Brian Stelter

CNN Cancels ‘Reliable Sources’ – Brian Stelter Walks – As Network Leans to the Right

Posted by on August 18, 2022 at 6:02 pm. 8 Comments :

Thursday afternoon CNN announced that it is cancelling it’s longest running program, and the only credible media analysis show on TV, “Reliable Sources.” It’s host, Brian Stelter, has also announced that he will leave the network.

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CNN, Brian Stelter, Reliable Sources

This Sunday will be the last episode of Reliable Sources. The decision comes shortly after CNN’s parent, Warner Bros., was bought by Discovery Networks, whose CEO David Zaslov is notoriously conservative. Discovery also has on its board of directors John Malone, a longtime right-winger and Trump supporter.

RELATED: Big Liar Donald Trump Lies Bigly that CNN Has Prohibited Saying the Phrase ‘The Big Lie’

The new company hired former “Late Show” producer Chris Licht to run the network. And while that might have seemed like a promising choice, Licht has been making statements about how he is more interested in cutting back on news analysis in favor of just presenting a dryer, context-free brand of straight news.

If they think that trying to stake out a neutral position is going to garner them more ratings or respect, they haven’t been paying attention. The right is going to demonize them no matter what they say if it less than wholly adoring of the right-wing, ultra-MAGA narrative. They already regard bland, non-partisan news readers like Wolf Blitzer as radical lefties. They think Joe Manchin is a socialist. Given the blind, knee-jerk biases of their conservative critics, it makes no sense to try to mollify them. Journalistic ethics requires a commitment to reporting the truth, even when it means calling liars liars. Especially when it means calling liars liars.

Reliable Sources has been an island in a rocky media sea where so many of the players are either slanted to the right or consumed by the need to “balance” stories with conservative lies just to avoid being perceived as “liberal.” CNN could not have picked a worse time ditch a program that helped people become more media literate. Phony neutrality will be perceived as weakness and will shortchange the audience who need more contextualization, not less.

The impact of this cancelation can be assessed by the reactions of the right-wing pundits who never watched it. Twitter was trending all afternoon with derogatory remarks about the program and its host that aren’t worth repeating here. Suffice to say that they were uniformly infantile and devoid of any actual substance.

For its part, Fox News had two stories about the cancelation on their website. They were titled “Brian Stelter out at CNN as network cancels media show ‘Reliable Sources'” and “‘Later, Tater!’ Twitter says goodbye to Brian Stelter after CNN cancels his show.” Both articles reinforced the Fox News hatred for professional journalism standards. And it’s notable that there were two of these articles on CNN, but not a single story on the website’s front page about the CFO of The Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, pleading guilty to 15 felonies. UPDATE: There have two more stories on CNN, but still no story on Weisselberg.

While right-wingers across the InterTubes are celebrating the news of Stelter’s departure as if it was an obituary, Stelter is actually going to be pretty busy. Setting aside whatever new TV role he may assume, he is currently a producer of “The Morning Show” on Apple TV+, a successful adaptation of his book, “Top of the Morning.” It stars Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carell, and has received eight Emmys and 53 nominations. He is also the author of the bestseller, “Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth.”

RELATED: CNN’s Brian Stelter’s Killer Video Mash Up: Tucker Carlson is the New Alex Jones

It is disappointing that CNN would cancel this unique program at this time. And it portends trouble going forward if they continue in this direction. The media is sorely in need of honest self appraisals. Reliable Sources did that covering TV, radio, print and the Internet. Now there aren’t any programs that are dedicated to that mission. It’s a sad state of affairs, and one that Stelter himself noted in his goodbye tweet…

“I loved anchoring @ReliableSources. It was a rare privilege to lead a weekly show focused on the press at a time when it has never been more consequential.”

UPDATE: Predictably, Trump has weighed in with his customary childish BS, saying that “Brian Stelter of Fake News CNN got fired because he lied, and lied, and lied – ABOUT ME. May he REST IN PEACE!” Of course, Stelter was NOT fired, he quit. And Trump can’t cite a single alleged lie. And Stelter, as noted above, is far from dead. Can’t the same about Trump.

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Peter Doocy and Fox News Probe the Burning Issues: Biden’s ‘Armageddon’ and Flaming Christmas Trees

Posted by on December 13, 2021 at 2:58 pm. NO Comments :

Never let it be said that Fox News isn’t on top of the most pressing issues of the day. For example, it’s the network whose leading story for three days was the conviction in a county court of a former TV star for faking a hate crime. Meanwhile, they ignored the United States Supreme Court’s decision to allow Donald Trump’s White House records to be handed over to the congressional committee investigating his role in the January 6th insurrection.

