Sean Hannity rose to the challenge of confronting the MSM's fake news Wednesday night and dealt a serious blow to the lies, misrepresentations, and omissions of the nation's press.  The vehicle was the opening monologue on his nightly Fox News show.  Using a mixture of facts based on real video clips and humor, Hannity stood out once again as a defender and practitioner of fair and balanced reporting.

Right after President Donald Trump finished speaking to a large crowd in Phoenix on Tuesday night, the MSM didn't lose a second in misrepresenting what he had just said and bashing him as a white supremacist who is unhinged and an imminent danger to the country.  The fake news continued into the next day and evening, especially among the usual suspects: CNN and MSNBC.  For anyone interested in fair and balanced reporting, or, God forbid, who is a supporter of President Trump, it was a frustrating day to watch two of the three cable television news channels.

Sean Hannity.

In contrast, it came as a pleasant surprise to see how Hannity chose to present the issue on his Fox News show Wednesday night.  During his longer than usual opening monologue, which ran for the entire first 19-minute long segment of the program, Hannity began by playing a wide range of video clips from the other two news channels, illustrating their sick obsession with piling on Trump.  Then, nine minutes into his program and his monologue, Hannity made the first use of a new feature: as he introduced a montage of sound bites and clips of Trump criticizing and disassociating himself from white nationalists, the KKK, David Duke, etc., Hannity explained that a tone would sound each time Trump leveled a definitive criticism aimed at one of the groups the media claim Trump is coddling or sympathizing with, or has not criticized to the MSM's satisfaction.

We're going to make it so simple and easy for members of the abusively biased press to follow along. We're going to do this – listen [at which point a single tone sounds]. Hear that? OK. We'll start with the tragedy in Charlottesville.

And then, for the next five minutes, a wide range of video clips of Trump speaking were played – drawn from statements, speeches, debates, and interviews – going back to 1991.  Each time Trump unequivocally declared his opposition to, or expressed criticism of, a hate group, racism, David Duke, etc., the tone would sound.  By the end of that segment, I counted 37 tones.  It was actually a brilliant technique that built momentum as the segment went on.  And it was unexpectedly funny, too – the large number of tones highlighting the absurdity of the MSM claiming that Trump is a racist, a Nazi-sympathizer, a bigot, and so on and that he has failed to speak out against hate and haters.

By the end of the monologue, it was abundantly clear – as if we didn't already know – that the mainstream media have it in for Donald Trump and are completely misrepresenting – lying about or not reporting at all – what he has actually said over the years about these sensitive topics.

A source confirmed that it was Sean Hannity himself who came up with the idea of using the sound effect.  Bravo, Mr. Hannity.

Sean Hannity, Fox News, August 22, 2017.

The video of Hannity's entire 18-minute opening monologue, titled "'Slanderous,' 'Destroy-Trump' media deserve every bit of criticism" (with the tone section starting at the 9-minute and 30-second point), is online here.  Within a day or two of the broadcast, a complete transcript of the August 23 episode of Hannity should be accessible from this page at FoxNews.com.

Monday and Tuesday nights, President Trump's speeches in prime time – Monday on Afghanistan and the following night at the rally in Phoenix – were good for Fox News.  On each night, FNC beat MSNBC and CNN in both total viewers and the demographic (viewers 25-54).  Since the reigning assumption is that Fox's ratings go up when the news about President Trump is good, or when he has a major live presentation, while CNN and MSNBC benefit on nights when there is a perception of breaking bad news for the administration, it must be that most viewers were drawn to FNC because the perception was that Monday and Tuesday were good nights for Trump and his fans.

Peter Chowka is a widely published author and journalist. He writes most frequently these days for American Thinker.  His website is AltMedNews.net.  Follow Peter on Twitter.