Fox News Affirms its Role as Ministry of Propaganda for Donald Trump and the MAGA Cult

Posted by Mark NC on January 3, 2024 at 1:10 pm. 1 Comments :

2023 will be remembered for many things. Not the least of which is that it is the year that Donald Trump became the first former United States president to be indicted for crimes against America. Those indictments – 91 felony counts – include charges of violating the Espionage Act, financial fraud, inciting a violent insurrection to undermine democracy, and even sexual harassment and rape.

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However, the despicable treachery of Trump must not obscure the memory of another historical milestone that occurred the same year. Fox News agreed to an unprecedented settlement of a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for 3/4 of billion dollars. The suit documented how Fox News aided and abetted Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged and stolen” from Trump.

SEE THIS: The Fox News 3/4 Billion Dollar Dominion Defamation Settlement is Also a Judgment Against Trump

Following the settlement, Fox News seemed to distance themselves a bit from Trump. That’s what happens when internal communications reveal that they frequently disparaged him and admitted privately that they didn’t buy into his lies. Even Sean Hannity, when was asked by Dominion’s lawyer about Trump’s unfounded claims, replied that “I did not believe it for one second.” Although “one second” was about as long as that distancing lasted.

Fox News recently announced that they are holding a town hall in Iowa featuring Trump on Wednesday, January 10. That’s just five days before Iowa’s Republican primary caucus. There is no indication that any other candidate is getting that sort of promotion prior to the GOP’s first primary vote. It’s a valuable gift they’re giving only to Trump. [Update 1/7/2024: Fox has announced town halls for DeSantis and Haley on January 8th and 9th respectively, but Trump’s is the only one in primetime]

What’s more, that town hall has been scheduled at exactly the same time as the previously announced Republican debate between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley on CNN. So Fox News is deliberately counterprogramming the CNN debate with Trump’s opponents that Trump refused to participate in. And it would not be surprising if it turned out that Trump demanded that time slot and Fox News obediently complied. [Update 1/9/2023: In an interview with The Deseret News, Bret Baier confirmed that “It was the Trump campaign’s demand. They would only do it if it was at that time.” And Fox News, were they ethical, could have declined, but agreed to Trump’s self-serving terms.]

The criteria that CNN stipulated for participation in the debate pretty much guaranteed that only DeSantis and Haley would qualify. And CNN is also airing a debate prior to the New Hampshire primary with similar criteria that could result in only Haley and Chris Christie qualifying. It will be interesting to see what Fox News and Trump cook up to deflect from that event.

The Trump town hall on Fox News is likely to be a dull affair. The moderators, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, are not known for their aggressive journalism when it comes to Trump or the GOP. And Trump probably would not have agreed to it without favorable pre-conditions. The fact that he’s doing it all is peculiar, considering his recent expressions of love/hate for Fox News…

Apparently Fox’s efforts to placate Trump are paying off. For instance, they downplayed his flagrant forays into fascism. They also defended him from charges he violated the Constitution’s 14th Amendment by engaging in an insurrection.

With Fox News shelling out precious primetime air, while contesting the time period with CNN’s debate, it’s clear that the network and Trump have reconciled for the time being. It’s also clear that their reuniting will further damage the public’s ability to be adequately informed. But then that was never the mission of either Fox News or Donald Trump.

UPDATE: The audience for the Trump town hall on Fox News was 4.3 million, just slightly more than their regular programming. The audience for CNN’s debate was 2.6 million, more than 5 times their usual draw. So CNN actually benefited far more from the special programs than Fox did, despite Fox’s attempt to hamper CNN and Trump’s Republican challengers.

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Eric Trump Wonders Why Lying Cost Fox News Millions, but Truth-Telling Cost Other Media Nothing

Posted by Mark NC on May 20, 2023 at 11:35 am. 2 Comments :

Some members of the family of Donald Trump have been a major part of his public life. He has included them in his businesses, his television programs, and even his brief but agonizing occupation of the White House. He has relied on their support to avoid forming relationships with other more qualified people that he couldn’t trust or understand.

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Perhaps the least recognized of his spawn (excepting Tiffany) is his son Eric Trump, who frequently reaches out pitifully for unrequited affection. However, on Saturday morning Daddy honored ‘lil Eric with a reposting of a comment on his floundering Twitter scam, Truth Social. The subject of Eric’s post was triggered by his dismay that Fox News had to agree to a nearly billion dollar settlement as a result of their flagrant and malicious lies about Dominion Voting Systems.

SEE THIS: The Fox News 3/4 Billion Dollar Dominion Defamation Settlement is Also a Judgment Against Trump

What troubled and confused Eric was that Fox News was held to account for deliberately lying, while other media paid no price at all for telling the truth. Eric wrote (and Papa reposted) that…

“Fox News was forced pay $787 Million to settle a lawsuit over ‘disinformation,’ yet there is zero apology or monetary penalty to the @NewYorkTimes, @WashingtonPost, @CNN, @MSNBC or others for the fake Trump-Russia hoax which maliciously slandered @realDonaldTrump (and his family) for over three years. The double standards of justice are glaring.”