Fox News, Joe Biden, Fake News

The editorial mission of Fox News has two basic objectives: 1) Manufacture frightening scenarios that it can associate with the Biden administration and/or Democrats, whether or not they are true. And 2) Feature trivial distractions if no such fear mongering stories are available.

On Sunday, CNN’s Brian Stelter provided a chilling supercut of Fox News presenting their vision of America in a catastrophic decline due to the deliberate mismanagement of “evil” President Biden. It featured terrifying clips of hate monger Sean Hannity warning that Biden is mentally incapacitated; the Fox and Friends “Curvy Couch” potatoes screaming that Biden is killing the economy and American families; professional liar Kayleigh McEnany ranting about inflation surging “just in time to ruin Christmas”; and the ever bombastic queen of box wine, Jeanine Pirro, exclaiming frantically that “This country is going to hell in a handbasket”. To which Stelter reasonably replied that “I would be so scared to leave the house if I watched that all day.” Watch the Fox News hysterics for yourself…

For the record, while there are surely challenges that the nation faces, there is also an unmistakable “Biden Boom” underway. But Fox News isn’t about to let reality interfere with their dramatization of dystopian dread. So Fox dispatched their White House wanker, Peter Doocy, to annoy Press Secretary Jen Psaki. And Doocy leapt straight into the meat of the day’s most pertinent issue:

“We’ve seen an arsonist burn down a half a million dollar Christmas tree in New York City back on the streets. Does the President think that’s good governing?”

That’s right. Fox News is still obsessing over the torching of their beloved fake Christmas tree by a mentally challenged homeless man. Doocy’s dumbfounding question (with an emphasis on the dumb) revealed that he has no comprehension of law enforcement matters. The President is not involved in state criminal affairs. And if Doocy was just looking to find out out if Biden approved of setting Christmas trees ablaze, what on Earth did he think Psaki would say? Did he think she would celebrate the act of arson? So Psaki politely put Doocy in his place – again:

“I think I’ve spoken for the President’s concerns about retail theft. If you have specific…any actions we’ve taken for specific cases, I would point you to the local police departments or the Department of Justice.”

Fox has tried to portray this as an attack on all of America, akin to 9/11. Even though it was just a case of random vandalism that roasted a holiday decoration that Fox says cost them $500,000.00. If that wire frame simulated shrub cost a half million dollars, Fox got royally screwed. The real tree that adorns the White House this year only cost $139,000.00, and that’s $30,000 less than the tree the Trumps got in 2019. Which is just more proof that Democrats are far better at managing money than Republicans.

Maybe Doocy should start an investigation into who ripped off Fox News for that now ashen plastic tree. Was it insured? How much did the replacement tree cost? Is it fireproof? Enquiring minds want to know.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
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Righteous CNN Media Analyst Scolds Fox News Anti-Vaxers for ‘Helping to Kill People!’

Posted by on October 11, 2021 at 12:23 pm. 1 Comments :

It has been well documented that Fox News is the most prominent promoter of pro-COVID propaganda in America today. They have adopted an across the board editorial mission to belittle the deadly consequences of the coronavirus, while simultaneously dismissing the benefits of the vaccine. Along with Donald Trump, Fox News is convincing untold thousands of dimwitted cult followers to unnecessarily put their lives at risk.

Fox News, Vaccine

Most of the commentaries on Fox News adhere strictly to the network’s politically driven anti-vax agenda. However, by far the most offensive vaccine opponent is Tucker Carlson. He has repeatedly advocated the use of quack cures, spread paranoid conspiracy theories that vaccines don’t work, praised people who unlawfully used fake vaccination cards, and even urged his viewers to file false police reports of child abuse against parents who choose to have their children wear face masks.

Carlson, sadly, isn’t alone. His confederates Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and the rest of the Fox roster are equally as liable for the serious harm the network causes. And on Sunday’s broadcast of CNN’s Reliable Sources they addressed this subject with a panel that included David Zurawik, a professor of communications and media studies at Goucher College, and former TV critic for the Baltimore Sun. Host Brian Stelter began the discussion by accurately noting that the anti-vaxers at Fox News are “essentially are prolonging the pandemic.” This led into Zurawik’s impassioned response:

“It’s like it’s not real to them. It’s like it’s a game. They’re playing for viewership. They’ve got a core that will listen to this and wants to hear this, apparently, and that they’re reinforcing.

