Fox News host Sean Hannity has said that he will address charges tonight on his self-titled primetime show that a recent segment used misleading video footage to inflate the attendance of a recent anti-Obama rally in Washington.
The decision comes after a Nov. 10 segment on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show With Jon Stewart presented apparent evidence that Hannity’s Nov. 5 report on an anti-health-care-reform rally used crowd footage from a more heavily attended 9/12 tea party protest. (Watch the clip below.)
The Hannity segment featured Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) discussing her anti-health-care-reform rally on the steps of the Capitol, a rally Bachmann estimated attracted as many as 45,000 people. The Daily Show’s Stewart pointed out that the Washington Post put attendance at 10,000.
He also noted that video from the rally shows a sunny day and autumn colors while footage of much bigger crowds of sign wavers was shot on an overcast day when the leaves on the trees were still green.
A Fox News spokesperson directed all inquiries to tonight’s Hannity.
UPDATE: Hannity said on his program Nov. 11: “Although it pains me to say this, Jon Stewart, Comedy Central, he was right.”
Hannity called the footage snafu ”an inadvertent mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.”
“We apologize,” he said, and thanked Stewart and the Daily Show staff for being loyal viewers: “But by the way, I want to thank you and all your writers for watching.”
