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.

Fox News and the Instigator of the Trump Insurrection Say Biden is ‘Destroying Our Country’?

On Tuesday evening Donald Trump made a return appearance on his former Ministry of Propaganda network, Fox News. He was treated to a twenty minute, primetime tongue-bath by Fox’s Senior Trump-Fluffer, Maria Bartiromo, for whom no sycophancy is too extreme.

Fox News, Donald Trump, Maria Bartiromo

Naturally, Trump spent most of the segment consumed with unwarranted bragging about everything from creating the COVID-19 vaccine to the stock market to taxes. But Trump and Bartiromo devoted a significant portion of their lovefest to maligning President Joe Biden and immigrants. In fact, immigration has become the dominant issue on Fox News (not counting Dr. Seuss) since their failure to ignite an insurrection over Trump’s Big Lie about the election being “stolen.”

Trump pontificated tediously on this with flagrant lies that immigrants are “coming in by the hundreds of thousands,” and that Biden is “destroying our country.”

“Today, they are coming in. You take a look. They are coming in from all foreign countries. I see they are coming in from Yemen. They are coming in from the Middle East. They are coming in from everywhere. They are dropping them off and they are pouring into our country. It is a disgrace. They are going to destroy our country if we don’t do something about it.”

There is absolutely zero evidence of any migrants “coming in from the Middle East.” And the numbers aren’t anywhere near “hundreds of thousands.” But reality has never been an impediment to Trump’s lies before, so why stop now? Biden has only been in office for two months and his immigration agenda has yet to be implemented. So the current policy is still largely that which was put in place by the Trump administration. To the extent that there is a border “crisis,” it’s the result of migrants recognizing the difference between Trump’s lawless cruelty and Biden’s far more humane and compassionate approach that complies with U.S. and international law.

Despite the abundance of preposterous declarations by Trump and equally ludicrous affirmations by Fox News, it is still startling to hear them assert that Biden is destroying the country. Especially since that assertion comes after Trump incited an actual insurrection by violent thugs who invaded the Capitol. And after Trump rejected the election results confirmed by all fifty states. And after Trump maligned the Supreme Court for not capitulating to his demands to upend the Constitution.

Add to those atrocities Trump’s presiding over the deaths of more than half a million Americans from a pandemic that was exacerbated by his negligence and incompetence. Yeah sure, Biden is the one destroying the country. We’re lucky we have a country left for Biden to restore after Trump got through with it. And by the way, here is Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, articulating the Biden policy in response to a question from Fox News:

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.