MSNBC

Joy Reid Unmasks the Republicans ‘Creepy Little COVID-Loving Death Cult’

Posted by on September 16, 2021 at 12:57 pm. 2 Comments :

As the latest wave of the coronavirus pandemic washes over America, the Republican Party and their Ministry of Disinformation (aka Fox News) continues to embrace policies that put more lives at risk and put off the day that the nation can return to some semblance of normalcy.

Republican Virus

If one didn’t know better, it would seem like the GOP is actually rooting for the virus to vanquish more Americans. Sadly, even though one does know better, it still seems that way. Republican governors like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott not only reject the guidance of healthcare experts to wear masks and get vaccinated, they impose unconstitutional laws prohibiting localities, businesses, and schools from setting their own rules to keep people safe.

On Wednesday night MSNBC’s Joy Reid addressed this lethal brand of partisan politicking in a video venting directed at the GOP (Givers of Pestilence). She held nothing back in her condemnation of the Republicans’ “creepy little COVID-loving death cult”:

“We begin the Reidout tonight with a message to Republicans. Okay, we get it! COVID is the precious and you love it. You love COVID so much you want it to spread into schools, at the office, in the Walmart, on the cruise ships and at the club. That great spongy ball with the red spikes, you want it pumping through your veins with an Ivermectin chaser. Why do you love it so dadgum much? We have absolutely no bloody idea. But here’s the thing you weirdos, everyone else hates COVID!” […]

“You may want COVID. You may want to ingest horse de-wormer and attend far too many funerals, but we don’t. And it’s not just saying that or tweeting that. California voted that. It is perhaps the first real tangible proof that your creepy little COVID-loving death cult ways are not going to work for you at the ballot box next year. In fact it’s political suicide.”

This is the sort of blunt fearlessness that has made Reid a favorite foil of the right, and particularly of Donald Trump, who pretends not to know who she is. And it’s the sort of honesty that triggers Fox News, who felt compelled to do a story about this monologue that focused solely on the right-wing critics to whom she was referring. What Fox considers to be a newsworthy story is really just an opportunity to disparage a political foe. Fox said that…

“Reid was blasted on social media following the rant, with critics saying she was doing ‘significantly more harm than good,’ and that she was a ‘terrible person.’ One even suggested that she had a ‘mental problem’ and needed to be committed to a hospital.”

Notice that all of those criticisms were really just childish insults. They apparently were unable to disagree on substance with anything that Reid said. Fox then posted several tweets by 3rd rate conservative pundits maligning Reid, as if that bolstered their already feeble argument.

Fox News and the Republicans they prop up should really think twice (or even once) before they take on Reid or other progressives. After all, the unambiguously pro-COVID network can’t dispute the fact that COVID is now almost exclusively the Pandemic of Fox News. Their most-watched hosts are still lying about the efficacy of masks and vaccines. Tucker Carlson even harbors paranoid conspiracy theories that the vaccines don’t work, but sinister Deep State operatives won’t tell you that.

Carlson has also suggested that it would be acceptable for his viewers to commit the felony of counterfeiting official vaccination cards. That must be their way of ensuring that if the Fox/GOP COVID-loving death cultists don’t end up in the morgue, they’ll end up in prison.

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.

Rachel Maddow Fractures Fox News For Hawking a Horse Dewormer as a COVID Cure

Posted by on August 21, 2021 at 3:16 pm. 13 Comments :

Apparently it wasn’t bad enough that Fox News contributed to tens of thousands of deaths, and even more severe illnesses, by downplaying the severity of the coronavirus as a flu or a hoax. And apparently they weren’t satisfied with the suffering they’ve caused by convincing their glassy-eyed viewers that vaccines either aren’t necessary, or don’t work, or are constraints on their freedom imposed by autocrats intent on enslaving them.

