Trump Proves His Idiocy (Again): He Thinks Verizon Dropping One America News (OAN) is Illegal

The depth of Donald Trump’s ignorance is impossible to measure. He is the Mariana Trench of stupidity. And yet, he seems perpetually compelled to show off how pitifully feeble-minded he is at every opportunity. He appears to have a perverse pride in being an utter imbecile. Perhaps it makes him feel closer to his dimwitted cult followers.

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Donald Trump, OAN

On Sunday morning Trump posted a comment on his miserably failing social media website, TRUTH Social (that is currently being criminally investigated by a Grand Jury), yowling about the decision by Verizon to drop One America News (OAN), his favorite, ultra-rightist disinformation channel. That decision may be the death knell for OAN who have now lost all but one of their cable outlets.

RELATED: LOCK HIM UP: Trump’s TRUTH Social Scam is Being Criminally Investigated By a Federal Grand Jury

Naturally, Trump was shocked and outraged that a private company made a rational business decision that conflicted with Trump’s inbred biases and petulant self interests. Especially OAN, that has served as his virtual North Korean style Ministry of Propaganda from its inception. So he raged on his Twitter ripoff site that…

“One America News (OAN) is AMAZING, with great ratings and a REALLY loyal following. Despite it being so good, VERIZON, for purely political reasons, will be terminating OAN at the end of this month. Isn’t this ‘stuff’ supposed to be illegal? The good news is that the owners and management of One America News is smart and very wise. They will figure it out!”

What’s “AMAZING” is how ridiculously foolish Trump can be, and how proud he seems to be of it. Trump’s assertion that OAN has “great ratings” is laughably untrue. Their audience is so small that Nielsen doesn’t even track it. So you have to wonder what “ratings” Trump is referring to. Although Trump may be right about OAN having a loyal following, because that’s what cults do.

Trump goes on to accuse Verizon of ditching OAN for “purely political reasons.” Of course, he doesn’t offer a shred evidence to support that charge. However there is an obvious financial justification for dropping a channel that has a negligible number of viewers. What’s more, OAN is being sued for defamation by the voting software company, Smartmatic. The case revolves around the part OAN has played in promulgating Trump’s “Big Lie” about election fraud. Cable programmers would be wise to distance themselves from such potentially damaging legal exposure.

RELATED: Newsmax and OAN Added to Smartmatic’s Billion Dollar Lawsuit for Pushing Trump’s ‘Big Lie’

Finally, Trump asks his TRUTH(less) (Anti)Social followers “Isn’t this ‘stuff’ supposed to be illegal?” Sure, if you live in a totalitarian dictatorship where the media is required to obey the mandates of power mad demagogues. But in a nation where a free press is protected by its Constitution, private companies are permitted to make their own business decisions in the best interest of their shareholders, employees, and customers. In the United States it would, in fact, be illegal for the government to interfere with such decisions.

Trump, however, has always leaned toward tyranny. He prefers a country wherein he is the fuehrer making decisions that only benefit him. He had the same autocratic reaction to OAN being dropped by DirecTV earlier this year. And he couldn’t stop whining about it for months. So strap in. We can expect the same sort of obsessive ravings over the Verizon decision going forward.

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Cassidy Hutchinson Testimony for the January 6th Committee Breaks TV Viewing Records

On Tuesday the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection that Donald Trump incited held a previously unscheduled hearing. It featured jarring testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who Trump incredulously claimed he hardly knew.

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Donald Trump

Hutchinson revealed that Trump was aware that weapons were present at his January 6th rally speech, and that he “didn’t f—ing care” because “they aren’t here to hurt me.” She also disclosed Trump’s seething anger that erupted into food flinging tantrums. And she told the Committee that White House lawyers were worried about criminal charges and that several members of Congress had sought pardons from Trump. These revelations and more have triggered Trump to whine about the Committee not presenting his side of the story. But that’s primarily because he has been too cowardly to show up and defend himself under oath, as all of the Republican witnesses have done.

RELATED: Crybaby Trump Slams the January 6th Committee For Nixing His Witnesses – Who Refused to Testify

Contrary to Trump’s repeated lying, the Committee’s televised hearings have been watched by millions of concerned Americans. And Hutchinson’s testimony drew even more viewers than all of the other sessions, with the exception of the first one that aired in primetime. In fact, it drew more viewers than all but the last of the NBA championship games. According to the Los Angeles Times

“Cassidy Hutchinson testimony set audience record for a daytime Jan. 6 hearing.”