Eric seems to believe that the media outlets he mentioned have done something similar to what Fox News did. Although, like his father, he doesn’t bother to provide any evidence for his wild accusations. His outrage stems from the recent report produced by “special” counsel John Durham that failed to uncover any shred of wrongdoing with regard to federal investigations of Donald Trump’s well documented unsavory associations with Russians trying to interfere with the U.S. election.

Eric doesn’t appear to grasp that Fox News had to pay up because Dominion sued them and proved their case with actual evidence of malice on the part of Fox’s executives and hosts. No such evidence was produced by Trump or Durham that would warrant any monetary penalty. In fact, Durham concludes his own report saying that he “does not recommend any wholesale changes in the guidelines and policies that the Department and the FBI now have in place” In other words, he found nothing illegal or even improper.

If Eric really wants to punish the press the way Fox News was punished, perhaps he should have his father sue them like Dominion did.

Oh wait. Donald Trump actually has sued, or threatened to sue, media companies for defaming him and his “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen” from him. However, none of those lawsuits have produced any evidence to support Trump’s claims. Many of them have been dismissed as unfounded and frivolous.

That’s why there haven’t been any of the apologies or monetary penalties that Eric hankers for. And it’s why the double standard that he alleges is a figment of his imagination. But don’t expect these realities to dissuade him and his father from continuing to gaslight their cult followers. It’s all they have done for decades and they aren’t about to change now.

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With Lawsuits, Lost Hosts, and Lying Pundits, the Future of Fox News Has Never Been Weaker

Posted by Mark NC on April 28, 2023 at 1:42 pm. 2 Comments :

For the past week the biggest story in media has been the firing of Tucker Carlson by Fox News. While that was indeed a newsworthy event, there are collateral consequences that are being ignored that will eventually have an even more profound impact on both politics and media.

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Carlson fans are actually celebrating his expulsion from Fox News and insisting that it will only make him more influential and powerful as an advocate for the neo-fascist agenda for which he has been the mainstream media’s most prominent spokesman. They foolishly believe that the number of times his post-termination video was viewed on Twitter is proof that he, as an individual, has greater clout than Rupert Murdoch’s multibillion dollar media conglomerate. But they might want to check with Murdoch before popping those champagne corks.

In the real world, Carlson can look forward to precisely the same political celebrity status that Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck have achieved since they were fired by Fox News (i.e. pathetic has-beens). There is a long trail of road kill lining the highway of sacked media stars.

However, the future doesn’t look any better for Fox News. They will surely survive the loss of a loser like Carlson, just as they did O’Reilly and Beck. In fact, they will probably find a replacement who surpasses Carlson’s capacity for crackpot conservatism. But that doesn’t mean that Fox News will have a clear path ahead.

In addition to the Carlson conundrum, Fox News also was just forced to pay 3/4 of a billion dollars to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems. Another voting technology company, Smartmatic, is next in line with a similar lawsuit. That case is already shaping up as a major problem for Fox News.

SEE THIS: Judge in Smartmatic Defamation Lawsuit Orders Fox News to Turn Over ‘Missing’ Documents

What’s more, all of these ill winds for Fox are blowing while they are in negotiations to renew their cable carriage contracts. They presently receive one of the highest carriage fees in the business. But are cable companies going to be anxious to continue paying a premium for a network that is firing their top rated hosts, being sued for defamation, getting exposed as liars, and having to spend their money on court settlements rather than programming.

Furthermore, Fox’s ratings have suffered steep declines since Carlson’s banishment. his former timeslot has lost 50% of its audience in just four days. It’s getting beat by MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes.” And the abutting programs are also losing viewers.

Tucker Carlson's former timeslot has lost 50% of its audience in the four days since Fox News fired him. It's getting beat by MSNBC's "All In with Chris Hayes.'https://t.co/pvenRR5NU4 pic.twitter.com/g9I6O31my0

— News Corpse (@NewsCorpse) April 28, 2023

Advertisers have already checked out. Most major advertisers refused to be associated with the repulsive content that Carlson spewed. Hate speech, bigotry, and pro-Putin, anti-American totalitarianism doesn’t sell Campbell’s Soup or Ford Trucks. Carlson’s show was being almost solely supported by Mike Lindell’s MyPillow ads. And even that has been a rocky relationship.

SEE THIS: UH-OH: Tucker Carlson’s Biggest Advertiser – MyPillow – Pulls All of its Ads From Fox News

Fox News has tried to pretend that this advertiser exodus hasn’t affected their bottom line. They claim that advertisers who didn’t want their ads on Carlson’s show were moved to other shows. But there is no way that an advertiser is going to pay the same rate for some other, lower rated program, as they would have for Carlson. So Fox was obviously lying about not losing any revenue. And that was recently affirmed by none other than Rupert Murdoch’s own Wall Street Journal (as reported by Media Matters).

