FAUX News is a Real Problem

FAUX News has become a real problem for our nation. The organization and its people are doing damage. This one mega "media" outlet is a clear and present danger to the values of the United States.

Paul Fell

The Organization. Fox News was started in 1996, when Bill Clinton was president, as a conservative answer to cable television's CNN. It was founded by Australia-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch seized on a portion of the population's fear and rage and began feeding them what they wanted to hear. In the beginning, Fox News was closer to real journalism. For example, Hannity was Hannity and Colmes. Alan Colmes gave a liberal counterpoint to Sean Hannity's conservative bent. That is long gone. Since the beginning, though, Fox has really just been an outlet for its wealthy owner.

Though they call themselves Fox News, "news" is a loose interpretation. There are only a couple of news programs in Fox's lineup. Their bedrock is not journalism, but a myriad of talk shows, interview programs, "discussions" and one-sided "reports" that run throughout each day, such as The O'Reilly Factor, Fox & Friends, The Five, Special Report with Bert Baier, Tonight with Tucker Carlson, Hannity, and The Ingraham Angle. All these many talking heads spend hours spouting opinions, and as we shall see, propaganda.

And though Fox News was founded as a news-based alternative to CNN, it unabashedly became a mouthpiece for the Right. Media Bias and Fact Check rank it as moderately to strongly right bias and "mixed" factual reporting. And finally, even Fox admits it is not a news organization. By its own admission in its terms of use, it purports its purpose as "for your personal enjoyment and entertainment." In other words, Fox News is not journalism. You could even call it.... Fake News.

It's so "not news" in fact, that a 2012 study showed that viewers who viewed only Fox News were less informed that people who watched no news at all.


The People. There are a lot of nefarious characters associated with Fox. The long-time chairman, Roger Ailes, came aboard at the network's founding but took to sexually harassing women within the organization and resigned in 2016 following the revelations of sexual harassment by dozens of women and a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Gretchen Carlson. Ailes died in 2017, following a fall and a subdural hematoma exacerbated by his life-long hemophilia.

Many of the pundits that call Fox News home are unpleasant people with questionable morals. I don't have time to profile all of them, but one has been in the news lately. He, along with his comrades Jeanine Pirro and Sean Hannity, is really the worst of what Fox News has to offer.

Fucker Tucker Carlson is one whom we must judge by the content of his character. And his character is that of a hateful, despicable racist and misogynist.

If you've watched him at all, you can't help but be disgusted by his mocking, condescending, sarcastic tone, no matter the subject area. Get him talking to a snowflake libtard, and all bets are off. Here's just one example I grabbed.

If you can stomach it, here's an interview with a proponent for marijuana legalization.




Here's another one that I found by chance. Carlson is talking to filmmaker Rob Reiner.




Carlson was recently caught on mic talking to Dutch historian and journalist, Rutger Bregman. It was a fairly civil conversation until Mr. Bregman called out the truth about Carlson and other Faux News pundits. Bregman cut a little too close to the quick when he truthfully called out Carlson and other Fox News pundits as being but whores for Murdoch. Carlson went off on him, becoming extremely agitated and irate, shouting profanities.

Here is the unaired segment between him and a calm, collected, and informed Bregman.




And The Onion unearthed this interview: Tucker Carlson Spends Entire Show Screaming Over Child Bride He Invited On to Debate Him

As if being a run-of-the-mill asshole wasn't enough to make you hate him, Carlson has shown himself to be the worst kind of racist and misogynist.

Last week, 24-year-old researcher Madeline Pultz of Media Matters listened to hours of a radio talk program called, "Bubba the Love Sponge" and heard Fucker Tucker Carlson saying really odious things about women and minorities. It is hard to listen to, and I admit that I only listened to part of it, because it was so disturbing that I had to turn it off.