“More than 13 million Americans tuned in to watch bombshell testimony from a former White House aide this week, making the Jan. 6 committee’s latest hearing its second-most-viewed thus far.

“The Tuesday afternoon hearing, which the committee announced just a day ahead of time, featured 25-year-old Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as an aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Her dramatic testimony attracted 13,231,000 viewers across all major networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC, according to numbers from Nielsen, a ratings firm. This total topped the previous four hearings, which won audiences of about 10 million to 11 million people. The first Jan. 6 hearing, on June 9, drew about 20 million viewers, but it aired in prime time.”

Notably absent from the list of networks above is Fox News. That’s because it barely contributed to the viewing totals. Fox’s audience is apparently so attached to the lies that shape their alternative reality, that they will even tune out Fox News – the source of the lies that shape their alternative reality. Then, when the frightening truth-telling is over, they stream back to watch Sean Hannity and the network’s other propaganda pushers.

RELATED: Frightened Fox News Audience Tunes Out January 6th Hearings Even When They Air on Fox

The hearings are being closely followed by a majority (58%) of Americans. And they are having a noticeable impact on public opinion. When asked in a recent poll if “misleading Americans about the outcome of an election” is a crime, a massive majority of 69% said definitely/probably “Yes,” including 59% of Republicans. The numbers were almost identical when respondents were asked whether “the Department of Justice should bring legal action against” the offending elected officials.

What’s more, the L.A. Times quoted pollster Celinda Lake saying that…

“The support for the hearings has increased over time. And what is emerging very, very strongly from the hearings is not just that [former President] Trump was responsible, but there was a faction of the Republicans, Trump Republicans, who were responsible as well. And that this was about overturning the will of the people, overturning the elections.” […and that…]

“There is an evolving narrative. People see it as a crime, but they also see it as a criminal conspiracy. They demand accountability, and they’re very serious about what they consider accountability. And we are seeing these numbers increase quite dramatically over the course of the hearings.”

As for Trump, he has been behaving in precisely the deranged manner that is expected of such an emotionally stunted man-baby. Throughout the hearings the former reality TV game show host (who is psychotically obsessed with TV ratings) has flung flagrant falsehoods about the unprecedented audience the hearings have generated. His gaslighting lies included…

It remains among the most puzzling aspects of the Trump era that he can so shamelessly foster such easily provable lies, and that there are still people so indoctrinated into his cult that they believe him.

And that’s what makes him so dangerous. What’s next? Will Trump merely continue with his grifting and the fleecing of his followers? Will he attempt to start a civil war? Will he pass out cups of “Kool-Aid” at his next rally? Unfortunately, there is no way to predict what depths Trump might sink to. Nor is there any way to calculate the bottom. After trying to violently overthrow the U.S. government, He is literally capable of anything.

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The January 6th Hearings are Driving Public Opinion – And Trump’s Latest Delusional Meltdown

The January 6th insurrection incited by Donald Trump was an unprecedented assault on American democracy. And now that the House Select Committee investigating the deadly Capitol Hill riots has held the first two sessions of its hearings, there is concrete evidence that the public is paying attention and is appropriately disgusted by Trump’s criminal and treasonous malfeasance.

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Donald Trump, Snowflakes

A new Politico/Morning Consult poll has found that the American people’s opinion of the attack on Congress by the StormTrumpers is already taking a decidedly anti-Trump turn. The Committee is doing an effective job of presenting the abundant evidence of Trump’s purposeful lying about election fraud, and his fleecing of his gullible cult followers with solicitations for his so-called “Election Defense Fund” that doesn’t actually exist.

RELATED: Trump’s ‘Big Ripoff’ is Also Revealed in the January 6th Committee’s Probe of His ‘Big Lie’

As a result of the revelations produced in just the first two sessions, Trump and the Republican Party are taking a severe hit to the gut. Mediaite reports that…

“In a poll taken after last week’s Jan. 6 hearing, a whopping 69 percent of Americans [say] it is a ‘crime’ to try and overturn election results, and similar numbers say the Justice Department should prosecute.”

When asked if “misleading Americans about the outcome of an election” is a crime, a massive majority of 69% said definitely/probably “Yes,” including 59% of Republicans. The same question on “officials attempting to overturn the results of an American election,” returned the same 69% affirmative, including 54% of Republicans.

The numbers were almost identical when respondents were asked whether “the Department of Justice should bring legal action against” the elected officials engaging in the crimes identified above.