Fox News, Cov-Aid

Fox’s efforts have led to what can now be accurately designated “the Pandemic of Fox News.” Their primetime purveyors of pandemic bullpucky are clearly determined to propagate even more pain.

To that end Fox News began prescribing another phony cure for the plague that they’ve been reluctant to admit exists. Despite the potential for having a positive impact on their audience, Fox continues to prove that they just don’t care. Previously they tried hype hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug for which there is no evidence of efficacy treating COVID, other than the grossly misinformed word of Donald Trump. But now they’ve moved on to Ivermectin, a horse dewormer.

Yes, you read that right. And you aren’t the only one to be stunned by the sheer idiocy of this media quackery. When MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow heard about it she launched into a righteous condemnation of both the reckless advice and the Fox News advisors (video below):

“The Mississippi State Department of Health confirming today that ‘At least 70% of the recent calls to poison control in Mississippi have been related to livestock or animal formulations of Ivermectin, purchased at livestock supply centers.

“Why are people taking livestock formulations of Ivermectin Mississippi? That’s a horse dewormer. Literally, people won’t take the vaccine because they’re super suspicious of that, but they’re taking horse deworming medication that they’re buying at a feed store? For COVID? Why, on top of everything else Mississippi has to deal with right now, why are they dealing with this? I don’t know, but I have a guess.”

Whereupon Maddow plays clips of the three Fox News primetime hosts peddling Ivermectin to their viewers:

Laura Ingraham: We know that our FDA has in many ways failed us by not allowing for the use of Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, both of which are used around the world to reduce COVID hospitalizations and death.
Sean Hannity: I pelted them with questions about COVID-19 and the vaccine and therapeutics hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin … as well as other proactive treatments and practices that are already helping COVID -19 patients all across the country.
Tucker Carlson: On June 5th [Bret] Weinstein discussed the benefits of a drug called Ivermectin, which can and is used around the world to treat and prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Maddow then points out that there has only been one “significant” study connecting Ivermectin to COVID, but that it was withdrawn “because the data in it was apparently faked and the introduction to it was apparently plagiarized.” To date, no one on Fox News has withdrawn their advocacy of the drug. As Maddow noted in her closing…

“Nevertheless, Fox News is busy saying, ‘Don’t take the vaccine, but do take this horse deworming medication, trust us, it is proven.’ You could trust them or you could trust the FDA that says ‘Do not take Ivermectin for COVID.’ Or the NIH that says ‘Do not take Ivermectin for COVID.’ Or the WHO that says ‘Do not take Ivermectin for COVID.’ Even the company that makes the drug that says ‘My god, seriously people. Do not take Ivermectin for COVID.'”

You might think that that would finally be enough for Fox News to step back and retract their potentially lethal “reporting.” If so, you just know Fox News.

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.

Trump-Fluffing Network OAN Loses Appeal of Defamation Lawsuit Against Rachel Maddow

Posted by on August 18, 2021 at 11:31 am. 2 Comments :

In September of 2019, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was sued by the network that is America’s most worshipful mouthpiece for Donald Trump and radical right politics, One America News (OAN). The suit charged Maddow with defamation because she accurately reported the network’s association with Russian connected media. From the start it was a meritless case that had no hope of success.

Donald Trump, OAN

OAN’s lawsuit was triggered by a segment on Maddow’s program that revealed that an OAN correspondent, Kristian Rouz, also reported for the Kremlin owned and operated network, Sputnik. Maddow correctly observed that…

“In this case, the most obsequiously pro-Trump right-wing news outlet in America really literally is paid Russian propaganda. Their on-air U.S. politics reporter is paid by the Russian government to produce propaganda for that government.”

In May 2020, the case was thrown out by a U.S. District judge who ruled that “there was no set of facts that could support a claim for defamation based on Maddow’s statement.” In support of that opinion the judge noted that OAN never actually alleged that the facts were defamatory or even that they were in dispute. The ruling affirmed Maddow’s protections under the Constitution’s First Amendment, stating that her commentary consisted of allowable opinion based on truthful and verifiable information.

