Post. From Sam Stein's piece in the Huffington Post:
"(Guzman) also alleged that "Charles Hurt, the Post's Washington D.C. Bureau Chief and a high ranking journalist at the newspaper, had confirmed to Ms. Guzman that the Post had such a policy in place, telling her that the Post's 'goal is to destroy Barack Obama. We don't want him to succeed.'"
link to article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Could there be more clearcut proof of Fox News/Newscorp/Murdoch being an adversary of the President of the United States? I don't think so.
Check out comments from the Daily Show/Colbert Report Diary by TiaRachel as the story broke:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
And h/t to oxfdblue for the first diary on this topic:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
I think s/he went to sleep before the video posted. Cheers.
Also have a look at KingOneEye's diary, still on the rec list, about Anita Dunn's contribution to unmasking the lies of Fox News:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
COMMENT UPDATE 1: Excellent point made by DocGonzo in the comments:
The First Amendment does not protect the kind of fraud mentioned in this diary, that was featured on The Daily Show last night. Reporting that a previous, large demonstration was a current, small demonstration, is fraud.
When news papers or shows do that to sell products, it's false advertising. When it's done to defame a person, it's libel. We have all kinds of laws protecting us from mass media lying, especially when it's for the owning corporation's material gain. When it's to gain political power, and the riches that come with it, that's even more a threat we create governments to protect ourselves from.
This is an objective distinction. It's not some degree of dis/agreement with a political ideology. It's systematic lying to achieve specific objectives. Fraud. Criminal.
COMMENT UPDATE II: jhop7 made a thought-provoking comment on possible sedition charges (h/t the 'Lectric Law Library'):
Conduct which is directed against a government and which tends toward insurrection but does not amount to treason. Treasonous conduct consists of levying war against the United States or of adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort.
The raising commotions or disturbances in the state; it is a revolt against legitimate authority.
The distinction between sedition and treason consists in this, that though its ultimate object is a violation of the public peace, or at least such a course of measures as evidently engenders it, yet it does not aim at direct and open violence against the laws, or the subversion of the Constitution.