For his part, Trump is clearly having a bad day. He has posted on his failing TRUTH Social Twitter clone website some truly bizarre rants. Such as

“Word out that the reason the Unselects have canceled Wednesday’s Kangaroo Court is a total lack of interest leading to very poor television ratings. Could this be so? Maybe they should try getting a more talented Hollywood producer than the former President of ABC Fake News. He didn’t do so well!”

What Trump is referring to is that the Committee’s session for Wednesday has been postponed – not canceled. And the reason has nothing to do with a “lack of interest.” In fact, the first hearing that was held in primetime on Thursday drew more than 20 million viewers, which is twice what game three of the NBA Finals did. And MSNBC even beat Fox News, who refused to cover that hearing live.

RELATED: January 6th Hearing Ratings are Burning Up Trump and His Right-Wing Media Liars

MSNBC also shined during Monday’s hearings, beating Fox News and CNN combined. And while the Monday session was not in primetime, it still garnered about 10 million total viewers across several networks. Nevertheless, Trump threw an infantile tantrum whining that…

“The T.V. Ratings for the January 6th Unselect Committee were absolutely awful. Perhaps the reason is that it is being ‘sponsored’ by Adam ‘Shifty’ Schitt and the same people that brought you the Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX, and that the Unselects are not interested in hearing from anyone saying the Election was Rigged and Stolen, despite the EVIDENCE being irrefutable!”

Really? Adam “Schitt”? Has Trump ever advanced past the emotional maturity of a six year old, or is he regressing? And are his Deplorables really dense enough to believe his easily debunked lie about the “absolutely awful” ratings? Apparently so, After all, they believe his pitiful wailing about the “Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX,” that is well documented. And that’s even after Tucker Carlson inadvertently conceded that it was never a hoax to begin with.

RELATED: So It Wasn’t a Hoax After All: Tucker Carlson Admits that Russia Got Trump Elected

Sadly, for some time to come, the nation is going to have to deal with the deeply psychotic distortions of reality that Trump and his disciples are infected with. Hopefully they will either find a a way back to some sense of sanity, or crawl back under their rocks and stop spreading their diseased, dystopian fantasies.

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Trump Toady Lies that Fox News ‘Destroyed CNN and MSNBC’ By Not Airing the January 6th Hearings

The brazenness with which Republicans lie is often an astonishing display of depraved dishonesty. There appears to be no bar too low for them to slither under when it comes to misrepresenting reality. As George Orwell wrote in “1984”: “War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.” The Cult of Trump could now add to that “Fox is news” and “Trump won!”

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Donald Trump TV Set

Not that any more evidence is necessary to prove the point, but Trump toady, and CEO of Trump’s failing Twitter clone TRUTH Social, Devin Nunes, visited with Howard Kurtz, host of Fox News’ Media Buzz. During a segment about the decision by Fox News not air the House Select Committee hearings on the January 6th insurrection, Nunes unloaded a spectacularly false assertion about the television ratings for the telecast in the following exchange:

Kurtz: Let’s talk about the January 6th hearing Thursday night, primetime. You say it was totally partisan, and you could certainly make that case given that every member is anti-Trump. But let’s go beyond that. Does that mean the media shouldn’t cover it much? Does it mean they should dismiss videotaped depositions from the likes of Bill Barr, Jason Miller, Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump?
Nunes: The way that I view it, Howie, is I think we have numbers now that are in, and you covered this. To put this in primetime, the numbers were way down. So I don’t understand how these big corporations – I know it was spread across some 20 different networks – when you compare Fox News which did not air that live, I mean just destroyed CNN and MSNBC in the ratings, right?
Kurtz: Networks like MSNBC did very well covering this hearing, Obviously, it would appeal to the liberal viewers of that network.

First of all, it’s important to note that Kurtz’s question improperly argued that the Committee is partisan because “every member is anti-Trump.” In fact, the Committee is bipartisan, by definition, because it includes members of both parties. There just happens to be bipartisan agreement that Trump is a liar who incited the storming of the Capitol.

More to the point, the claim by Nunes that Fox News “just destroyed CNN and MSNBC in the ratings” is flagrantly false. MSNBC far exceeded their usual audience, averaging 4.1 million viewers during the hearings. Fox News came in second with only 3 million, which is what they get on any ordinary night. So the same cult viewers tuned in to Fox just as they have been programmed to do.

RELATED: January 6th Hearing Ratings are Burning Up Trump and His Right-Wing Media Liars

What’s more, Nunes says that the numbers were “way down” for the hearings. Actually, they were far higher than anything these news networks have achieved in many years. More than 20 million people watched live, and even more millions watched via streaming, or delayed on DVRs or recasts. It was nearly twice the audience of game three of the NBA Finals.