“But how do you live with yourself when you know what you’re doing in the media can cause deaths for people? How do you live with yourself? I don’t understand that. There’s a lot of sins we have, and I’ll confess to some of them as a journalist. But I don’t know how people in right-wing media – with the science that we have out there and with all the videos and all the personal tragedies we’ve witnessed of people dying – you go and do anti-vax stuff on television.

“It’s not a game! You walk out on the street, you’re part of the community, you’re part of this country, you’re part of the global community. And you’re contributing to killing people. That’s unconscionable. There is no forgiveness. There is no forgiveness for these people. Go ahead, cash your checks now. You’re helping to kill people. Think of that tomorrow when you go in before the cameras.”

This righteous rant would surely resonate with millions of Americans who also don’t understand how Fox News cretins can live with themselves after disseminating so much demonstrably dangerous advice. They are indeed “helping to kill people” by the thousands. And they couldn’t care less.

It is, for them, about viewership, about a paycheck, and about politically embracing the Trump Doctrine of division and knee-jerk opposition to the common sense solutions offered by his perceived enemies. That group includes Democrats, scientists, academics, and citizens who yearn for a return to some form of normalcy. In short, it is success that Fox News opposes. But only because President Biden might get some of the credit for it. And to Fox News and Trump, avoiding that is worth thousands of Americans dying.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
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CNN’s Killer Video Mash Up: Tucker Carlson is the New Alex Jones

Posted by on July 4, 2021 at 4:48 pm. 3 Comments :

There was some optimistic speculation a few months ago that with the exile of Donald Trump from the White House, the right-wing mouthpieces in the media who supported him would settle down and seek to moderate their flagrant sycophancy and propaganda. As it turns out, that speculation was way too optimistic.

Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones

If anything, the rightward drift at outlets like Fox News became even more extremist in the post-Trumpian world. This was a predictable path for the fundamentalist conservatives at Fox News. The CEO even publicly declared that being the opposition is “what our job is now with the Biden administration.” And the result is that Fox News is now a network that is indistinguishable from the wildest crackpot outposts on the Internet.

CNN’s media analysts, Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy, noticed this and put together a video mash up that illustrated just how far down the rabid hole Fox’s top primetime host, Tucker Carlson, had descended. The video (posted below) neatly juxtaposed comments by Carlson with nearly identical comments by freakazoid Alex Jones. For instance…

Carlson: The NSA has been reading our emails.”
Jones: It’s not that I think the government spies on me. It’s admitted that they do.

Carlson: It’s a lie to say there are no risks. There are risks in everything. Including in getting a vaccine.
Jones: Everybody’s got family that got killed or got sick from a vaccine.

Carlson: So FBI operatives were organizing the attack on the Capitol on January 6th, according to government documents.
Jones: It overwhelming the evidence that criminal elements of the federal government provocateured and staged January 6th.

What each of those clips have in common is the demented ravings of unhinged lunacy. Neither Carlson nor Jones can support what they’re disgorging with anything resembling a fact. Following the mash up, Stelter asked Darcy “Is it a stretch to say that Tucker Carlson is the new Alex Jones?” to which Darcy replied…

“Tucker Carlson is the new Alex Jones. If you watch Tucker Carlson’s program, and you watch Alex Jones’ program, they might differ a little bit in antics and the way they deliver their message, but that message to viewers is consistent. And it’s pretty identical.

Whether it’s talking about vaccine conspiracy theories, false flag conspiracy theories, deep state conspiracy theories. The messages that Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones are sending are the same. […] These far-right conspiracy theories, they used to be confined to the Infowars section on the Internet. You used to have to seek them out.”

The overriding theme is that both Carlson and Jones are among the media’s foremost promoters of utterly baseless, and demonstrably dangerous, conspiracy nutballery. And they share that compulsion to spread reckless lies with their messiah, Donald Trump, whose “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him just gets more deranged with every passing day.

Carlson has taken sides with Jones before. As recently as February he was defending Jones – along with Vladimir Putin and the Proud Boys – as truthtellers. At this rate Alex Jones should be getting his own show on Fox News by August, just in time to report on Trump’s imaginary return to the White House.

