Kerry Photos

Kevin Drum quotes a New Republic article here:

Telis Demos makes a point in the New Republic today that can't be made often enough. Even if you believe that Dan Rather got duped into airing a lie (that the Killian memos were real), he's got plenty of company:

If this last offense sounds familiar, it's because the right-wing media does it all the time. In February 2004, for instance, Fox News broadcasters Brit Hume, Sean Hannity, and John Gibson all showed a photo of John Kerry standing next to Jane Fonda on a podium at an anti-Vietnam War rally in the 1970s. It turns out the photo was fake. Did hordes of media critics demand retractions from Hume, Hannity, and Gibson? Of course not.

It's perfectly correct for the mainstream media to hold Dan Rather to high standards, but why don't they do the same for Fox's parade of serial liars? Opinion journalist or not, fake is fake. There's no reason Hannity & Co. should have been allowed to get away with this.

I haven't seen all the video footage from Fox News from February 2004, but I did a quick search of LEXIS for the terms "kerry" and "fonda" and (photo or photograph or picture). The Fox News transcripts from early 2004 suggest that Drum and the New Republic are completely off-base here. Here's the transcript from Fox News Sunday on February 15, 2004:

Chris Wallace:

And I want to show you some fascinating pictures. Let's put up the first one, if we can. There is a picture of Jane Fonda, a famous anti-war activist, in the foreground. And way back in the back, fuzzy, no sign that they were anywhere close together -- and I must say, two years before Jane Fonda actually went to Hanoi and became Hanoi Jane -- at a rally. And this was put out as some indication that they were in lock step.

And then, when that sort of fell flat, another picture was seen on the Internet showing, well, they're not now far apart, they're actually right together on the podium, John Kerry and Jane Fonda. There is only one problem with that picture, it was a fake. Jane Fonda was digitally added. The photo agency that owns the picture says this is the original, John Kerry by himself.

In other words, Chris Wallace of Fox News told the audience correctly that this photo was a fabrication, while this photo was accurate.

The transcripts are similar throughout February and March. On February 11, Sean Hannity said this: "If you could look at our screen, I have a picture. Here's Jane Fonda, and then just over the top of her head you can see in the background there on the left side of people's screen you can see John Kerry." This is obviously referring to the genuine photo. Hannity also referred to the genuine photo on the Feb. 12 broadcast.

As for John Gibson, the only relevant transcript that showed up was from Feb. 13, where he said this: "[B]y the way, we're looking at this picture of Jane Fonda in the foreground and John Kerry in the deep background kind of out of focus from one of these anti-war rallies. There's two guys next to Jane Fonda." Again, clearly a reference to the genuine photo.

Meanwhile, numerous Fox figures referred to the second photo as fake. On Feb. 17, Mara Liasson referred to "doctored photographs of John Kerry and Jane Fonda." (She said nearly the same phrase on March 11). On Feb. 24, Alan Colmes spoke of "phonied up pictures of Fonda and Kerry together." On March 10, Carl Cameron referred to "doctored photos of Kerry with Jane Fonda on the Internet." Indeed, Brit Hume explicitly told Fox viewers that the first photo was "fake" in a Feb. 23 broadcast:

HUME: Finally tonight, the Kerry campaign, as you've heard, is claiming that what they're calling "the Republican attack machine" is making unwarranted personal attacks on him. And the Kerry campaign has released the evidence to back that up. It was on TV.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL MAHER, HOST, "REAL TIME": This is the real picture, right. And then -- this is the one that appeared on the web site. They put him in with Jane Fonda. and this is just the beginning. I have some other ones here that I want to show you that they have doctored up.

(LAUGHTER)* * * (END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: Folks, they're all fake and it's a joke.

Conclusion: I could find no evidence whatsoever that Fox News' personnel (in particular, Hume, Gibson, Hannity) presented the fake photo as if it were real. Quite the opposite: each one of them either referred to the one accurate photo, or actually pointed out that the doctored photo was "fake," to quote Brit Hume.

This is indeed a marked contrast to CBS News's attitude towards faked materials, but the contrast does not favor CBS.

UPDATE: As a commenter points out, you would expect TNR to be especially sure to fact-check an article that accuses another news source of misrepresentation. (Plus, hasn't TNR learned a lesson by now from its extensive history of fabricated reporting?)

SECOND UPDATE: Kevin Drum has now updated his original post to link to this one.