Now OAN has lost their appeal of that ruling in a federal appeals court. What’s more, OAN has been ordered to pay $250,000 to MSNBC for legal fees. According to the Daily Beast…

“Fringe right-wing network One America News lost the appeal of its defamation suit against MSNBC and star host Rachel Maddow on Tuesday, with a panel upholding a previous federal court ruling against OAN that required them to pay $250,000 of the defendants’ legal fees.

“OAN, owned by Herring Networks, initially sued Maddow for $10 million in July 2019 after the MSNBC star said on her show that the Trump-boosting network is “paid Russian propaganda,” calling her remarks ‘malicious and utterly false.'”

Why OAN ever sought to file this suit in the first place is curious. They knew that their “reporter” was a Russian Sputnik stooge. They knew that Maddow merely reported that fact. And considering the torrent of falsehoods that are broadcast on OAN everyday, you would think they they would be hesitant to draw attention to their unsavory relationship with Russian shills.

Furthermore, OAN has been disseminating Russian propaganda in their regular programming by latching on to Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from him. That’s precisely the same narrative that Russia uses to undermine faith in American democracy. Their extremism has gone so far as to actually call for the execution of Trump critics.

This failed lawsuit by OAN is not their only legal tribulation. They are also being sued by Dominion voting Systems for defamation in a multibillion dollar case that includes Fox News as a defendant.

OAN is well aware of the legal jeopardy they face, as they demonstrated when they ran a hysterical “disclaimer” prior to a program featuring the MyPillow guy, Mike Lindell, asserting that he had “Absolute Proof” of election fraud. He didn’t. And yet, OAN is still embracing Lindell and Trump and their election lies. This is going to cost them bigly before it’s through.

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.

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace Nails Biden’s Afghanistan Speech: The People vs the Media

Posted by on August 16, 2021 at 4:29 pm. 2 Comments :

A lot has and will be said about President Biden’s decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan and the method with which he did it. Needless to say Fox News and Donald Trump’s Republican Party will embark on their predictable knee-jerk condemnation of Biden regardless of how events transpire.

Nicolle Wallace, MSNBC

Trump has already rolled out his narcissistic version of the situation that he neglected for four years, other than to negotiate a deal with the Taliban that was tantamount to full surrender. He lifted all the sanctions on them, released 5,000 of their prisoners, including their founder and leader, and promised to remove all U.S. and allied forces by last May.

As for the GOP and their Ministry of Disinformation (aka Fox News), they launched a coordinated, and wholly dishonest, campaign to disparage Biden and portray him as on vacation while he was actually working at Camp David, a military facility run by the U.S. Navy.

On Monday afternoon Biden addressed the American people to explain the reasoning behind his decisions regarding finally ending America’s involvement in the Afghanistan war (video below). It was a speech that was equal parts elucidation, compassion, and accountability. Some of the highlights include…

“We went to Afghanistan almost 20 years ago with clear goals: get those who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001, and make sure Al Qaeda could not use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again. We did that.” […]

“That was a decade ago. Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation-building.” […]

“I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.” […]

“The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated.” […]

“If anything, the developments of the past week reinforced that ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision. American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.” […]

“I made a commitment to the American people when I ran for president that I would bring America’s military involvement in Afghanistan to an end. While it’s been hard and messy and, yes, far from perfect, I’ve honored that commitment.” […]

“I know my decision will be criticized. But I would rather take all that criticism than pass this decision on to another president of the United States.”

Following the speech MSNBC anchor, Nicolle Wallace, gave a profound summation of the different ways Biden’s words would be received by the public and the press. She said that…

“95% of the American people will agree with everything he just said. 95% of the press covering this White House will disagree. And for an American president to finally be completely aligned with such an overwhelming majority of what the American people think about Afghanistan is probably a tremendous relief to the American people.”

