Watching Us become more like Them!

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 2014

The new Salon, misquoting Sean: In the last two nights, Sean Hannity responded to criticism of his coverage of the Cliven Bundy matter.

Last night, he repeatedly stated his position. He repeatedly said that the BLM showed a “lack of proportionality” in the way they approached the situation two weeks back.

We can’t necessarily say that’s untrue.

On Monday night, at the end of his show, Hannity did a shorter segment in which he pushed back against criticism from Big Ed Schultz and Al Sharpton. Below, you see part of what he said.

For the record, we’ve watched the tape and proofread the transcript, including the part we’ve highlighted.

This is what Hannity actually said. If you want to double-check what was said, you can watch the tape too:
HANNITY (4/21/14): Welcome back to Hannity. I’ve had enough with NBC News. Over the past couple of weeks, they’ve spent countless segments attacking little old me. Here is just one example of leftwing loudmouth—kind of a buffoon—Ed Schultz criticizing this show’s coverage, of which I’m proud of, of the Bundy ranch standoff with the feds. Take a look:

SCHULTZ (videotape): Fox News and Sean Hannity should be ashamed of their coverage of this lawbreaker and this law-breaking Nevada rancher and his family. I think Sean Hannity is cheerleading for armed conflict with the federal government. Hannity and Fox News are playing with fire.

HANNITY: No, the federal government, their lack of proportionality and sense over a bill—are they going to send 200 armed agents to everybody’s house? Snipers to everybody’s house? Really?

Well, we’re not ashamed of our coverage. We’re actually proud of our coverage.

Now, there’s not one thing that Ed Schultz said was true. But guess what? If I was a network exec over at NBC News, I might be ashamed of having this man work for me.
At that point, Hannity played tape of some of Big Ed’s greatest hits of the past few years, including his famous denunciation of Laura Ingraham as “this right-wing slut,” “a talk slut.” Fuller transcript below.

We’ve highlighted the significant part of what Hannity said—and yes, we’ve proofread our transcript against the tape. We cite this matter because of what Salon readers have now been told about Hannity’s statement.

At Salon, Richard Eskow has posted this piece about Hannity’s coverage.

You can’t blame Eskow for Salon’s excited front-page headlines, which are now part of the way the site functions. (“BLOOD ON SEAN HANNITY'S HANDS/Cliven Bundy’s ‘range war’ is only getting more tense—and Fox News seems determined to touch off the tinderbox.”) In our view, Salon’s excited, premature talk about blood is hard to distinguish from the charges being made against Hannity.

You can’t blame Eskow for Salon’s headlines. But this is the way Eskow reports what Hannity said Monday night:
ESKOW (4/23/14): Now Hannity has responded to criticisms of his Bundy coverage by MSNBC’s Ed Schultz and Al Sharpton Jr. by attacking them personally. He also made a cryptic comment in response to Schultz’s claim that “I think Sean Hannity is cheerleading for armed conflict with the federal government.”

Hannity responded: “Now, the No. 1 thing that Ed Schultz said was true, but guess what? If I was a network exec at NBC News I might be ashamed of having this man work for me.”

However you interpret those words, it’s clear that Hannity will not be held accountable to a reasonable ethical standard. But what about his corporate bosses either at Fox, or the Koch brothers? Who’ll hold them accountable?
According to Eskow, Hannity made “a cryptic comment” in which he agreed with Schultz’s claim that he is cheerleading for armed conflict. As you can see from our transcript, or from watching that tape, that simply isn’t true.

Where did Eskow get the idea that Hannity said that? He may have worked from the Nexis transcript, which misreports what Hannity said.

Newsflash: Official TV transcripts are often inaccurate! If you want to be right in what you present, you actually have to watch the tapes in order to proofread the work.

We’ve spent years of our life double-checking official transcripts. But this is the second time in a week in which we’ve found a writer at Salon misreporting what somebody said at Fox, apparently because they didn’t bother double-checking a transcript.

(In the first instance, Elias Isquith misreported something John Calipari said to Bill O’Reilly. Needless to say, his error created a negative inference about how vile O’Reilly is. To his credit, Isquith filed a correction after we noted his error. Our comment appears early in Isquith’s comment thread.)

Everybody makes mistakes. Some people may not realize that you have to double-check transcripts.

But the new Salon is busy creating a deeply unreliable journalistic culture. Fox News has treated its viewers this way for years. The culture is spreading to us.

We don’t think you can build a progressive culture by aping the conduct of Fox. The suits are going to try it though.

Where does each reader stand?

The sayings of Big Eddie: This is the fuller transcript from the Hannity presentation:
HANNITY: Well, we're not ashamed of our coverage. We're actually proud of our coverage.

Now, there’s not one thing that Ed Schultz said was true. But guess what? If I was a network exec over at NBC News, I might be ashamed of having this man work for me:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: The Republicans lie! They want to see you dead! They’d rather make money off your dead corpse!

You’re damn right Dick Cheney’s heart is a political football! We ought to rip it out and kick it around and stuff it back in him!

Do you know what they're talking about? Like this right-wing slut, what is her name, Laura Ingraham? Yes, she’s a talk slut.

Well you’re a freaking [bleep], how about that? Get the [bleep] out of here. How about that? I mean, gimme a—I'm sure they hit the seven-second delay on that one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Well, that tape speaks for itself.
Tapes don’t really speak for themselves. They also don’t transcribe themselves.

We don’t know why Big Ed called Ingraham a slut. It’s not a word we’d expect him to use.

We do know that the new Salon needs to start fact-checking transcripts. Or is Salon is run by the same types of suits who run the very old Fox?

