I know that Sean Hannity doing or saying something demonstrably false is hardly a shocking headline. I grant you that. But this is different. This is the venerable BBC calling out Hannity, not just a bunch of social media hawks who take the time to analyze and compare what they find online with videos already out there, and then report it to Community Notes. This makes Hannity look normal but in fact it makes Fox News look bad. Although it would have been a lot worse if he had shown it on Fox News. That would have caused quite the stir. Still, it’s not all that much different. Hannity is a Fox host and it’s assumed that whatever he posts has gone through some vetting, right? Maybe, but not in this case.
Fox News prime time host Sean Hannity has posted this video on Instagram, falsely claiming that it shows US strikes on Fordow tonight.
The video he's posted is actually from December 2024, showing Israeli strikes on a missile base in Tartous, Syria. https://t.co/zAj5doZA1N pic.twitter.com/v5gFeDwL0V
— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) June 22, 2025
This is not the only mushroom cloud video out there. I flipped yesterday when I saw one and then I saw the disclaimer. For a short while yesterday, I didn’t know if Trump had dropped a nuke on Fordow. My heart stopped.
And let me be clear: I’m not saying that Israel dropped a tactical nuke in December. I am merely pointing out that this looks very much like a traditional mushroom cloud that you see from a nuclear bomb and there are in fact nuclear bomb explosions on Twitter with false labels. The point is that you have to watch everything like a hawk nowadays to not be deceived.
This is the first verified video of US strikes on three nuclear facilities in Iran tonight.
This one shows the strike on the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre, verified by @Mitch_Ulrich. https://t.co/fymZM5QSSA
— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) June 22, 2025
These videos are difficult to see. But at least we can depend upon the BBC to keep things straight. And that may be how things go. We may have to get real world news from the BBC, the Toronto Star, Der Speigel, and other credible outlets both in the English speaking world and elsewhere.
That is a tragic comment to make but look at what is happening in this country right now:
- Trump’s foreign policy is the same as his economic policy, whim of the moment;
- The corporate media in the United States is completely cowed and in terror of lawsuits from Trump or simply being fired by their corporate overlords. We’ve seen plenty of evidence of this;
- Fake news, right-wing trolling, AI, pollute social media;
- The biggest billionaire right-wing troll of them all owns Twitter;
- Trump’s flopped military parade on June 14 spawned blatant lies from his White House communications director, Steven Cheung, and from the Secretary of Defense;
- The White House and Department of Defense official accounts were used to spread this fakery, to appease the hurt fee fees of a complete child. Unfortunately, said child is 79-years-old and the sitting president.
If that’s not reason enough to be checking out the foreign press and listening to what they have to say, then I don’t know what is.
I recommend the esteemed Manchester Guardian as a credible news source. Their website’s excellent and they offer a myriad of freebie newsletters.
I’m still stuck on a sitting president suing people for saying things he doesn’t like. Cowing the press with threats of litigation doesn’t seem normal or right. But with loyal henchmen at the head of every government agency, it’s real!