Fox
“News” is not a right-leaning news
organization but a propaganda
network created to help the Republican
Party. A threat to democracy,
Fox News divides people and spreads white
supremacist hate and lies
for profit. Many already knew this, but
the receipts coming from the
Dominion
Voting Systems lawsuit
against Fox are a wonder to behold.
Dominion,
a voting technology company, filed a $1.6
billion defamation
lawsuit
against the network owned by Rupert
Murdoch, claiming Fox News aired
false claims that Dominion was involved in
helping steal the 2020
election for Biden. Another elections
company, Smartmatic,
has filed a $2.7 billion lawsuit against
Fox News, alleging the
network falsely claimed it rigged the
election to benefit Biden.
Internal
emails
and texts
disclosed in a court filing reveal Fox
executives and on-air
personalities knew Trump and his lawyers,
Rudy Giuliani and Sidney
Powell, lied about election stealing but
promoted their wild
conspiracy theories as if they were true
to keep their viewers and
their ad revenue. The network mocked Trump
and his surrogates behind
their backs.
On
Jan. 6, 2021, Carlson texted producer Alex
Pfeiffer that “Trump is
a demonic force, a destroyer. But he’s not
going to destroy us.”
He added, “Sidney Powell is lying. F*cking
b*tch.” Laura Ingraham
told Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity “Sidney
Powell is a bit nuts.
Sorry but she is.”
Internal
documents also suggest that when Fox News
called Arizona for Biden on
election night, its ratings suffered to
rival Newsmax, causing Fox to
go on a “war footing” and prioritize viewers
over the truth.
Rupert Murdoch told Suzanne Scott, Fox News
CEO: “These people
should be watched, if skeptically. Trump
will concede eventually and
we should concentrate on Georgia, helping
any way we can. We don’t
want to antagonize Trump further, but
Giuliani taken with a large
grain of salt. Everything at stake here.”
After
a Fox News reporter accurately
fact-checked one of Trump’s lies,
Carlson
told Hannity:
“Please get her fired. Seriously What the
f*ck? actually shocked It
needs to stop immediately, like tonight.
It’s measurably hurting
the company. The stock price is down. Not
a joke.”
And
Fox News anchor Bret
Baier
wanted the network to put Arizona back in
the Trump column, according
to “The Divider,”
a book by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser.
“This situation is getting
uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. I
keep having to defend this on
air,” Baier reportedly said. So much for
any claims that Fox News
is a real and legitimate news organization
with “fair and balanced”
reporters and journalists, as opposed to
their primetime lineup of
opinionated talking heads.
Meanwhile,
even as Fox News knowingly peddled “insane
conspiracy theories”
about the 2020 election from people they
thought were crazy — all
while knowing Biden had won the election —
the executives knew
their on-air talent were lunatics.
Fox
President Jay Wallace reportedly said: “the
North Koreans do a more
nuanced show than Lou Dobbs.” Fox executive
Gary Schreier said on
Maria Bartiromo: “The problem is she has gop
conspiracy theorists
in her ear and they use her for their
message sometimes.”
Fox
News executives called Jeanine Pirro “crazy”
and “nuts.” One
Fox insider called Carlson and Hannity
“crazy Tucker and crazier
Hannity,” while another said, “Hannity is a
little out there.”
A
particularly dangerous propagandist is
Tucker Carlson, who openly
promotes white supremacist ideology such
as the reat
replacement
theory
and praises autocrats like Russian
President Vladimir
Putin
and Prime
Minister
Viktor Orban
of Hungary.
Russian
state
television
features Fox News clips from Carlson and
Tulsi Gabbard in an effort
to sell the Russian war in Ukraine, and
the Russian government
instructed their media outlets to use
broadcasts and segments of
Carlson “as
much
as possible.”
Now
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has given
Tucker — who downplayed the
Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 as
“vandalism” — exclusive
access to 41,000
hours
of Jan. 6 surveillance footage. What could
go wrong, except a threat
to national security?
From
the outset, dirty political operative
Roger Ailes created Fox News as
a
“fear factory“
and a partisan GOP propaganda machine
masquerading as an authentic
news organization. The channel caters to
an older,
white
right-leaning
demographic. Low-information consumers
rely on Fox News for their
“news,” as some have accused the network
of inciting
political
violence
in America — even more than Donald
Trump
himself.
A
threat to a multicultural democracy and
the rule of law, Fox News is
a real threat to Black lives and other
people of color. The network
criminalizes Blackness and reinforces
racial stereotypes, promotes
the trope of “Black-on-Black” crime and
associates Black Lives
Matter with looting and rioting. One
study
found that just viewing a Fox News logo is
enough to fuel racism and
make white people believe Black people are
guilty.
A
popular meme
circulating on social media tells you all
you need to know about Fox
News. The cartoon features Rupert Murdoch
sitting at a table in front
of a plate stacked with cookies. Murdoch
sits next to a Black man —
who has no cookies — and another white man
who has one cookie.
Murdoch warns the white man, “Careful.
That foreigner wants your
cookie.”
Fox
News shows have broken British
broadcasting rules on impartiality,
but what should America do about this
dangerous domestic media
threat? Should Fox News be allowed to call
itself “news” when it
is nothing more than political propaganda
for the Republican Party?
Would they even pass for “entertainment”
when they incite racial
and political violence and fuel domestic
terrorism? Since Fox News
deals with Russian
propaganda,
should the U.S. or U.K. government freeze
Murdoch’s assets?
Fox
News is pure poison. Hazardous waste.
Lacking ethics, morals and
sanity, this is what happens when media
executives make lying into a
business model and place profits above the
public interest. Perhaps
now, finally, the toxic network will have
its comeuppance. It’s
time to shut them down.
This
commentary is also posted on The
Grio
