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‘Fair, balanced?’ Bwahaha!

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Do you remember the time the Fox Propaganda Network touted itself as an organization that presented the news in a “fair and balanced” manner?

Well, kids …  it’s never been true. We saw stark evidence of that lie during Kamala Harris’s interview with Fox’s Bret Baier the other evening.

Baier asked the Democratic presidential nominee to commend on remarks she had made accusing Donald Trump of threatening to use the military to exact retribution against his political adversaries. Then he broadcast a heavily edited version of Trump’s response to a question leveled at him by Fox colleague Harris Faulkner.

He told Faulkner he was the most “investigated” public figure since “Alphonse Capone.” That was the sum of his re-broadcast response.

Harris didn’t take the bait. She called Baier out on the spot, telling him that he had edited the remarks to cast Trump in a favorable light. The vice president demonstrated the kind of snap that media reps should be doing when Trump’s remarks are edited in that shameless manner.

As for Fox’s reputation as being “fair and balanced,” that’s never been the case, and the network is now nothing more than a shill for the moronic MAGA cult that has taken over a once-great political party.

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Carlson, Lemon gone … now what?

Tucker Carlson has departed the Fox Propaganda Network, seemingly resulting from The Big Lie over which the network was sued and then had to pay $787.5 million to settle with Dominion Voting Systems.

OK. What does that mean in my house? Not a damn thing, because I don’t watch Fox. However, I regret to acknowledge what I believe is the sad truth that Carlson is likely to land somewhere, continuing to spew the garbage he seeks to disguise as legitimate commentary.

Some right-wing network is likely to add Carlson to its roster of blowhards.

Oh, but wait! Don Lemon got the axe from CNN. Lemon said he is “shocked” by his ouster. Why did CNN let him go? Well, I must concede I know little about that, too. Because … I don’t watch Lemon, nor do I heed much of what he says about anything.

Here’s the thing about Lemon, too. A network is going to shell out a lot of money for him as well.

So, I won’t cry for either of these fellows.

***

Back to Carlson for a moment.

He became a major household talking point over his role in fomenting The Big Lie. Evidence was discovered in the run-up to the defamation lawsuit that Dominion settled with Fox that Carlson didn’t believe The Big Lie. He reportedly expressed extreme displeasure with the 45th POTUS in private.

Yet he went on the air with The Big Lie anyway.

Part of me wants to believe the Fox hierarchy cannot tolerate lying openly on the air. The rest of me believes Carlson’s departure is driven instead by a loss of revenue from supporters backing away from the network.

The Big Lie will fester in what passes for the minds of those who believe that the 2020 election was stolen from the 45th POTUS. It will fester whether Tucker Carlson is the air with Fox or with whichever network is willing to allow this know-nothing to blather about the lie.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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It’s all about accountability

The Fox Propaganda Channel did not have to apologize for fomenting The Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election.

Dominion Voting Systems, which sued Fox for $1.6 billion, got precisely what it wanted and needed when Fox surrendered and agreed to a multimillion-dollar settlement.

It received accountability from Fox.

Through all the pre-trial filings Fox had been handed defeat after defeat. The judge hearing the case had, in effect, already delivered the goods against Fox. The judge had determined that Fox lied to the public about the 2020 election. Therefore, the network did not need to issue a public apology to Dominion.

As I look back just a couple of days to the settlement, it is clear why Fox tossed in the towel. The company’s ownership did not want to expose its on-air personalities to rugged questioning from Dominion’s legal team about what they knew and believed when they kept repeating The Big Lie on air.

We had heard already about emails and other correspondence from the likes of Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo about what they thought of Donald Trump and his assertions about “widespread voter fraud.”

Did Dominion deserve an apology? No. It would have been nice, I suppose, to get one from Fox. In the grand scheme, Dominion got all that it wanted: proof of accountability from the Fox Propaganda Network.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Will Fox change its tune?

What does the settlement between the Fox Propaganda Channel and Dominion Voting Systems mean for the network that once called itself “fair and balanced”?

Only this, as far as I can see: The network will cease pushing the Big Lie about alleged voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election; the rest of its agenda appears to be intact and it will continue to appeal to the right-wingers who adhere to the narrative the network pushes out there.

Dominion sued Fox for $1.6 billion, contending the network defamed the company over unproved allegations that it manipulated ballots to deliver the 2020 election to President Biden. Fox knew the allegations were phony, yet its on-air talking heads kept spewing the lie. Dominion said “enough is enough” and sued Fox. The settlement means Fox will pay Dominion $787.5 million. It hasn’t issued an apology.

Frankly, though, I don’t care about the apology. I do care about Fox being held accountable for the lie it fomented. The judgment issued by the court holds the network accountable in the clearest terms possible.

Fox’s agenda remains fully assembled. The network does lay claim to a loyal base of viewers who listen only to their on-air personalities for the “news” they consume. Fox will continue to spew its propaganda, which I suppose is their right.

Lying to the point of defaming others, though, is off limits … to which I offer a hearty “amen.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Take Fox off the air?

I am beginning to lean in the direction of those who believe that the Fox network needs to be yanked off the air over its egregious sin of promoting propaganda and forsaking its license to report the news.