The confluence of lawsuit payouts. lost revenue, fired hosts, and cable carriage fee downgrades, is going to make the next few months particularly difficult for Fox News. Add to that the animosity of their former fans who are vowing to boycott the network because they believe it has now joined the radical, leftist, Soros-backed, commie, deep state, cabal that is beholden to fake President Biden, and what you have is a convergence of catastrophe. Can Fox News weather this storm? Stay tuned.

UPDATE…

Kayleigh McEnany took over Tucker Carlson’s old Fox News timeslot on Monday. The former lying Trump press secretary drew only 1.5 million viewers.

Jesse Watters (2.2 million) and Sean Hannity (1.9 million) were both down significantly.https://t.co/L9Kj7SvPy0

— News Corpse (@NewsCorpse) May 10, 2023

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Judge in Smartmatic Defamation Lawsuit Orders Fox News to Turn Over ‘Missing’ Documents

Posted by Mark NC on April 26, 2023 at 12:56 pm. 3 Comments :

One week ago Fox News settled a $1.6 billion dollar defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for 3/4 of a billion dollars. Fox News had falsely reported that Dominion’s voting machines were used in a conspiracy to flip votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.

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The settlement was the largest of its kind in history. It was a clear victory for Dominion, whose pre-trial discovery uncovered and made public unambiguous evidence of Fox News executives and hosts blatantly lying on the air, while acknowledging the truth – that there was no evidence of any election fraud – to one another in private, internal communications.

Fox News is already suffering the consequences of their dishonesty. The network had already fired hosts Lou Dobbs and Dan Bongino due to the Dominion fallout. And there are likely more pink slips to be distributed in the coming weeks and months as Fox tries to slow-roll their efforts to punish scapegoats for the offenses that were part and parcel of Fox’s editorial depravity. But none will be more painful for Fox than their announcement that Tucker Carlson was terminated, and that last Friday was his last show.

SEE THIS: A Post-Mortem on Tucker Carlson Following His Unusually Abrupt Departure From Fox News

However, if Fox News thought that these concessions would put an end to their legal troubles, they were sorely mistaken. On the heels of the settled Dominion case, Fox will now have to confront essentially the same allegations of defamation from another voting technology company, Smartmatic.

Fox News had aired numerous false reports that Smartmatic was founded in Venezuela to steal elections for Hugo Chavez. They further lied that Smartmatic’s software flipped votes from Trump to Biden and that it transmitted ballots to foreign countries where they would be counted by operatives beholden to Biden and Democrats. It’s that sort of crackpot conspiracy theorizing that this case a slam dunk for Smartmatic. And there is already news on that front that is going to ruin Fox’s day…

“Fox News has agreed to give voting technology company Smartmatic additional documents about Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch and other senior corporate executives. Smartmatic is suing the right-wing network for $2.7 billion over its airing of 2020 election lies.

“The agreement was announced Wednesday at a court hearing in Manhattan. New York Supreme Court Judge David Cohen scheduled the hearing after Smartmatic raised concerns about whether Fox was complying with its pretrial obligations to turn over relevant evidence.”

Smartmatic lawyers told the judge that they “noticed obvious gaps” among the records that Fox News had already provided during the discovery process. They had good reason to suspect that Fox was being less than honest with their required document production. Fox did the same thing in the Dominion case, for which they were reprimanded by that judge in blunt terms…

“The judge presiding over [the Dominion] defamation case against Fox News admonished its attorneys Wednesday for potentially withholding evidence and said he is inclined to order an independent review by a special master that could lead to sanctions.” […]

“The judge expressed anger and frustration during a pretrial hearing after learning that Fox only recently turned over recordings of Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo [and] had withheld critical information about the role company founder Rupert Murdoch, who is chairman of Fox Corp., played at Fox News. […] Fox also did not reveal the recordings made by [Abby Grossberg] a former producer for Bartiromo.”

It’s clear that Fox News cannot be trusted to follow the law and meet their obligations required by it. Smartmatic will need to continue being vigilant and hold Fox accountable when they attempt to deceive the court. As will other plaintiffs who are lining up to sue Fox, including Abby Grossberg, the former Fox News producer for Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo who claims that she was coerced to falsify testimony in the Dominion case; and Fox Corp shareholders, who are exploring legal options to hold Fox News directors and executives accountable for losses due to their malfeasance.

At this point, the only people who trust Fox are their glassy-eyed viewers, who believe everything they see on the network, even after learning that they’ve been lied to. Although even some of them are losing faith now that Fox has fired their white nationalist prophet, Tucker Carlson.