For his part, Kurtz meekly replied that “MSNBC did very well,” dismissing the fact that they won their time period and beat Fox News. He also belittled the ratings win as the result of MSNBC’s “appeal to the liberal viewers,” ignoring the rest of the TV audience across many networks. And furthermore, Kurtz has no idea what the ideological make up of the audience was. Many conservatives and other non-liberals likely tuned in specifically because Fox wasn’t airing it.

Finally, in addition to lying through his teeth, Nunes didn’t even come close to answering Kurtz’s question, which was whether or not the media should cover the hearings. Obviously Fox News doesn’t want to cover them because, in addition to revealing that they have been lying about Trump and the insurrection for the past year and half, their audience would also see that their biggest stars were accomplices to Trump’s crimes.

RELATED: Text Messages By Hannity and Others at Fox News Prove Their Corrupt Collusion with Trump’s GOP

You have to wonder why Nunes was interviewed on this program in the first place. He is not a member of Congress. He runs a Trump business enterprise/scam. And on that website people who posted the truth about the January 6th insurrection were banned. Kurtz never bothered to ask Nunes about that.

Trump also weighed in on the ratings for the hearings and, true to form, he attempted to gaslight his dimwitted cult disciples by claiming that the ratings were “really BAD…far lower than anticipated.” Which, as someone who worked on TV for fourteen years, he knows isn’t true, or he’s even more stupid than we thought. He also called the hearings a “Witch Hunt” because – well, everything he doesn’t like either a witch hunt or a hoax, isn’t it?

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly.

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January 6th Hearing Ratings are Burning Up Trump and His Right-Wing Media Liars

On Thursday evening the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection incited by Donald Trump held its first public hearing in primetime. The opening session disclosed never before seen video of the Capitol Hill riots, as well as testimony from a police officer who was injured and a documentary film make who was embedded with the seditionist StormTrumpers, the Proud Boys.

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Flaming Trump

Most of this debut outing was spent providing an outline of the crimes committed by insurrectionists and Trump’s role in undermining democracy and orchestrating an attempted coup. It was a compelling presentation that included numerous revelations of Trump’s criminal complicity, stomach-churning clips of violence, and incriminating commentary by Trump insiders such as Attorney General Bill Barr, Ivanka Trump, and even some Fox News hosts.

The criminal culpability of their program hosts is surely one of the reasons Fox News refused to air the hearings live. They certainly don’t want their audience to see their biggest stars being implicated in Trump’s crimes. That would only add to the humiliation of exposing how the network has been lying about the insurrection for the past year and a half. It would make it ever more evident that Fox is not – and has never been – a news network.

RELATED: Fox News Commits to Keeping Their Viewers Ignorant By Refusing to Air the January 6th Hearings

Prior to this historic event, Republicans on Fox News tried desperately to suppress it. In one segment Fox interviewed Rep. Jim Banks (R-Insurrectionist) who confidently predicted that the telecast would be a big flop. “The American people have already dismissed it,” he lied. “They’re tuning out. They’re gonna flip the channel.”

That’s coming from the guy who was bounced from the Committee because he is an accomplice to Trump’s crimes. Banks also employs Tucker Carlson’s son, Buckley, as his communications director. The following day Banks attested to his own failed prediction saying that “Last night’s hearing was a primetime dud. Nothing came out of it.”

On Friday morning Nielsen’s ratings were released. And despite Banks’ and Fox’s efforts to sabotage and deviously counterprogram the broadcast (Tucker Carlson ran his show commercial free in order to prevent people from switching channels), the numbers reflect solid interest by the American people:

“ABC took the largest haul of viewers, earning 4.8 million of them, while NBC and CBS carried 3.5 million and 3.3 million, respectively.

“On cable, MSNBC pulled in a whopping 4.1 million viewers during the hearings, nearly four times what the network averages on a typical weeknight.

“Usually dominant Fox News Channel came in second place on cable on Thursday night, averaging 3 million viewers from 8 to 10 p.m. CNN came in third place with 2.6 million.”

That’s a combined 18.3 million viewers, and still doesn’t include a few other networks that carried the hearings (i.e. CSPAN, Fox Business, etc.). For comparison, Game two of the NBA Finals averaged 8.2 million viewers on Wednesday, and Fox’s MasterChef got 2.1 million. Fox News averaged 2.6 million across prime time on Wednesday.

