Media Matters' 2008 Misinformer of the Year

Media Matters has named it's 2008 Misinformer of the Year, and this year it is Sean Hannerty. Honestly I think this was a runaway this year. Sean Hannerty has been pushing a line of BS this year about Barack Obama, and his aquaintences that was head and shoulders above what anyone else has done this year.

Because of the unending stream of falsehoods and character attacks that fueled the "Stop Obama Express," and the countless other distortions he promoted throughout 2008, Sean Hannity is Media Matters for America's Misinformer of the Year.

Media Matters has demonstrated time and again Sean Hannity of Fox News has been a dominant and inexhaustible outlet for every type of rightwing, nutball, conservative propaganda. Never before has he so enthusiastically applied his talents for spreading lies, half truths, fabrications, and innuendo as he did to the 2008 presidential race, focusing his energies primarily on President-elect Barack Obama.

Relentlessly, Hannity devoted his Fox News shows and his three-hour ABC Radio Networks program to "demonizing" the Democratic presidential candidates.

He was pretty open about it to, as he explaining in August:
"That's my job. ... I led the 'Stop Hillary Express.' By the way, now it's the 'Stop Obama Express.' "

Hannity's "Stop Obama Express" promoted and overstated and inflated a vast array of misleading attacks and bogus claims about Barack Obama. He uncritically adopted and pushed countless Republican talking points and rightwing smears. He played host to numerous credibility-challenged smear artists who painted Obama as a dangerous radical. When he was not going after Obama, Hannity attacked members of Obama's family, as well as Senator Hillary Clinton and other progressives, and denied all the while that he had unfairly attacked anyone.

Hannity's attacks have at times influenced mainstream media coverage. ABC News' George Stephanopoulos appeared on Hannity's radio program on April 15, during which Hannity suggested to Stephanopoulos that he ask Obama at the Democratic presidential debate the following evening about his "association with Bill Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist from the Weather Underground." Stephanopoulos assured Hannity that he was "taking notes right now." Stephanopoulos then did ask Obama at the debate to "explain that relationship for the voters, and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem," though he later denied that Hannity had exerted any influence on his questioning.

Fox News Blames Barack Obama For Stock Market Fall

Of course they do.


Over the last two days the stock market were the worst in recent history since, at least since 1987. The Dow Jones industrial average has lost nearly 1,000 points and the S&P 500 which is a broader measure of stocks, has lost nearly 10 percent of its value.

There should be no surprise that Fox News has seized this opportunity to lay it all on President-elect Obama. Many of the guest pundits and hosts have suggested, or even claimed outright, that the stock market plunge is the direct result of Barack Obama’s presidential election victory:

– Gretchen Carlson: “There’s a lot of feeling in the market not reacting very well to the election of Barack Obama.”

– Fred Barnes: “We have seen the stock market go down over 800 points the last two days. There is great uncertainty out there about [Obama’s] policies.”

– Dick Morris: “Now the other thing that I predicted in “Fleeced” is that the stock market would go crazy after he was elected. Not just because he’s a radical, not just because he’s a Democrat, but because he’s going to raise the capital gains tax. […] Its going to continue to tank.”

Even Fox News’s business guru Neil Cavuto chimed in, wondering if “there is a connection” between the falling market and the Obama election. However, minutes later, he said, “You don’t want to glean too much politically into it.”


You can watch a compilation here:


In fact, the recent market plunge has absolutely nothing to do with Obama. As The New York Times noted, “There were no clear catalysts that spurred the sell-off…beyond the regular drumbeat of poor earnings from the corporate sector and bleak data on the economy.” Moreover, “[s]lumping retail sales and weakness in the auto sector” also helped send stocks plummeting. One market expert noted that “regardless of who won, there is no quick-term solution to the global economic crisis.”


The Wall Street Journal is reporting that stocks have rebounded this morning. Perhaps we should expect then that Fox News will give the credit to Obama. I didn't think so here.