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Fox News Cancels Their Senior Trump-Fluffing Rage-Aholic, Dan Bongino

Posted by Mark NC on April 20, 2023 at 12:32 pm. 4 Comments :

Times are changing fast at Fox News now that a court has affirmed that they are staffed by shameless liars. On Tuesday the right-wing propaganda network agreed to settle a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for a whopping 3/4 of a billion dollars. And on Thursday they fired their ultra-bombastic, Trump-fluffing, weekend ranter, Dan Bongino.

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According to Bongino, his termination by Fox News had nothing to do with the defamation lawsuit settlement. He says that it was merely an inability for the two sides to come to an agreement on his contract renewal. However, given his past performance, and the damage done to Fox’s already reprehensible reputation, it’s difficult to completely separate the two events.

Bongino has been a staunch defender of Trump throughout the former reality TV game show host’s occupation of the White House and beyond. Trump could do no wrong in Bongino’s eyes, whether it was his two impeachments, his sexual harassment, his deadly COVID mismanagement, his disastrous economic policies, or his theft and hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Bongino stayed by Trump’s side. So now it is, in Bongino’s words, “a sad day,” as he reveals that last week’s program was his final one for Fox News. Forbes Reports that…

“Fox News has ended its relationship with Dan Bongino […] Bongino said on his podcast Thursday…’It’s tough. It’s tough to say that. You know, I’ve been there doing hits and working there for ten years…so the show ending was tough. And I want you to know it’s not some big conspiracy. I promise you. There’s no acrimony. This wasn’t some WWE brawl that happened. We just couldn’t come to terms on an extension.”

The timing, however, is curious. While Bongino wasn’t among the named defendants in the lawsuits against Fox News (such as Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo), he was a frequent source of flagrantly false commentaries, including several asserting that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged and stolen” from Trump.

In one case he hosted an interview of Trump wherein Trump delivered his tedious complaints about election fraud. Subsequently, the clip that Fox later posted online had cut out those remarks. When told about the editing, Bongino was outraged and pledged to get to the bottom of it. He never did.

SEE THIS: SCAREDY FOX: Why Did Fox News Censor Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ Rant? Pending Lawsuits?

Being canceled by Fox News was surely “tough” for Bongino, Especially since his other pursuits are also collapsing. He was a principle owner of the conservative, crackpots-only Twitter clone, Parler. But just last week It’s new owner announced that they are shutting it down. Variety reports that…

“Parler, the self-described “uncancelable free-speech social platform” that catered to right-wing users — which was nearly acquired by Kanye West last year — has been shut down by its new owner.

“’No reasonable person believes that a Twitter clone just for conservatives is a viable business any more,’ Arlington, Va.-based digital media company Starboard said in announcing Friday that it had acquired Parler.”

Bongino will likely find a new home on some other wingnut media outlet. Perhaps Newsmax or One American News (OAN). In the meantime he still has his podcast, and a considerable flock of sheeple following him online.

As for Fox News, they will probably fill his timeslot with an even more radically right-wing shouter. The real question is: Who will be shoved out the door next? Maria Bartiromo’s future is likely hanging by a thread. And Fox president, Suzanne Scott, could not be sleeping well in the wake of the Dominion settlement.

Whatever changes Fox makes will probably be stretched out over time so as to make them appear to be unrelated to the Dominion matter. But it is typical of Rupert Murdoch to make others pay for his failures. So expect more contract “disputes” to be announced in the coming weeks and months.

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The Fox News 3/4 Billion Dollar Dominion Defamation Settlement is Also a Judgment Against Trump

Posted by Mark NC on April 19, 2023 at 11:15 am. 2 Comments :

On Tuesday Fox News agreed to a settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over allegations that Fox defamed the company. The settlement represented a clear victory for Dominion, whose pre-trial discovery uncovered unambiguous evidence of Fox News executives and hosts blatantly lying.

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Dominion got Fox News to agree to pay 3/4 of a billion dollars (787.5 million) in restitution for the network’s flagrant and deliberate dishonesty. While some people are disappointed that Fox wasn’t required to make public, on-air retractions and/or apologies, the unprecedented amount of the settlement is a pretty strong statement all by itself. Fox’s concession to shell out this much money is a de facto confession of guilt. And Dominion’s focus was properly on compensation for damages caused by Fox’s malicious lies. Now they will get paid immediately, rather than after multiple years of appeals. As Dominion’s lawyer said: “Lies have consequences.”

However, it’s also necessary to point out that this settlement is an indictment of Donald Trump. The lies that Fox News disseminated had a single purpose. And that was to prop up the “Big Lie” propagated by Trump that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged and stollen” (sic) from him. Consequently, when Fox agreed to this massive payoff, they were simultaneously conceding that Trump’s election fraud allegations were completely false.