Here are the audio clips with captions:

Misogyny:



and racism:




Carlson found no reason to apologize. Instead, he made himself to be the victim, saying that he was being bullied, and that he would "not bow to the mob." Guess what, Bub? The "mob" is the majority of Americans who have morals and ethics. We have a society, and this mob's society does not tolerate hateful speech. Yes, you heard that right. We're intolerant of hate! 

After the "Love Sponge" interviews were exposed, Carlson dug in, refusing to apologize and diminishing his hateful words as simply "naughty." And advertisers fled. And more advertisers fled. And reportedly there are more clips that Pultz found that have not yet been released. Watch your news feeds.

Here is Stephen Colbert's take on the Tucker situation:





Interestingly enough, Carlson wasn't always full of vitriol and hate. At one time, according to Lyz Lenz of the Columbia Journalism Review, he was a legitimate, fair-minded journalist. I guess Fox News changes people. More about that below.

Carlson is arguably the worst among them, but there's also odious Jeanine Pirro, who has also lost advertisers for hateful anti-Muslim comments directed toward Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). Pirro is so odious, in fact, that just this morning it was reported that she has been yanked from the network over her comments about Omar. Wow.

Really, all of the Fox News pundits are at the least distasteful, but I'll leave it to my readers to explore more about all the FAUX News cast members.


And then there's Sean Hannity.

Sean Hannity, talk host of the Fox News program Hannity, has been verrrrry cozy with Agent Orange. He's so entrenched within the Sphere of Donald that it is becoming concerning. He's hardly an outside observer. He speaks with SCROTUS by telephone quite often -- reportedly having a direct line to him -- and he has joined Hair Hitler on stage during at least one campaign rally, creating a journalistic breach and causing The Atlantic to describe him as TЯUMP's "shadow press secretary." They even shared the same lawyer, one Michael Cohen, an attorney who served just three clients in total. USA Today has called Hannity's influence on Trumpenstein "dangerous."

Hannity's chumminess and influence bring us to:

The Propaganda. The very start of Fox News's propaganda was their gas-lighting slogan, "Fair and Balanced." There is absolutely nothing fair nor balanced about content on Fox News. The slogan was dropped in 2017 after the Roger Ailes scandal, replaced by another gas-light, "Most Watched, Most Trusted.” This slogan comes a little closer to the truth. Fox News does rank highest in viewership, and unfortunately, most of those viewers do trust the content lock, stock, and barrel. It's not because the network or its employees are inherently trustworthy. Just the opposite, viewers are propagandized into this "trust." Fox News viewers are fearful and angry, and they slurp up the chum that they are fed.

I was astounded as I read up on the feedback loop between Fox News, especially morning show Fox & Friends, and the President*.

Fox & Friends, is hosted by three Murdoch mouthpieces, Ainsley Earhardt, Steve Doocy, and Brian Kilmeade. These three talking heads have possibly the most influence over the executive branch, save Hannity. SCROTUS gets some of his policy decisions from those three! The Donald doesn't trust his national security advisors, but if Fox & Friends suggest a policy move, it's not out of the question that SCROTUS will make policy based on it! The hosts unabashedly talk directly to the President* and direct him to action.

Matthew Gertz of Media Matters began noticing patterns in Twitler's morning tweets, and started analyzing the tweets' relationship with Fox & Friends' content. It became obvious that no, the Orange Menace was not tweeting to try to distract from bigger issues, nor was he tweeting about planned-out policy or governance issues. He was simply live-tweeting Fox & Friends. It's a really fascinating read. But if you're more of a audio-visual learner, here is a compilation of the Fox & Friends / Twitler tweet loop:




and another version with some commentary by Matt Gertz:





Vox analyzed a year-and-a-half's worth of Fox & Friends transcripts and reached the conclusion that unlike state-run media, Fox & Friends seems to be evidence of an emerging media-run state.

But executive-branch-policy-makers Fox & Friends and Sean Hannity are not the only concern arising from the existence of Fox News.