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 Ignores Questions About Tucker Carlson’s Crackpot FBI Conspiracy Theory

Posted by on June 20, 2021 at 1:07 pm. 5 Comments :

It’s standard operating procedure for Fox News to stonewall any attempt to get them to validate the dystopian fantasies that they pass off as “news.” They do that for two reasons: 1) They can’t validate it. And 2) They don’t want to. Their fictionalized reporting is a deliberate decision on their part to construct a version of unreality that advances their political agenda.

Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Bullshit Factory

Recently Fox’s Senior White Nationalist, Tucker Carlson, contributed to his litany of lies with what may be his most perverse and dangerous diatribe to date. He pontificated tediously about his preposterous, and utterly dishonest, conspiracy theory that the FBI actually participated in and organized the January 6th riots on Capitol Hill by Trump’s insurrectionists. His half-baked (at best) theory asserted that the existence of “unindicted co-conspirators” translated to FBI operatives. This is some truly ripe bull manure. For one thing, the FBI would never characterize their own people as conspirators. More likely they are suspects who are cooperating with law enforcement. But Carlson would never allow reason or reality to interfere with his fractured fairy tales.

After being ridiculed by most credible journalists, and much of the Internet, Carlson stubbornly doubled down on his wankery. And he succeeded in fertilizing the wingnut mediasphere with his ravings. He even got some Republican lawmakers to parrot his mind-numbing nonsense, including (of course) Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-QAnon), and Matt Gaetz (R-Pedophile). Which prompted CNN’s Brian Stelter to pose some basic journalism questions to Fox News…

“Did anyone vet Carlson’s reporting? Did the Fox newsroom go through his reporting? Did they examine it ahead of time? Why haven’t they followed up on it since? Carlson alleged this explosive story. He’s claiming this is an incredible bombshell. Where is the Fox newsroom? Why isn’t Special Report with Bret Baier covering this every day? Why isn’t Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace covering this incredible claim right now?

“We know why, right? Because Carlson is out there on his own. Carlson Island. He does own an island. He’s out there on his own, claiming to be telling the truth to viewers. And the defense from Fox is that it’s an opinion show and everyone knows it’s an opinion show. But it looks like news, it smells like news, and his fans think it’s news. They trust Tucker more than they trust real reports.”

Ironically, Carlson is notorious for asking “questions” that are actually thinly disguised accusations. But he’s too cowardly to answer any himself. And there is no way that Fox News will do anything that resembles responsible vetting of this malarkey. Not only is it unverifiable due to being completely contrived, but Fox wants the disinformation to persist and to spread.

What Fox News sometimes refer to as their “news side” programs won’t fact-check Carlson because they’re afraid of him. They know that his disciples will viciously attack them (rhetorically and potentially physically) if they dare to correct their Prophet of Prevarication.

Remember, Fox News lawyers actually defended Carlson in a defamation case (successfully) by asserting that Carlson…

“…cannot be understood to have been stating facts, [and that] given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statements he makes.”

Let that sink in. The argument by the lawyers that are on Carlson’s side is that no reasonable person would buy his BS. In other words, only idiots would believe that anything Carlson says is true. Which is convenient because idiots make up the majority of his viewers.

UPDATE: CNN’s Jim Acosta, who recently rebranded Fox News as the Bullshit Factory, has named Tucker Carlson the BS Factory Employee of the Month:

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.

Jen Psaki: The White House Briefing Room Can’t ‘Become a Forum for Propaganda’

Posted by on June 6, 2021 at 5:59 pm. 2 Comments :

President Biden’s Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, was interviewed Sunday on CNN’s Reliable Sources by Brian Stelter. It proved to be another opportunity for her to demonstrate her intelligence, grace, and commitment to candidly informing the American people about the President’s thinking and his agenda for the country.

Fox News, Jen Psaki

Not surprisingly, the right-wing mediasphere launched into their knee-jerk condemnation of both Psaki and Stelter. They either didn’t understand what they were talking about or deliberately distorted it to create a false and negative impression. Probably the latter if their past behavior is any guide.

Much of the wingnuttery was obsessed with Stelter’s first question wherein he asked “What does the press get wrong when covering Biden’s agenda?” That was construed as a “softball” question, despite the fact that a media reporter asking a subject to critique the media is hardly playing softball. Stelter also grilled Psaki on why Biden doesn’t do more press conferences. But the rightist whiners must have tuned that out.