Of course, the court had already made that determination in rulings to pre-trial motions. That, however, didn’t stop Fox from issuing a bizarre statement following the announcement of the settlement. The network said that…

“We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. This settlement reflects FOX’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards. We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.”

There’s a surprising quantity of bullpucky in that brief paragraph. First of all, the judge’s ruling that Fox is now acknowledging actually stated that “the evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.” That’s a far cry from “certain claims” about Dominion being false. The court explicitly said that “none of the Statements” were true.

The judge further ruled that Fox News couldn’t pretend that they were merely reporting newsworthy comments by others when, in fact, they were making the false assertions themselves. So it’s preposterous that Fox now says that they have a “commitment to the highest journalistic standards.” They would have a hard time arguing that they have any ethical standards at all. Fox was proven to be more concerned about losing viewers and revenue, than they were about truthful reporting.

As for Fox News not being required to make on-air retractions or apologies, the record is now clear that Fox News deliberately lied to their viewers. Their own internal communications showed them expressing opinions that were wholly contradictory to what they said on the air. And agreeing to pay 3/4 of a billion dollars to Dominion affirms their knowledge that they were purposefully dishonest.

What’s more, the terms of these sort of settlements are generally confidential. The fact that the terms in this case were immediately made public is not an accident. It was likely a demand by Dominion that Fox was forced to accept during settlement negotiations. Rest assured that Fox would have preferred that the amount of their financial punishment were never disclosed.

Donald Trump also would have preferred that the terms of the settlement were confidential. Perhaps that’s why, 24 hours later, he has not said a single word about his Ministry of Propaganda being slapped with a huge penalty for lying on his behalf. He knows this is as much a condemnation of his own dishonesty as it is of Fox’s. However, after he’s had time to come up with some feeble excuse that puts all of the blame on Fox, he will post it on his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social.

Finally, this isn’t over by a long shot. There are still pending lawsuits against Fox News and their personnel. They include…

Dominion: There are still has pending lawsuits against individuals who frequently lied about Dominion on Fox News, including Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell.
Smartmatic: Another voting technology company still has a $2.7 billion lawsuit pending against Fox News, Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs and Rudy Giuliani. The defendants falsely accused Smartmatic, a Florida company, of being founded in Venezuela, and conspiring to switch votes from Trump to Biden.
Abby Grossberg: The former Fox News producer for Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo, claims that she was coerced to falsify testimony in the Dominion case.
Fox Corp Shareholders: Investors are exploring legal options to hold Fox News directors and executives accountable for losses due to their malfeasance.

It remains to be seen if Fox News will take punitive actions for the costly malfeasance of their employees. Everyone from their president, Suzanne Scott, to hosts such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, are at risk for some sort of discipline, up to and including termination. And while no one expects them to stop lying, the network will have to be far more careful about the lies they tell in the future.

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LOL: Trump Tells Fox News to Defend Itself in a Lawsuit Accusing Them of Lying to Lie Even More

Posted by Mark NC on April 17, 2023 at 12:15 pm. 3 Comments :

This week the billion dollar defamation lawsuit against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems is schedule to begin. It was delayed for one day with rumors that Fox was pleading to settle, which, at this point, appears unlikely.

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Hopefully Dominion will stand firm to make sure that Fox News, its executives and hosts are held accountable for the harm they’ve done to the nation. Most legal analysts agree that Dominion’s case is strong, and there have already been significant pretrial rulings in Dominion’s favor.

In the meantime, Fox News is also getting some legal advice from the primary source of all their legal problems, Donald Trump. In a late-night frenzy, Trump posted a comment to his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, offering what he thinks would be the best course for Fox News to take in their defense. His 2:39am comment raged that…

“IF FOX WOULD FINALLY ADMIT THAT THERE WAS LARGE SCALE CHEATING & IRREGULARITIES IN THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, WHICH WOULD BE A GOOD THING FOR THEM, & FOR AMERICA, THE CASE AGAINST THEM, WHICH SHOULD NOT HAVE EXISTED AT ALL, WOULD BE GREATLY WEAKENED. BACK UP THOSE PATRIOTS AT FOX INSTEAD OF THROWING THEM UNDER THE BUS – & THEY ARE RIGHT! THERE IS SOOO MUCH PROOF, LIKE MASS BALLOT STUFFING CAUGHT ON GOVERNMENT CAMERAS, FBI COLLUDING WITH TWITTER & FACEBOOK, STATE LEGISLATURES NOT USED, etc.”

That’s great advice. Fox News should take Trump up on it. After all, what better defense could they have for deliberate and defamatory lying than to lie even harder? Maybe Trump would like to offer to testify on Fox’s behalf and bring along some of that “proof” that he says there is so much of, but which he has failed to produce in more than two and half years.