So these numbers for Thursday’s hearings show the networks performing better than the top rated cable news channel. Furthermore, there will be a lot more viewers due to streaming, social media, and coverage by news programs in the days to come.

Consequently, the loss of Fox News will be less than irrelevant. Their 2-3 million glassy-eyed viewers aren’t persuadable anyway. So who needs them? The vast majority of the American people are going to be better informed by the end the hearings, and the legal foundation for indictments will be stronger than ever. The Trump junkies will remain irredeemably deranged.

RELATED: Now Trump is Calling the January 6th Insurrection ‘a Hoax…Just Like Russia Russia Russia’

UPDATE: True to form, Trump is attempting to gaslight his dimwitted cult disciples by claiming that the ratings for the hearings are “really BAD…far lower than anticipated.” Which is 180 degrees from reality. He also calls it a “Witch Hunt” because – isn’t everything he doesn’t like either a witch hunt or a hoax in his diseased mind?

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly.

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Fox Nation vs. Reality:
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Trump Slobbers All Over OAN in a Crazed Rant Against the ‘Evil, Corrupt Media’

A couple of weeks ago Donald Trump had his spokes-shill post a tweet for him that asked a simple question: “Do you miss me yet?” To which the majority of Americans would resoundingly reply, “How can we miss you if you won’t go away?” In the eight months since he lost so decisively to Joe Biden, Trump has been unable to keep his yap shut for a single day. Just like when he was still occupying the White House.

Donald Trump, OAN

Trump has been a non-stop outrage gusher whose inflammatory remarks pose a real threat to domestic tranquility of the nation. He has also been making the rounds of wingnut media with stops at his favorite fluffing stations (Fox News, Newsmax, etc.), and hosting his Coronavirus Superspreader Cult Rallies. One of his frequent media destinations is the One America News Network (OAN) where he appeared on Monday to gripe some more about what a victim he is. For a wannabe political messiah who tries to present a facade of strength, Trump sure whines an awful lot.

On this episode of Trump’s OAN bitch-fest, Trump continued his familiar and tedious attacks on the media with renewed vigor saying that it is “an evil, corrupt media, it’s corrupt as can be.” This is just Trump’s way of expressing his wrath for the press because they insist on telling the truth about him. But on this occasion he he also felt compelled to lavish praise on his OAN host:

“You guys are amazing. Your numbers are far better – I have to say this. OAN, your numbers are far better than anybody knows. They don’t do the Nielsen’s on your network. So many people are watching what you’re doing. The election fraud of 2020 is the single biggest thing they want to watch, and other networks don’t put it on because they’re afraid to put it on. Because they’ve been silenced.”

At this point it is useful to recall that Trump spent eleven years as the host of a reality television game show. So it is puzzling that he still knows less about how the Nielsen ratings work than a TV business apprentice.

The reason that OAN isn’t included in the Nielsen ratings isn’t because Nielsen is discriminating against them. It’s because OAN’s audience is too small to register any measurable numbers. But Trump’s Nielsen illiteracy shouldn’t surprise anyone considering that he repeatedly brags that his show was #1, when, in reality, it never rose higher than #7 (the premiere), spent most of its run out of the top 30, and languished at #113 by the finale.

What’s more, Trump’s delusion that most TV viewers are anxious to watch him grumbling about imaginary election fraud is downright deranged. The American people are bored to tears by his raving antics and polls show that they believe that Biden won the election fair and square and they want to move on. Trump previously tried to pressure Fox News to embrace his “Big Lie” about election fraud as a “ratings bonanza” without any success.

However, Trump may have a point that some networks are afraid of stories involving election fraud. Although, that is not because they are concerned about upsetting some omnipotent, status quo, authoritarians controlling the world. It’s because the claims are so transparently false that it makes them liable for multibillion dollar lawsuits like those already filed by Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems.

Trump loves OAN because they are one of the few outlets that continue to propagate the “Big Lie” that led to the January 6th insurrection in Washington, D.C., and threatens to incite more violence. In February OAN ran the crockumentary by the MyPillow Guy, Mike Lindell, that promised to provide “Absolute Proof” of election fraud (albeit with a hysterical disclaimer).

Needless to say, that promise went unfulfilled. But the promise of Trump’s relentless tantrums, slander, conceit, and flagrant lying is, unfortunately, still being carried out by Trump and his confederates at propaganda dispensers like OAN. If only he would go away so that at least his brain damaged cult disciples could finally miss him.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

U.S. Finishes Dead Last for Media Trust Among 46 Countries, and Fox News Lies About It

The state of the media suffered “bigly” during the years that Donald Trump occupied the White House. He hated the concept of free press, repeatedly calling it “the enemy of the people,” and berating and insulting reporters. It was his mission to sow discord. And it was one of the few things that he was good at. At least with regard to his worshipful cult followers.