Wallace is exactly right. The media seems to have a built in favoritism for whatever generates the most conflict and melodrama. But the American people have long favored an end to the seemingly perpetual conflicts that began after September 11th, 2001. And that opinion is shared by both Democrats and Republicans. Even Trump and his cult disciples have been opposed to continuing the war in Afghanistan. He ran on it, just like Biden did.

Of course, that won’t stop Trump and his GOP confederates from lambasting Biden for achieving the goal that they never could. They are jealous of his successes, whether it be foreign affairs, infrastructure, healthcare, or any of the other failures by Trump and company.

It’s ironic that Wallace is one of the few television commentators to recognize both the desires of the public and biases of the press. She was the White House Communications Director for George W. Bush, the president that got us into this mess to begin with. Which makes her insights all the more relevant and welcome.

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.

Devin Nunes Sues NBC Because Rachel Maddow Revealed His Affairs With Russian Agents

Posted by on August 4, 2021 at 10:30 am. 3 Comments :

Republican Rep. Devin Nunes has distinguished himself as one of Congress’ most mockable characters. He’s the sort of representative who believes that being asked if he wants a straw by a waitress is a sure sign of socialism. So what does a serially litigious Republican gadfly like Nunes do after he’s lost an embarrassing lawsuit against an imaginary cow on Twitter?

Rachel Maddow

Well, now that a court has ordered Nunes to “Don’t have a cow, man,” he is tilting at a new legal windmill that he believes is a cancer on his already tawdry reputation. Bloomberg News is reporting that…

“California Republican Congressman Devin Nunes sued NBCUniversal Media alleging that MSNBC’s liberal talk show host Rachel Maddow defamed him with on-air suggestions he’d conspired with a Russian agent to rig the 2016 presidential election for Donald Trump.

“Nunes, who is the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, says Maddow has repeatedly targeted him with defamatory statements that accuse him of obstruction of justice and treason.”

In other words, Nunes is suing NBC because Rachel Maddow reported accurately about his unsavory relationships with Russian operatives, and his complicity with using disinformation to smear Joe Biden in order to prop up Donald Trump’s dwindling election prospects. Nunes is seeking unspecified damages for “insult, pain, embarrassment, humiliation, mental suffering and injury to his reputation.” Based on that enumeration of alleged harm, Nunes should be suing himself.

For some reason Nunes filed this complaint in federal court in Sherman, Texas, despite the fact that he represents a district in California, and NBC is headquartered in New York. Do you think he’s “venue shopping” this silliness? Where else could he hope for a favorable verdict in this quixotic adventure?

Nunes must know that he doesn’t have a prayer of prevailing. Particularly when there is virtually nothing of substance on which to hang his case. The commentary Maddow delivered hewed closely to the known facts at the time of her broadcast. And the truth is a valid defense in a defamation case. Maddow correctly reported that…

“Last summer, Democrats on the Intelligence Committee in the house learned that that same guy, Derkach, had mailed a stack of unknown materials to a Republican congressman named Devin Nunes, who is the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee to this day. Andriy Derkach is sanctioned by the U.S. government as a Russian agent. He is singled out by name by the Director of National Intelligence as someone under Vladimir Putin‘s direct purview who helped run this operation targeting our election last year.

None of that is even being disputed by Nunes. His case rests on Maddow’s assertion that he failed to turn the suspicious package from the Russian agent over to the FBI, or even share it with his colleagues on the Intelligence Committee. However that was true when she reported it. Given that he has no case, it will be interesting see how discovery shakes out, if Nunes even allows it to go that far.

In addition to ludicrous and failed suits against Twitter for satirical accounts pretending to be his mother and his cow, Nunes has also filed unsuccessful, multi-million dollar suits against the Washington Post (which was dismissed), Esquire (which was thrown out), McClatchy (which was dropped), and CNN. With regard to the action against CNN, Nunes not only lost, but his attorney was sanctioned and ordered to pay CNN $21,000 for filing a frivolous defamation claim.