After getting a couple of hours of nervous sleep, Trump elaborated on his comments the next morning, saying that…

“FOX NEWS IS IN BIG TROUBLE IF THEY DO NOT EXPOSE THE TRUTH ON CHEATING IN THE 2020 ELECTION. THEY SHOULD DO WHAT’S RIGHT FOR AMERICA. WHEN RUPERT MURDOCH SAYS THAT THERE WAS NO CHEATING IN LIGHT OF THE MASSIVE PROOF THAT WAS THERE, IT IS RIDICULOUS AND VERY HARMFUL TO THE FOX CASE. PERHAPS HE SHOULD SAY THAT ‘HE JUST DIDN’T KNOW,’ BUT THAT IS HARD TO BELIEVE. RUPERT, JUST TELL THE TRUTH AND GOOD THINGS WILL HAPPEN. THE ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLLEN…YOU KNOW IT, & SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE!”

Trump is absolutely right in saying that “FOX NEWS IS IN BIG TROUBLE IF THEY DO NOT EXPOSE THE TRUTH.” The problem is that Trump is still peddling the “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was “RIGGED AND STOLLEN” (sic). He doesn’t reveal what “good things will happen” if Murdoch were to dive deeper into Trump’s dishonesty. But this isn’t the first time that he has prevailed on Murdoch to further spread his election fraud lies.

What’s more, Trump’s assertion that everyone knows that the election was “stollen” is in stark contrast to every poll on the subject. A recent poll shows that “nearly two-thirds of Americans (65 percent) think Fox News should be held accountable after … spread[ing] false information about the 2020 presidential election.” And the only people who still buy Fox’s lies are those who are already fully indoctrinated Fox and Trump cult disciples.

SEE THIS: IT’S A CULT: Most Fox News Viewers Are Still Loyal After Dominion Lawsuit Discloses Their Lies

To make matters worse for Fox, they just bought a full page ad in the New York Times (Really? The NYT?) claiming that Fox is the “most trusted” news network. That’s rich coming so soon after the Dominion lawsuit revealed them to have been outright lying to their viewers.

However, the ad itself is a lie. It is reporting a YouGov “Profiles” poll, which is not a public opinion survey. It’s a marketing service that caters to businesses seeking information about their own customer base. Note that in an actual, unbiased YouGov survey Fox News came in second to last in trust. Just above Breitbart News. And that tells us all we need to know.

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WTF? Flaming Liar Tucker Carlson Yaps that Gavin Newsom’s ‘Words Have No Connection to Reality’

Posted by Mark NC on April 11, 2023 at 1:55 pm. 4 Comments :

The past few weeks have been among the most devastating for Fox News as damning revelations about the flagrant dishonesty at the ultra-rightist network have been publicly exposed. Private internal communications by Fox News executives and hosts were revealed in the course of the billion dollar defamation lawsuit against Fox by Dominion Voting systems.

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Perhaps the most damaging disclosures were those wherein Fox’s top primetime host, Tucker Carlson, was found to be a shameless liar who placed his greed and ratings above his obligation to be truthful. The texts and emails that Dominion acquired showed that Carlson, and many of his Fox colleagues, presented themselves to their glassy-eyed viewers as unflinchingly loyal supporters of Donald Trump, while revealing their “passionate hatred” for him privately.

The evidence that Fox News deliberately defamed Dominion is rock solid. They knew that they were lying on the air all along, but did so anyway out of fear of losing viewers. Sean Hannity even admitted that he “did not believe [Trump’s election fraud lies] for one second,” while insisting to his audience that the alleged fraud was real and rampant.

All of this makes Carlson’s commentary Monday night especially disgusting. In his opening monologue, Carlson spent nearly twenty minutes maligning California Governor Gavin Newsom, who Carlson thinks could be the next Democratic candidate for president in 2024. His rant was riddled with typical right-wing lunacies such as his warped explanation for the Democrats nominating Joe Biden in 2020 because “the anti-White party picked the White guy.” Then he absurdly theorized that in 2024…

“[Y]ou would assume the party, the Democratic Party, would replace Joe Biden with someone who embodies their highest values. You imagine a trans-Black woman with a background in corporate H.R. or a Latinx drag queen with purple hair and lots of face piercings.”

A more plausible assumption would be that Carlson is abusing some pretty powerful hallucinogenic drugs. Either that or he’s eaten some rotten frozen fish sticks. Either of those mind altering experiences would still come up short in explaining what he said next. Following a clip of Newsom criticizing Ron DeSantis who, just days after the mass shooting in Nashville, signed a bill that allows people to carry concealed guns without a permit, Carlson unleashed this crackpottery…

“This is what to happens with everything about you, from your physical features to your very soul, has been altered by cosmetic surgery. Just like Joe Biden, but younger. You’ll say literally anything. Words have no connection to reality. There’s no expectation you’re describing something real. You’re merely using words as a tool to gain power. That’s terrifying. It’s dishonest to its core.”