Fox News, Bullshit Factory

Trump actually admitted to Leslie Stahl that he purposefully foments distrust of the media. She asked him why he attacks the press. “You know why I do it?” he replied. “I do it to discredit you all, and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”

Mission accomplished! A new report by the Reuters Institute ranked media trust among 46 countries. The United States came in dead last:

“The United States ranks last in media trust — at 29% — among 92,000 news consumers surveyed in 46 countries. […] One explanation, though not necessarily the only one, is the extreme political polarization in the U.S. This study, like many others, found extremely high levels of distrust — 75% of those who identify as being on the right thought coverage of their views is unfair.”

So it was the deliberate slander of the press by Trump and his conservative mouthpieces at Fox News and elsewhere that produced this humiliating result for the U.S. And no one should be surprised to learn that it’s still going on. Fox News contributor Joe Concha wrote an op-ed for The Hill that brazenly misrepresented the Reuters study:

“The U.S. media is the least trustworthy in the world, according to a comprehensive new Reuters Institute survey encompassing 46 countries. Yes, you read that right. The country with among the most resources in this arena – human, technical and otherwise – finished dead last. Finland ranked the highest, with a 65 percent trust rating. In Kenya, the trust rating clocked in at 61 percent. But here in the U.S.A., the home of global media giants including the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN, we’re trusted by a whopping 29 percent of those reading and watching.’

Notice what Concha left out? The primary cause of distrust in the media, his employer Fox News. Concha’s article went on to cite stories about Trump’s collusion with Russia an example of why the media isn’t trusted. He falsely claimed that “the Mueller Report didn’t find proof” when it actually did. Concha also maligned CNN and MSNBC reporters, saying that “they’re patently partisan opinion hosts” who “share their feelings, their opinions” and that they “pass it off as objective news reporting.” Which, of course, is what Fox News does 24/7, and what Concha is doing in this op-ed.

Digging deeper into the Reuters study confirms that Fox News is the main offender. When the survey results were broken down by media brand, Fox News had the distinction of being the most distrusted at 46% and only 35% trusted. That coincides with Trump’s most zealous base of support. Meanwhile, the most frequent media targets of Trump’s animus (NBC/MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post) all placed higher than Fox by 8 to 11 points.

Fox News, Reuters, Media Brands

The fact that Fox News would so flagrantly misrepresent this information is typical of their dishonesty and bias. This week Fox also misrepresented the ratings for cable news networks. They reported on the ratings decline of CNN and MSNBC, attributing it, without evidence, to a “credibility problem.” But for some reason Fox’s article never mentioned Fox News ratings at all, or the fact that they had declines that were just as bad and, more often than not, worse.

So in less than a week Fox News blatantly lied twice (at least) about how they are received in the media marketplace. And they are doing it deliberately with the intention to deceive. Which is no less than what should be expected of a “news” network that lies about everything else all day, every day. That’s just how Fox News rolls.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Obsessed Ego Maniac Trump Calls TV Ratings Declines ‘A Wonderful Thing to See’

Donald Trump, the former reality TV game show host, is once again obsessing over television ratings. It’s almost as if he still thinks he’s a TV personality, rather than the pathetic political loser who is now a senior resident of Palm Beach’s gaudy Mar-All-Ego retirement village in Florida.

Donald Trump TV Set

Trump’s fixation on TV ratings goes back a long ways. He has long regarded them as being a better indicator of popularity than public opinion polls. That may be because most polls consistently exposed his weakness and general disapproval with the public at large.

Trump literally said that TV ratings “are the real polls” despite the fact that Nielsen doesn’t measure popularity, just viewership. Which means they don’t record the political ideology of viewers.

Furthermore, TV ratings don’t account for the fact that Fox News only tops the ratings because it has a de facto monopoly on the cult-like right-wing audience, while the rest of the viewer universe is divided among all the other news and entertainment networks.

On Tuesday Trump issued one of his increasingly impotent statements (since he can no longer post on social media) that are mostly ignored by everyone but his dimwitted disciples. He said that…

“CNN ratings are down 70%. MSDNC is also way down. Actually, they are ALL way down. They say the news is ‘boring’ since I left D.C. Morning Joe, Joy Reid (whoever that is?), Nicole Wallace, Jake Tapper, and even Chris Wallace, at Fox, in free fall. A wonderful thing to see!”