All of this makes the anticipation for the latest Nunes legal battle more exciting. He seems to be impervious to shame as he continues to humiliate himself in courts across the country. And in the end, all he succeeds in doing is reminding everyone about his potentially treasonous dalliances with Russia and his efforts to subvert democracy. So hopefully, he keeps it up.

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.

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

Posted by on June 29, 2021 at 5:24 pm. 3 Comments :

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

Posted by on March 31, 2021 at 4:03 pm. 6 Comments :

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

Posted by on March 17, 2021 at 4:16 pm. 3 Comments :

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 CEO Murdoch Admits that the Network Opposes Biden – For Ratings

Posted by on March 5, 2021 at 1:39 pm. 18 Comments :

When Fox News launched twenty-six years ago, its mission was to advance the interests of conservatives and Republicans, and to serve as a partisan counterweight to credible news enterprises and honest journalists. While that was no secret, it’s founders – right-wing newspaper magnate Rupert Murdoch and GOP media consultant Roger Ailes – pretended to be “fair and balanced,” a slogan that falsely implied that other news operations were not (and which Fox ditched four years ago).

Fox News, Joe Biden

This week Rupert’s son, Lachlan Murdoch, who is now the network’s CEO, spoke at a Morgan Stanley investor conference where he said the quiet parts out loud. Apparently, in the Era of Trump and QAnon, it is no longer necessary to veil their biases in cheesy slogans. Murdoch said that…

“‘The main beneficiary of the Trump administration from a ratings point of view was MSNBC … and that’s because they were the loyal opposition,’ Murdoch said of the rival cable network. ‘That’s what our job is now with the Biden administration, and you’ll see our ratings really improve from here.'” […]

“‘Seventy-five million people voted for a Republican president, sometimes in spite of his personality at times,’ Murdoch said. ‘That’s what we represent. We’re going to stick to the center-right. That’s where our audience is.'”

Murdoch was obviously making excuses for the fact that, since the election last November, Fox News has slipped to third place in the cable news wars, behind MSNBC and CNN. Rachel Maddow is now the number one program in all of cable, not just cable news:

However, Murdoch’s explanation is peculiar in that he is also admitting that Fox News is “the loyal opposition” to the the administration of President Joe Biden. That’s wholly inappropriate from a journalistic ethics standpoint. Plus, it implies that they were affirmatively supporting Donald Trump for the past four years. Of course, anyone with a functioning cerebrum knew this, but it was rarely stated explicitly in public by Fox News executives.

What’s more, Murdoch is also saying that the reasons for his network’s blatant bias is for ratings. That’s also improper in the news business, where truth is the standard to which honest journalists aspire. Truth, of course, was the first casualty of Fox’s mangling of the reporter’s craft.

And as if that weren’t bad enough, Murdoch went on to concede the repugnant nature of Trump’s personality, or lack thereof. Yet he is still supporting him because of the voters he hopes to keep as viewers. Murdoch outright slams Trump’s noxious demeanor and, in the same sentence, declares that that’s what Fox News represents, and will continue doing so.

The position that Murdoch is taking is not acceptable for any enterprise that purports to be in the news business. And while he seemingly spoke for MSNBC, NBC didn’t appreciate that presumptuousness:

“A spokesperson for NBCUniversal News Group, which includes NBC News and MSNBC, said in response that ‘our role, and the role of any legitimate news organization — whether it includes an ‘opinion section’ or not — is to hold power to account, regardless of party.'”

And therein lies the difference between Fox News and its competitors. While other news networks may have opinions, they are based on facts and applied uniformly. At Fox News their overt negativity is always aimed the Democrats and the liberals whom they regard as enemies (as conveniently illustrated by Tucker Carlson) this week. Fox’s extreme political prejudice has even irritated other members of the Murdoch family. Lachlan’s big brother James complained about the “toxic” politics practiced by Fox News:

“Those outlets that propagate lies to their audience have unleashed insidious and uncontrollable forces that will be with us for years. […] Spreading disinformation – whether about the election, public health or climate change – has real world consequences.”