Tucker: You'll say literally anything. Words have no connection to reality. There's no expectation you're describing something real. You're merely using words as a tool to gain power. It's dishonest to its core. pic.twitter.com/nrh4P4rxCd

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 11, 2023

So Carlson thinks that Newsom has had cosmetic surgery on his soul? Setting aside the idiocy of that, Carlson’s criticisms of Newsom sound strikingly familiar. That’s because they are precisely the criticisms that have been leveled at Carlson for most of his career on television. The Dominion lawsuit has proved that his “Words have no connection to reality.” And as for having “no expectation [Carlson is] describing something real,” just refer to what his own Fox News lawyers said about him in a previous lawsuit in his defense…

“[Carlson] cannot be understood to have been stating facts, but instead that he was delivering an opinion using hyperbole for effect. [and that] given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statements he makes.”

In other words, Carlson is a notorious liar whose commentaries can be dismissed out of hand as the ravings of an unhinged, warbling whack job. And yet he has the gall to project his glaring character flaws onto others with no coherent connection. Which ironically validates what he said about Newsom, except directing it instead to himself: Carlson is “merely using words as a tool to gain power. That’s terrifying. It’s dishonest to its core.” Indeed!

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Fox Nation vs. Reality:
The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.

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Fox News Caught Coddling Conspiracy Crackpots for Fear of Losing Audience and Advertisers – Again!

Posted by Mark NC on March 29, 2023 at 1:17 pm. 1 Comments :

The billion dollar defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News is getting closer to being played out in court. And with an April 17 trial date, there is still more evidence of Fox’s fraudulence coming out on a nearly daily basis. The extent of their ethical emptiness continues to astonish and disgust.

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The latest exposure of Fox’s unscrupulousness came in the form of a “slide deck” that Dominion lawyers used at a March 28 hearing. Matthew Gertz of Media Matters posted images of the presentation by Dominion’s lawyers (in this Twitter thread). And while it contains some cringeworthy examples of deceitfulness, it is also all too reminiscent of what has been published previously.

Among the new disclosures are internal communications from Fox News executives and hosts. They show that these people have no regard for journalist principles or the welfare of the nation. What follows are some samplings from the hearing…

Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott:
[Reacting to a reporter’s fact checking] “This has to stop now. This is bad business and there clearly is a lack of understanding what is happening in these shows. The audience is furious and we are just feeding them material. Bad for business.” […]

“I can’t keep defending these reporters who don’t understand our viewers and how to handle stories. The audience feels like we crapped on and we have damaged their trust and belief in us. We lost 25k subs from FOX NATION.

Fox News Host Maria Bartiromo:
“We have to go to a full on war. They have used all systems to defraud… Jared says he doesn’t want to hear about any conspiracy theory… The campaign is not doing shit.” […]

“The country needs to survive. We need to keep this president. Noone (sic) thinks anyway that people voted for Biden.” […]

“It was sophisticated funded and orchestrate & uses all areas of fraud including digital. We now know Nancy Pelosi has an interest in it. It’s directed also by Soros.”

Fox News Host Tucker Carlson:
“[Sidney Powell] is a psychopath. She’s getting Trump all spun up and has zero evidence. Same with Rudy [Giuliani].” […]

“[Mike] Lindell seems to really have gone off the deep end. He is definitely crazy… I agree there’s concern about Lindell being a conspiracy theorist now. But he has bailed us out loads of times when no one else would.” […]

“We can concentrate on cancel culture rather than his wild claims… If no one is buying him, he loses money to be able to advertise with us. And then we lose our biggest advertiser.”

[Note: After most major advertisers pulled out of Carlson’s show to avoid association with his racism and conspiracy theories, Lindell was indeed his biggest advertiser. Although he had problems of his own]

Fox News “Brain Room” staffer Leonard Balducci:
“Claims about Dominion switching or deleting votes are 100% false. Dominion systems continue to reliably and accurately count ballots, and state and local authorities as well as fact checkers, have publicly confirmed the integrity of the process.” […]

“Dominion has no company ownership relationships with any member of the Pelosi family, the Feinstein family, or the Clinton Global Initiative.”

These are the sort of statements that prompted the Society of Professional Journalists to respond to the allegations against Fox News in a damning statement by their Professional Standards and Ethics Committee. They found…

“…the allegations against Fox News deeply troubling. A fundamental ethical rule of journalism, set out in the SPJ Code of Ethics, is to seek the truth and report it. If a news organization knowingly spreads lies, either in news reporting or opinion, it has clearly breached this most sacred of principles. No responsible journalist can accept or excuse this behavior. […]

“[And that] responsible opinion hosts and commentators have a duty to use verified facts as the basis of their arguments and to not peddle what they know to be lies and disinformation. Many people use the information they get from their favorite hosts and commentators to form their own opinions.”

Indeed, that last line illustrates the problem that Fox News creates when they deliberately mislead their viewers. Of course, Fox doesn’t view it as a problem, It’s precisely the effect they intend to have on their audience. And the truly sad part of this is that it’s working.

