"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: [Sooz comment: the video clip is missing in the original Yahoo article ~ I'll look for it on YouTube]

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.

UPDATE: At the tail end of Sean Hannity's show Wednesday night, at approximately 8:55 pm EST, the Fox News host had the following message concerning the controversy:

"Although it pains me to say this, Jon Stewart, Comedy Central, he was right....It was an inadvertent mistake but a mistake nonetheless."

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

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20091111/ ... news_ts977