In an extreme case of wishful thinking and hearing what you want, Fox News personality Sean Hannity got a little egg on his face after embracing a false story by a fake news site.
On his Tuesday airing of “The Sean Hannity Show” he referenced a story posted on a website called Your News Wire, stating that Barack and Michelle Obama had scrubbed their social media sites of all Hillary Clinton references and implied it was due to the recent FBI investigation.
There’s just one little problem with that, though. None of it is true, and a simple visit to President Obama’s Twitter page should have sniffed out the fake story from the word go:
Couldn't be more proud of @HillaryClinton. Her vision and command during last night's debate showed that she's ready to be our next @POTUS.
— President Obama (@POTUS44) September 27, 2016
Doesn’t seem like anything was scrubbed to me, Sean.
But in the age of the internet, once that rumor found legs, right-wing websites with less journalistic veracity than Fox News is supposed to have ran with it. They saw it as a much-desired sign of a schism between Hillary Clinton and her Democratic party allies, even though it did not exist.
Hannity and his team took the bait. First Hannity asked his producer:
“It says that Michelle Obama had deleted Hillary tweets from her timeline. Did you ever check that out?”
Now, all the producer had to do was a little searching and could have easily found out the news was false. But instead of checking other sources, it seems they stuck with the site telling them what they wanted to hear. A voice tells Hannity that:
“Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren have both unfollowed Hillary Clinton, as well as scrubbing their timeline of tweets about her.”
No! None of that was happening! Hannity was loving it, though, as he continued:
“Wow… That means they know it’s huge. You know why? Because Obama’s implicated! He’s implicated here, and he’s pissed. You know what his legacy might be? Jail.”
But after the show ended, Hannity tweeted:
Correction. Live on radio I read a gateway pundit report that @MichelleObama had deleted mentions of HRC. And a listener said BHO and…
— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) November 1, 2016
Elizabeth Warren did same. Fact is they didn't. I humbly apologize. Live radio
— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) November 1, 2016
Oops. Looks like someone actually did their job, maybe a tad too late.
Always verify, Sean. Always verify.
Watch a report detailing the rise of fake news websites like the one referenced by Hannity here:
Feature image via Youtube screengrab