Fox News not only feeds the President's* brain, but they feed massive amounts of propaganda to the masses. Here is an extensive analysis from Heather Hogan writing for Autostraddle. She outlines propaganda tactics and the way Fox News uses each using some good infographics. Fox News uses misinformation, false dichotomies, race-baiting, scapegoating, projecting/flipping, and many other propaganda tactics to reel in their viewers and steep them in hate and fear. Please read her piece. Then, go back and watch some of the Tucker Carlson clips, and you can see those propaganda tactics at work.

Hogan wrote in 2015, and since TЯUMP has occupied the Whitewash House, the propaganda machine has gotten even worse. Just this week, Jane Mayer of the New Yorker wrote a piece outlining the symbiosis of influence between Fox News and SCROTUS saying, "White House and Fox interact so seamlessly that it can be hard to determine, during a particular news cycle, which one is following the other’s lead." Former Fox News bigwigs Bill Kristol and Joe Peyronnin, have expressed their concerns that Fox News is morphing more and more into a state media mouthpiece. Bill Shine was a Fox producer and executive and until a few days ago White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications. Now Shine is the Apricot Pol Pot's advisor for the 2020 campaign and is reportedly still on Fox News's payroll. Shine is but one of many former Fox News pundits to be working in the administration. Mayer outlines a lot more. Mayer also reports that Fox News killed the scooped story about the Stephanie Cliffords affair and cover up just before the election because reportedly Fox News executive Ken LaCorte told FoxNews.com reporter Diana Falzone, “Good reporting, kiddo. But Rupert [Murdoch] wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go." The public wouldn't hear about it until about a year after the election, when the Wall Street Journal caught up to it.  Please read Mayer's investigation. It is long; it goes deep, and her analysis is quite concerning, but we must be informed and take this seriously.


The Bright Spots. Once in a great while, there will be some measured reason on the airwaves emanating from Fox News. Newsman Shep Smith has frequently critiqued Baby Finger's behaviors or policies. Geraldo Rivera got red when he lambasted The Angry Creamsicle's decision to tear gas families with children at the border. Chris Wallace took Steven Miller to task on facts about national emergencies. But these truthful moments are so rare that the moments themselves are news-worthy. That's just bizarre.

The Backlash. After Jane Mayer's piece in the New Yorker, the Democratic National Committee announced that they will not allow Fox News to host any 2020 presidential primary debate. More Americans, like you and me, brother and sister resisters, are opening our eyes to the travesty that is Fox News. And as I indicated earlier, advertisers have fled controversial content.  Lawsuits have been filed against Fox News for defamation, sexual harassment, and racial discrimination. There may be more consequences to come. For now, Fox News charges ahead unreined.

These movies might be worth a look: A 2015 documentary entitled, "The Brainwashing of my Dad," which outlines the morphing of a compassionate, liberal-minded man into a hate-filled conservative, thanks to an abundant consuming of right-wing media. And "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," a 2004 film by Robert Greenwald.


The Action. What can we do to combat the damage caused by the symbiosis between this widely-viewed media source and the highest office in the land? We can resist!

It's tricky, because our First Amendment gives Fox News the right to say whatever they want to say. And there's no law against lying. And now that in their terms of service they've disavowed being a news organization, there is no journalistic standard that they must meet.

However, with Freedom of Speech, there can be consequences. The rest of us are free to use our speech to protest. Money talks, and the best form of protest is through our pocketbooks. Contact advertisers. Here is a list of the biggest advertisers currently using Fox News. Tell them to distance themselves from the network. Tell them you'll boycott them -- and do it.

The best action is to be informed citizens. We've taken the first step, by reading these sources. (Thanks for reading along with me!) We can continue to engage our conservative-leaning, Fox-watching friends and relatives. Talk to them about the toxic relationship and the way that the media gives talking points to the President* and vice versa. We can support legitimate journalism, especially print journalism, by buying subscriptions, reading them, and talking to each other about the issues.


"Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights." -- Thomas Jefferson