Trump is surprisingly correct for once. Ratings for all of the cable news networks have declined year over year. According to Deadline

“In primetime, Fox News topped with an average of 2.13 million viewers, compared to 1.31 million for MSNBC and 798,000 for CNN. Compared to the same month a year earlier, Fox News was off 42%, MSNBC was down 36% and CNN dropped 57%. In the 25-54 demo, Fox News drew an average of 329,000, down 50%; compared to 179,000 for CNN, falling 68%; and 166,000 for MSNBC, off by 48%.

“In total day, Fox News averaged 1.17 million in total viewers, down 35%; MSNBC posted 763,000, down 37% and CNN was at 580,000, down 49%. In the 25-54 demo, the numbers were 195,000 for Fox News, down 42%, 133,000 for CNN, falling 59% and 99,000 for MSNBC, dropping by 48%.”

However Trump doesn’t bother to explain why ratings have suffered. He simply implies that it’s because his unceasing lunacy is no longer a part of the daily circus that consumes the press. He’s at least partially correct. There are fewer viewers for the same reason that viewership declines after any other catastrophic event. Ratings spike when a hurricane ravages the eastern shore. Then they subside when the weather returns to normal. And Hurricane Trump has petered out.

In the big picture, the ratings for all of the cable news networks were expected to fall back from this time last year. In June of 2020 the nation was in the midst of a presidential election. The party conventions were approaching. And it isn’t insignificant to note that people were confined to their homes due to a deadly pandemic. Which was another Trump catastrophe that boosted news viewing.

Trump’s statement went out of its way to identify program hosts mostly from MSNBC. And the only one that he derisively insulted was Joy Reid, a Black woman. That’s a pretty good indicator of who and what he is most afraid of. But his last comment stating that these ratings declines are “A wonderful thing to see” reveals his hostility to the media that he has repeatedly referred to in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.”

Like the totalitarian dictators he admires, Trump wants the media to fail. He regards a free press, and the Constitution that protects it, as an adversary. And any bad news for the media is good news for an aspiring tyrant like Trump. He actually confided his envy to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, telling him that he also would like to “get rid of” the press. And given the opportunity, don’t doubt that he wouldn’t try.

UPDATE: Fox News reported on the ratings decline of CNN and MSNBC, attributing it, without evidence, to a “credibility problem.” And speaking of credibility problems, for some reason Fox’s article never mentioned Fox News ratings at all, or that they had declines that were just as bad and, more often than not, worse.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Rachel Maddow Topped All Cable News Programs for the 1st Quarter of 2021

One of the more pompous predictions of the former guy (Donald Trump) was that without him “all forms of media will tank.” Although there is some truth to that in the sense that he attracted eyeballs in the same way that a bloody highway crash does. He insisted on constantly being the center of attention even if that meant making a fool of himself, which he did more often than not.

Rachel Maddow

However, what Trump failed to predict was the rise of progressive media and particularly MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. Her performance has been a bright light in a media environment that has been shrouded by a global pandemic. During the first quarter of 2021, Maddow rose to become the number one cable news program, beating her competition on the prior leader, Fox News. For part of the quarter Maddow was the number one program on all of cable, not just cable news. She marked that milestone on March 3rd:

During the quarter Fox News was the biggest loser, having dropped 40 percent into third place behind both MSNBC and CNN. By comparison CNN was off 32 Percent, and MSNBC fell only 19 percent. It isn’t surprising that viewership was down this year. It was being compared to an unusually eventful prior year that was bombarded with profoundly significant developments like the pandemic, the second impeachment, and the presidential election.

This year by contrast has been languid, in the most pleasant way. President Biden has sought to make his policies the story, rather than himself. The ponderous presence of a psychotic narcissist has been banished from Washington, although it still emits it’s pitiful, emasculated roars from its new lair in Palm Beach. This sea change is a big plus for journalism. As Tom Jones at the Poynter Institute noted…

“Now, for the most part, Trump can be ignored. Which means stories that really matter can be covered. Maybe it won’t draw the audience we’ve seen in the past, but it will be important.”

The standings in the ratings are likely to be volatile in the coming months, Fox News may regain its leading post when viewers who abandoned it for more radical pastures (Newsmax, OANN) return. They may find those other outlets tiresome, specious, and devoid of substance. And Trump isn’t around to promote them anymore.