The conservative chorus of critics was fixated exclusively on finding fault with the interview. Fox News published an analysis on their website that featured only hard-core rightist reactions to the segment. They complained that Stelter didn’t ask Psaki about manufactured, right-wing “controversies” about Dr. Fauci or the alleged border crisis. That’s because this wasn’t a newsmaking interview. It was a discussion on a media-focused program about how the White House press team interacts with the media.

Aside from being too complicated an interview for conservative flacks to handle, it went pretty well. One of the most instructive moments was when Psaki addressed how she was portrayed in the media, and what she regards as her role.

Stelter: There’s a version on the liberal blogs, something that goes like this: Psaki smacks down, Psaki shuts down a questioner. It’s this narrative we’re seeing people celebrating for doing it. And yet that kind of reminds me of cable news and the way that cable news engages. I’m not sure it’s actually good for the country, even though it might be entertaining.
Psaki: Well look Brian, I think one, I’m not putting out those assessments. What I will tell you though is that I also have a responsibility not to allow the briefing room to become a forum for propaganda or a forum for pushing forward falsehoods or inaccurate information. […] I have a responsibility to the public to make sure they’re getting accurate information. and the premise of the questions that are propaganda pushing are not giving them inaccurate information.

Psaki clearly takes the job more seriously than Trump’s former press secretary (and current Fox News host), Kayleigh McEnany, who seemed to be more interested in scoring fashion shoots. And Psaki’s remarks on Sunday were consistent with those expressed by the White House shortly after Biden’s inauguration

“White House officials promise a sea change from how the Trump White House interacted with the press. Biden’s team plans to lay out clear criteria for qualifying for a so-called ‘hard pass’ to access the grounds in consultation with the WHCA, officials told POLITICO. If current passholders in the media continue to meet the criteria determined together with the correspondents’ association, they will continue to have hard passes. […] But Biden’s aides also promised not to allow outlets to use the briefings to spread baseless conspiracies. […]

“Organizations or individuals who traffic in conspiracy theories, propaganda and lies to spread disinformation will not be tolerated, and we’ll work with the WHCA to decide how to handle those instances moving forward.”

If the White House were to strictly impose those standards, Fox News wouldn’t be granted a press pass at all. Of Course, that’s not likely to happen. But at least they recognize the importance of downplaying propaganda and focusing on the informational needs of the American public. And they aren’t maligning the press in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” That’s a profound improvement over the hostility and childishness of the Trump years.

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.

‘What Fox News Has Created is a Market For Crazy’ – Truth Bomb From Down Under

Posted by on April 18, 2021 at 11:39 am. 5 Comments :

The vast majority of the American people recognize that Fox News is a deceitful cabal of propagandists bent on advancing the interests of radical Republicans and Trump cultists. Never mind the ratings. While Fox Entertainment is leading the other legitimate news networks, that’s only because they have a near monopoly on the right-wing fringe. Their actual penetration into the population at large is only about one percent.

Donald Trump Vladimir Putin

Nevertheless, Fox News is deliberately dividing the nation on behalf the corporations and wealthy elites they represent. And they have an impact because other media parrots their partisan rhetoric and helps to disseminate their lies. But they aren’t fooling everyone, and especially not the leaders of foreign countries that have their own problems with Rupert Murdoch’s media.

Case in point, on CNN’s Reliable Sources Sunday morning, Malcolm Turnbull, the former Prime Minister of Australia, Murdoch’s birthplace, explained to host Brian Stelter why Fox News is so dangerous (video below). And he wasn’t mincing words:

“What Murdoch has delivered largely through Fox News in the United States is exactly what Vladimir Putin wanted to achieve with his disinformation campaigns. Turning one part of America against another. So exacerbating the divisions that already exist in American society and undermine the trust Americans have in their Democratic institutions. That was the objective of the Russian disinformation campaign. And that is exactly what is being delivered by Fox News, and by other players in that right-wing populace media ecosystem.”

Exactly! And Turnbull’s commentary applies just as much to Donald Trump as it does to Fox News. The talk of “collusion” during the first impeachment of Trump barely scratched the surface of the conspiracy that engulfed Trump, Russia, and Fox News. They were (and still are) all working toward the same ends: Turning Americans against each other and their country. Turnbull continued saying that…

“What they have created is a market for crazy. They’ve become unhinged from the facts. It is now, basically, they’ve worked out that you can just make stuff up. Everyone talks about and complains about social media. But what is being done by curated media, mainstream media – including, and in particular, Fox News – has done enormous damage to the United States.”