That pretty much says it all. And it comes from a source that is embedded well inside the Fox bubble. Unfortunately, James has nothing to do with the network any more, other than being a shareholder. But when Daddy Murdoch is “off the air” that may change. And then, so may Fox.

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.

Crybaby Trump to Screen Actors Guild: You Can’t Fire Me. I Quit!

Posted by on February 4, 2021 at 12:19 pm. 3 Comments :

America’s first (and hopefully only) reality TV game show host to have accidentally become president of the United States has provided the finishing touch to his career as a failed entertainer. And true to form, Donald Trump has made the whole affair about himself and his morbidly bloated ego. Now he has been wounded in way that is especially painful for someone so obsessed with himself.

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Donald Trump, Hollywood

Prior to launching his brand marketing scheme disguised as a presidential campaign, Trump was the villainous figure who arrived at the end of The Apprentice to fire some poor schnook like Gary Busey or Meatloaf because they couldn’t manage to set up a lemonade stand. Trump’s presence on the program required him to join the Screen Actos Guild (SAG-AFTRA). However, after his disastrous presidency – and particularly his responsibility for the deadly Capitol insurrection – the Guild took steps to expel Trump. Guild leaders issued these statements:

SAG President Gabrielle Carteris: “Donald Trump attacked the values that this union holds most sacred – democracy, truth, respect for our fellow Americans of all races and faiths, and the sanctity of the free press. There’s a straight line from his wanton disregard for the truth to the attacks on journalists perpetrated by his followers.”

SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director David White: “Our most important role as a union is the protection of our members. The unfortunate truth is, this individual’s words and actions over the past four years have presented actual harm to our broadcast journalist members. The board’s resolution addresses this effort to undermine freedom of the press and reaffirms the principles on which our democratic society rests, and which we must all work to protect and preserve.”

Naturally, Trump couldn’t keep his malignantly narcissistic yap shut. He hasn’t made a single public comment since being banished to Mar-a-Lago by the American people. He’s said nothing about his Seditionist Brigades in Washington or the the murder of a Capitol Hill Police officer. But he nevertheless felt compelled to announce to the world that “I no longer wish to be associated with your union,” which he baselessly accused of “promoting dangerous un-American policies and ideas.”

So after the Guild had already made clear its intention to kick Trump out, he penned a poison letter that is pure Trumpian egomania…

https://twitter.com/noozvk/status/1357398915042013184

The letter is rife with the conceit that is the hallmark of Trump’s character, or lack thereof. He could not stop talking about himself and what he regards as his invaluable contributions to human existence. For instance…

“I write to you today regarding the so-called Disciplinary Committee hearing aimed at revoking my union membership. Who cares!”

” While I’m not familiar with your work, I’m very proud of my work.”

“I’ve also also greatly helped the cable news television business (said to be a dying platform with not much time left until I got involved in politics), and created thousands of jobs at networks such as MSDNC and Fake News CNN, among many others.”

For the record, cable news was a growing media phenomenon prior to and during the Trump presidency. What’s more, the ratings for both MSNBC and CNN have skyrocketed since Trump lost decisively to Joe Biden, who has has already articulated his aversion to Fox’s propaganda and lies. And Fox News has dropped to third place for the first time in twenty years.

https://twitter.com/noozvk/status/1356979757343100929

If Trump wants to take credit for something, that would be it. He has managed to succeed at something progressive media activists have struggled with for years. He made Fox News as toxic as he is. The result is that Fox is turning even harder toward the loony right. Which will likely ensure and accelerate their descent into the ratings abyss. Thanks Donnie!

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. And you can follow this surrogate Twitter account here. 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.