Fox’s CEO, Lachlan Murdoch, is confidant that Fox News ratings will increase because its viewers will appreciate Fox’s unethical commitment to right-wing propaganda. Murdoch recently admitted that Fox’s role is to be “the opposition” to Biden and the Democrats, saying “That’s what our job is now with the Biden administration, and you’ll see our ratings really improve from here.”

Maybe. But the fact that MSNBC and Rachel Maddow prevailed during one of the most competitive seasons in modern times is evidence that many viewers hunger for honest and informative reporting. Fox’s approach to journalism as an ultra-conservative confirmation bias generator can only succeed on a temporary basis. And its reporting will have no lasting impact anywhere other than in the minds of the indoctrinated wingnuttery.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Hapless Hannity Mocks CNN’s Ratings While Ignoring His Own Downward Spiral

The presidential election last November heralded real change for America. And it wasn’t just by evicting Donald Trump from the White House. Almost immediately the Fox News audience cratered due to the network having bent to reality by recognizing that Joe Biden had decisively beaten Trump.

Fox News, Sean Hannity

In addition to Fox’s viewers being disappointed that their formerly favorite dispenser of ultra-conservative propaganda had betrayed them by not embracing Trump’s “Big Lie” that the election was “stolen,” Fox also had to deal with some competition from a couple of upstarts to their already extreme right (who are also having ratings troubles). Consequently, for the first time in twenty years, Fox News fell to third place behind MSNBC and CNN. And you know that’s gotta hurt. According to Forbes

“Fox News Channel, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corp, has dominated the rating books since the start of the 21st-century, but over the first two weeks of 2021, it has averaged fewer viewers throughout the day than both CNN and MSNBC.”

The pain from having been crippled in the ratings clearly got to Sean Hannity. On Wednesday he posted an item on his website that celebrated that CNN was in a “Free Fall” having “Los[t] 47 PERCENT of Primetime Audience in Key Demographic Since Trump Left Office.” The article excitedly declared that…

“Without wall-to-wall coverage of all-things Donald Trump, CNN’s primetime line-up has lost nearly half of its entire audience in the 25-54 age demographic since the former President left the White House on January 20th.”

There are a couple of notable slants in Hannity’s twisted take. First of all, notice that he is only measuring the ratings decline from Biden’s inauguration day on January 20, rather than from election day on November 3rd. That’s because by January there had already been a massive spike for both CNN and MSNBC, so the subsequent drop looks considerably steeper.

Even more bizarre is Hannity’s description of CNN as having “wall-to-wall coverage of all-things Donald Trump,” when it is Fox News that wears that description so much better. Fox continued to cover every utterance of Trump during that period, which was not the case with CNN and MSNBC. They were, however, covering Biden’s public events that Fox virtually ignored. Hannity even commented on his program that he couldn’t find Biden. Obviously, he must have been looking on Fox News.

Fox News has regained some of its losses in the past couple of weeks, but it is still struggling to stay ahead of the competition. What’s more, while all three of the cable news networks saw rollercoaster ups and downs since election day, both MSNBC and CNN are averaging more viewers than they were a year ago. Rachel Maddow even rose to become the number one program in all of cable, not just cable news. Only Fox News is lower year over year. And Fox’s competitors succeeded by covering the real president and his administration. Bloomberg reports that…

“All three of the big cable news networks have seen a decline in viewers since their highs around Election Day. MSNBC, which has been broadcasting news conferences daily by Biden Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki, led in total viewers throughout the day last month. It and CNN were up year-over-year in February, while Fox saw a decline.”

However, Hannity’s article provided a hysterical analysis of the ratings landscape with a three year old quote from Ted Koppel:

“Longtime broadcaster Ted Koppel famously mocked CNN’s Brian Stelter to his face back in 2018, telling the network’s media pundit that ‘CNN’s ratings would be in the toilet without Donald Trump.'”

Let’s set aside that the fact that what Koppel said was hardly mockery. It was just an opinion that Brian Stelter likely agreed was plausible. What makes this so laughable is that Hannity must have forgotten this exchange he had with Koppel that literally mocked him to his face on his own show in March of 2017:

Hannity: Do you think I’m bad for America?
Koppel: Yes. … You have attracted people who are determined that ideology is more important than facts.

So Koppel not only told Hannity to his face that he was bad for America, but he insulted Hannity’s viewers as being ignorant cult followers who don’t care about facts. And all of this inspired Hannity to post a celebratory article full of wholly unwarranted pride. It’s hard to think of something more pathetic.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.