The evidence of the ultra “crazy” market that Fox News created is all too apparent in the Trump insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th. It is apparent in the adoption of QAnon insanity by many on the right, including the QAnon supporting primetime host, Tucker Carlson. And it couldn’t be more obvious than when Fox News denies that the GOP is the party of QAnon.

Turnbull concluded by asking whether America is “a more divided country than it was before, thanks to Murdoch’s influence?” The answer is an unequivocal “Yes!” Murdoch is a foreign-born domestic terrorist who has never had the best interests of the nation at heart. To the contrary, he has spent his lifetime attempting to pervert democracies in order to empower the oligarchs and enrich himself.

The harm done by Fox News is extensive and destructive. And Trump is just as responsible for it as Murdoch and his treasonous media manipulators. They have been executing the agenda of Vladimir Putin, who couldn’t be more pleased with the efforts by Trump and Fox News. And they must be called out at every opportunity for their betrayal.

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 has Instructed Its Anchors Not To Call Joe Biden ‘President-Elect’

Posted by on November 6, 2020 at 11:24 am. 8 Comments :

The likelihood of Joe Biden advancing to the presidency is becoming more of a certainty with every hour and every release of new vote totals. And the likelihood of a mental breakdown by Donald Trump is increasing correspondingly. In fact, Trump is dangerously close to abandoning his already tenuous grasp of reality. He’s whining about imaginary “illegal” votes, as his fear and disbelief that he isn’t universally beloved threatens to boil over.

Joe Biden, Donald Trump Baby, Fake News

As the presidential race winds to a conclusion, Trump is reported to be incapable of conceiving the notion that he has lost. According to CNN, inside sources report that “Trump has not prepared a concession speech and in conversations with allies in recent days, he has said he has no intention of conceding the election.” To which the Biden campaign had a pithy reply:

“The American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House,’ Andrew Bates, a spokesperson for Biden’s campaign, said in a statement.”

In the meantime, Fox News is doing what Fox News does. As Trump’s official Ministry of Propaganda, Fox has been nursing Trump’s narcissistic psychoses. They encourage his utterly baseless allegations of election fraud and defend his brazenly dishonest public statements. And now, in a strikingly atrocious departure from journalistic integrity, they are embarking on a path of denial to avoid acknowledging Biden’s imminent victory. The nefarious intentions of Fox were disclosed by CNN’ Brian Stelter (video below):

Stelter: Two memos obtained by CNN from three different sources all around Fox News say that when Joe Biden reaches that point where he crosses the threshold of 270 [electoral votes], Fox will not identify him as “President-Elect.” […] These memos at Fox News say they will stay away from that description. These memos direct Fox stars, anchor, pundits, and talk show hosts, to avoid language like “President-Elect” because of the President’s legal challenges.

This is a blatant refusal to accept the decision of the American people and an assault on democracy. Fox News is affirming their loyalty to Trump, a despotic charlatan who is only interested in his own aspirations for unchecked power, over that of the United States. It’s a shameless concession to authoritarianism and a rejection of the principles upon which an honest media rests. As for Trump’s frivolous legal adventures…

Stelter: Of course, these are longshot legal challenges. We’ve been talking about this on the air. But Fox is taking these challenges very seriously, showing shocking deference to the President. After 25,000 false and misleading claims from this president, Fox still assumes he’s telling the truth. They’re promoting voter fraud innuendo. They’re denigrating cities like Philadelphia. And they’re treating these longshot lawsuits, these truthless suits, like they are serious pursuits.
Jake Tapper: This is so odd because there is no credible evidence of widespread fraud. None. So if you are a Fox reporter or anchor, somebody not on the opinion side, and you’re gonna abide by this crazy instruction, you might as well hand in your press credential at the same time because you can’t be taken seriously as a journalist.
Abby Phillip: Fox is acting as an arm of the Trump campaign, and the Trump campaign is treating Fox like they’re an arm of their own campaign. They’ve been on the phone all week haranguing senior people over at Fox

What Phillip is referring to are conversations Trump had with Fox News chairman, Rupert Murdoch. As reported by Vanity Fair, “Trump phoned Fox owner Rupert Murdoch to scream about the [Arizona election] call and demand a retraction. Murdoch refused, and the call stood.” Murdoch had previously predicted that Biden would beat Trump in a landslide. So it appears that there are some mixed feelings at the network. On one hand, it’s their mission to support and defend their Dear Leader at every opportunity. On the other hand, they may be concerned about their floundering reputation if they don’t realistically observe current events.