22 comments:

  1. O.M.G.!

    Somerby has finally ended the pretense. He is actually defending Sean Hannity's coverage of the Bundy case.

    Now, has Big Ed said some really stupid things in the past? Yes.

    Does that make him wrong about calling out Hannity for cheerleading for the death of federal agents? No.

    And please. Stop pretending that Hannity isn't doing that.




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  2. 4:39 - Thanks for the post. Was wondering what your basis is for saying BOB is defending Sean Hannity' coverage of the Bundy case? Thanks,

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    1. This post from Bob is only a pretense for taking a slam at Salon and another dig at Schultz, while presenting Hannity's case.

      This is a guy who for 15 years has blamed a "War on Gore" on "liberals" who remained silent.

      And now that we got actual pushback against the right-wing noise machine, what do we get?

      Salon made a boo-boo by not double checking a transcript!

      Delete
    2. And here is almost everything you need to know about TDH (well-stated, 4:55):

      "This is a guy who for 15 years has blamed a "War on Gore" on "liberals" who remained silent.

      And now that we got actual pushback against the right-wing noise machine, what do we get?"

      Right, because we're not pushing back the way BOB wants us to.

      Delete
    3. @Confused, what's your point? Pushing back with inane, stupid, always low-IQ and frequently INSANE bullshit is a remedy worse than the illness.

      Delete
    4. 4:55 - What is your basis for making that claim: "pretense for taking a slam at Salon and another dig at Schultz, while presenting Hannity's case."? I'm not saying you're wrong. Just wondering what you base that on.

      Delete
    5. 5:45: Most of us aren't blessed with your exquisite subtlety and intellectual and moral superiority. We're lowly cable viewers, not tote-bag-toting, refined PBS watchers.

      Delete
  3. I stopped reading Salon when Greenwald left.

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  4. OMB (Watching BOB become more like Us the People)

    "But this is the second time in a week in which we’ve found a writer at Salon misreporting what somebody said at Fox. ... To his credit, Isquith filed a correction after we noted his error. Our comment appears early in Isquith’s comment thread."

    We wouldn't post the things BOB does. But FOX does need watchdogs to protect it from the erroneous onslaught of mainstream left leaning bloggery.

    KZ

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  5. And would THE REST of Sean's broadcast really support the notion that he is only having a problem with The Government's proportionality? Has he come out foursquare and stated that Bundy has to pay his taxes? Do I actually need to watch the show to know the obvious answers?

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  6. KZ

    in this case blogger has a point, I guess transcripts are prepared by voice-recognition software and mistaking "not one" for "no. 1" is a typical thing they do.

    The salon blogger should have checked the tape in this instance.

    However, the blogger's scarcely secret sympathy for White nativism is getting plainer and plainer to see.

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  7. Not having gone to Harvard, I find some of Bob's high-falutin', sophisticated, nuanced analysis a bit beyond my capacity. Here's how some of us humbler folk from second- and third-tier schools see things: The progressive cause won't be advanced by changing hosts and topics on cable shows that no one watches and about which no one cares.

    What *will* advance the progressive cause is white folks in the south and parts of the Midwest realizing that they, too, benefit from government assistance (UE insurance, Medicaid, food stamps, etc), and not just Those People.

    I think this is beginning to happen, slowly. And it will most certainly happen if the GOP continues to gut federal assistance in service of their plutocratic paymasters.

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  8. Exhibit A: Blue collar white voters in the Upper Midwest voting for Obama because of the auto bailouts.

    Exhibit B: Southern states don't want Obamacare repealed. They want it "fixed" (whatever that means), and now it appears they want Medicaid expanded.

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  9. Excellent. It matters not that everything Sean "Who Me?" Hannity said is pure bullshit, what is important is that someone at Salon misquoted him. If Hannity had stroked these criminals anymore his show would have been x-rated. But what gets Bob's gander up? Something Big Ed said years ago and which he has already apologized for numerous times. Perfect.

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    Replies
    1. You act like you don't know (or perhaps just don't care) that Chris Matthews almost got somebody disporportionately killed back on the other side of the bridge BillandAl took the initiative to creatively construct to this century.

      KZ

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    2. Well it would help if only someone with a blog wrote about it a little.

      Delete
    3. mm you are right, of course. But the best among them have to take time to correct Salon when they misquote John Calapari being interviewed on the critical topic of his new book, the royalties from which he desperately needs due to his low salary teaching mostly minority kids at a sourthern public school.

      Delete
  10. We'd say the misquote was the least offensive thing in Eskow's nonsensincal piece, but when you are making the repeated argument that Sean Hannity is repeatedly only upset with the “lack of proportionality”, focusing on squat to produce squadoosh is bone simple.

    KZ

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  11. I'm now looking forward to Bob making Bundy's racist remarks somehow all about a MHP witch trial. He'll bring it back to Melissa, Rachel, or Joan somehow. Grab some popcorn --- let's watch!

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    Replies
    1. "Of course the law is against Cliven Bundy. How could it be otherwise? The law was against Mohandas Gandhi, too..."

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  12. Again, Sean's virtue is implicitly declared unassailable by Salon's overreach, or sloppy attack. But did Sean really say this is only a scandal of The Government's response to Bundy? Firearms were used
    to intimidate Government agents. Did Sean weight in negatively on this? Isn't Fox News, whether Bob wants to admit it or not, encouraging very dangerous situations? Bob, dishonestly, ignored the real content of Sean's work. And NO, I don't even have to watch it to know he is doing it! If you think that is wrong, please address the above questions! And now it turns out Bundy is a creepy racist. But we know how Bob, who rightfully calls out the race baiting of the left, will respond when the real white racism rears it's ugly head: nothing to see here, folks, move along.....

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