SEE THIS: IT’S A CULT: Most Fox News Viewers Are Still Loyal After Dominion Lawsuit Discloses Their Lies

If anyone still thinks that Fox should be considered a “news” enterprise, ask yourselves this question: Why havn’t any of the alleged “journalists” at Fox resigned after learning about just how corrupt and dishonest the organization is? How could anyone who regards themselves as an ethical reporter continue to work for such a company? Why won’t they even make a public statement of disapproval?

The answer, of course, is that there isn’t anyone at Fox with the integrity to take such a stand. They are all equally responsible and, thus, reprehensible. There isn’t one of them with an ounce of honor or professional decency.

UPDATE I: In a March 31 ruling on summary judgement, the judge found that “The evidence is ‘CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements [made on Fox News] relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.'”

UPDATE II: The judge in the Dominion case has sanctioned Fox News for withholding evidence. He also made several other rulings that hamper Fox’s ability to deflect from the issue of defamation.

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Fox Nation vs. Reality:
The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.

Thanks so much for your support.

IT’S A CULT: Most Fox News Viewers Are Still Loyal After Dominion Lawsuit Discloses Their Lies

Posted by Mark NC on March 16, 2023 at 1:06 pm. 9 Comments :

Fallout from the billion dollar defamation lawsuit against Fox News by Dominion Voting systems continues to rain down on Fox with some notable consequences. In recent weeks Dominion has filed motions in court that have revealed the brazen dishonesty of Fox executives and hosts in their own words.

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Dominion was able to acquire internal communications from Fox News that show how they have been outright lying to their audience in support of Donald Trump and his phony election fraud lies, while privately acknowledging that they knew that there was no truth whatsoever to his baseless allegations. And their lying was deliberately intended to stay in Trump’s good graces, despite the fallaciousness.

The purposefully deceitful remarks that Fox personnel made privately included…

Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch: Really crazy stuff.
Tucker Carlson: What [Trump is] good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.
More Tucker Carlson: I hate [Trump] passionately [and he is] a demonic force.
Rupert Murdoch to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott: We don’t want to antagonize Trump further.
Suzanne Scott: You can’t give the crazies an inch right now […] The audience feels like we crapped on [them] and we have damaged their trust and belief in us.
Laura Ingraham: Sidney [Powell] is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy {Giuliani].
Sean Hannity: That whole narrative that [Sidney] Powell was pushing, I did not believe it for one second, [and that] she’s a f*cking lunatic.

Now a new poll has measured the impact that these revelations have had on Fox News viewers. and the results are disturbing, to say the least. Here are some of the surveys highlights…

While 21% of viewers say that they now trust Fox News less, 45% say that they continue to trust the network.
13% say they no longer believe the 2020 election was stolen, but 50% still believe Trump’s “Big Lie.”
16% say they have a less favorable opinion of Fox hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, but 52% still have favorable opinions.

It’s somewhat encouraging that some of Fox’s audience have embraced reality and backed away from their prior blind acceptance of everything Fox says. However, most of their viewers remain firmly attached to the Fox doctrine even after learning that they have been lying to them. That’s the behavior of a cult.

Some good news in the poll includes that Fox News viewers have about the same awareness (60%) of the Dominion lawsuit as the general public (56%). And yet they still largely trust the network. However, they must be exposing themselves to other media, because Fox News has a near total blackout on the subject.

Not surprisingly, there is a significantly greater awareness of the lawsuit among viewers of MSNBC (82%) and CNN (71%), where reporting on it has not been suppressed. Also notable is that 10% Fox News viewers who were aware of the lawsuit say that they now watch it less. But 75% say their viewing has not changed. Inexplicably, 16% say they watch Fox News more after finding out that they are dupes being mislead by propagandists.

That’s some pretty powerful cult programming right there. They actually prefer being lied to, and they reward their deceivers. Those poor souls must now be regarded as lost and irretrievable. It’s a good thing that there aren’t very many of them (16% of Fox’s highest rated program = about 500,000, which is about 0.15% of the U.S. population).

UPDATE I: Another new poll found that “Nearly two-thirds of Americans (65 percent) think Fox News should be held accountable after … spread[ing] false information about the 2020 presidential election.” That includes 41% of Republicans. Although 47% of the GOP cult do not think Fox should be held accountable.

UPDATE II: In a March 31 ruling on summary judgement, the judge found that “The evidence is ‘CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements [made on Fox News] relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.'”

UPDATE III: The judge in the Dominion case has sanctioned Fox News for withholding evidence. He also made several other rulings that hamper Fox’s ability to deflect from the issue of defamation.

Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse
on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and Mastodon.

And check out my books on Amazon:

Fox Nation vs. Reality:
The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.

Thanks so much for your support.

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