It appears that the former hand has superseded the latter. Fox News is choosing to prop up Trump, the loser in this race, because they don’t have the honesty or integrity to show respect for Biden, the winner. And they have totally lost control of their on-air disseminators of propaganda (Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends, etc.). Even their so-called “news” side anchors (Brett Baier, Martha MacCallum, etc.) are subject to this directive. Which should alert every news consumer, once and for all, that Fox is a disreputable source to be avoided at all costs.

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

NOTE: News Corpse was notified by Twitter recently that its account would be permanently suspended for repeated violations of their rules. Which is strange because it has never been cited for a single violation in 11 years and they didn’t even identify this alleged violation. The notice had no reply address and provided no way to appeal. They just bounced the account and its 7,000 followers. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from this website, please feel free. Thanks for your support.

WTF? Bill Barr Told Rupert Murdoch to ‘Muzzle’ a Fox News Trump Critic

Posted by on August 22, 2020 at 2:48 pm. 4 Comments :

The creeping fascism of the Donald Trump regime continues to unfurl as the criminal accomplices in his cabinet carry out his nefarious agenda. Chief among them is Attorney Genuflect, Bill Barr, who doesn’t even bother anymore to disguise his desecration of the Justice Department into a pseudo-legal cabal that works solely as Trump’s personal defense team.

Donald Trump, Bill Barr

A new book by CNN’s media correspondent, Brian Stelter, is set to be released next week, and excerpts are starting to make the rounds. “Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth“, has already created quite a stir with revelations about how insiders at Fox News privately admit that they think Trump is “crazy,” even while they exalt him worshipfully on the air.

The toxic, codependent relationship between Trump and Fox News has been the source of incalculable damage to American media and democracy. It is an unprecedented political/press partnership that benefits both. Fox News gets an audience with cult-like devotion that they can brainwash with blatant scare tactics and the darkly unifying force of racism. While Trump gets an aggressive assault team to attack his critics and political opponents, and a constant defense for his unending stream of unsavory conduct and outright crimes. It’s a marriage whose foundation rests on lies and ignorance.

Another excerpt from the book was just published by The Guardian. This one describes a meeting that took place last October between Barr and Fox News Overlord, Rupert Murdoch. News Corpse speculated at the time that the meeting resulted in the resignation of Fox host Shepard Smith, which was announced the next day. But Stelter’s book reports that there was another topic of discussion on their agenda:

“The attorney general, William Barr, told Rupert Murdoch to ‘muzzle’ Andrew Napolitano, a prominent Fox News personality who became a critic of Donald Trump, according to a new book about the rightwing TV network. […] Trump ‘was so incensed by the judge’s TV broadcasts that he had implored Barr to send Rupert a message in person … about ‘muzzling the judge’. [Trump] wanted the nation’s top law enforcement official to convey just how atrocious Napolitano’s legal analysis had been.'”

Just to be clear, intimidating and manipulating the media is not a part of the Attorney General’s job. In fact, it isn’t a part of any government official’s job. It is a totalitarian tactic to control speech and clampdown on the free press. And this sort of suppression of the constitutional rights of journalists is part and parcel of the Trump Doctrine that has designated the media in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.”

Napolitano, the Senior Legal Analyst at Fox News, has been known to criticize Trump. And for that heresy he was entirely excluded from Fox’s coverage of Trump’s impeachment. A few notable examples of his well-reasoned critiques include…

Napolitano has a right to his opinions, and quite often he agrees with Trump. But none of that is relevant here. It was grossly inappropriate for Trump to seek to censor a legal news commentator. And it only makes matters worse that Trump recruited his attorney general to deliver that message. And Barr, of course, should never have agreed to take the assignment. It’s not only improper, and a violation of the Constitution, it has absolutely nothing to with his duties at the Department of Justice.

It is, however, consistent with Trump’s flagrant disrespect for the law, his relentless abuse of power, and his frighteningly obvious tyrannical aspirations. And it’s further proof that neither Trump nor Barr are fit to serve in any position of government authority. They have both proven that they are utterly untrustworthy and the sooner they are deposed, the better for America.

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