The Fox Propaganda Network is facing the harshest condemnation imaginable over its refusal to acknowledge what its on-air personalities expressed in private: which is that the Big Lie promoted by the 45th president of the United States was false and that Joe Biden was elected legally and fairly in 2020 as the nation’s 46th president.

Dominion Voting Systems has filed a billion-dollar lawsuit against Fox claiming the network defamed it over the Big Lie, alleging vote fraud where none existed.

A bigger issue is at stake. Should the network be allowed to remain on the air pushing its falsehoods amid mountains of evidence that its leadership knew it was doing so but were more concerned about losing viewers than in telling the truth?

The Federal Communications Commission would seem to have a monster on its hands. Will the FCC do the right thing? Is the “right thing” to pull Fox off the air?

I am beginning to think that’s the only option.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Fox blowhard loses his mind

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Tucker Carlson is no expert … on anything.

He hosts a show on the Fox News Channel, which I guess buys him some gravitas among millions of Americans. Therefore, it is incumbent on other commentators — such as me — to weigh in on one of the more bizarre rants many of us ever have heard.

Carlson went on a weird tangent Monday night in which he declared that parents who require their children to wear masks in this pandemic era need to be arrested for, uhh, child abuse.

What a fruitcake, man.

The criticism of Carlson’s baloney transcends the cosmic divide between liberals and conservatives. One right-wing commentator, Bill Kristol, wrote this via Twitter: The masks stuff is performative idiocy and demagoguery. But the key sentence in Carlson’s rant was this: “It’s our job to restore the society we were born in.” The destructive power of reactionary nostalgia jet-fueled by grievances real or imagined shouldn’t be underestimated.

The blowback from across the nation was immediate. Forbes wrote: It began after Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Monday suggested it was “unacceptable,” “dangerous” and even potentially “illegal” for children to be forced to wear face coverings outside. Carlson further said that viewers should report such sightings to the police or child protective services, even as it is still recommended that masks be worn at all times by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

New Debate Over Masks Trending On Social Media Following Rant By Tucker Carlson (forbes.com)

It all gives me pause to wonder how in the name of parental discretion can this guy be taken seriously? Here’s the tough answer, which is that millions of Americans do listen to the bluster, bloviating and bellowing from loudmouths such as Tucker Carlson.

I need to stipulate once again this point, which is that Carlson has no particular standing as a childhood behavior specialist. He is just a guy with a large audience of devoted followers who are going to high-five each other when they hear the crap flowing from this individual’s pie hole.

Tucker Carlson has, in the well-aimed words of one progressive critic, “lost his mind.”

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No ‘news’ at news conference

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It appears about the only thing the right-wing media can fault from President Biden’s first news conference is his shunning of a Fox News White House reporter.

Biden didn’t call on Fox’s Peter Doocy to ask him a question at the hour-long presser. Some members of the conservative media took that as a direct slam at the right-leaning network.

I just want to remind everyone of the way Donald Trump used to insult mainstream reporters before turning his attention over to Fox reporters at the press events he would conduct.

You might recall how Trump once told CNN reporters that they worked for a “fake news” network or how he told ABC News’s Jonathan Karl that he never would make it as a reporter or how he would chastise media representatives for asking “nasty” questions.

So, the president didn’t give a Fox reporter a chance to ask him something? Big deal. There will be other opportunities.

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This is how you expose this POTUS’s lies

The video I have attached to this blog post is about 40 minutes in length.

It is of Fox News Sunday moderator Chris Wallace interviewing Donald J. Trump.

Fox News, as you know, has been touted by Trump as the only “fair” cable or broadcast news outlet. The rest of ’em peddle “fake news,” he says, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post. So he went on Fox’s Sunday talk show, where Wallace — a fine journalist with years of experience covering presidents and other politicians — didn’t let up in challenging Trump’s false assertions on a whole array of issues.

Take some time to look at this. I hope you will be as impressed as I am with Chris Wallace’s handling of the lying president.

 

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Trump engaged in frontal assault against freedom of the press

Leave it to Chris Wallace, the host of “Fox News Sunday,” a staple of Donald Trump’s favorite news/opinion cable TV channel, to put it in perspective.

Wallace said this to a gathering at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.: “I believe President Trump is engaged in the most direct, sustained assault on freedom of the press in our history.”

Oh, brother, is he ever!

The man who played on his “experience” as a reality TV celebrity host, who once courted the media because they found him, um, entertaining is now launching a full frontal assault on the constitutional guarantee of a free press.

He routinely bullies cable, broadcast and print media representatives. He accuses them of peddling “fake news.” He curries favor with media outlets and then blasts them to smithereens when they don’t do his bidding; Wallace and the Fox News Channel serve as a prime example. Trump has labeled the media as the “enemy of the people” and has applauded right along with the know-nothing faithful who cheer his frightening rhetoric.

Presidents dating back throughout the history of the republic all have noted the adversarial relationship with the media that is built into the presidency. None of them — not until Donald Trump came along — has blathered the kind of incendiary rhetoric toward the media that this president has spewed forth.

As a former full-time print journalist, I — along with many of my former colleagues — take this kind of treatment personally. Now that I am writing for myself, I still take it personally.

Moreover, I continue to salute and honor the great work that media organizations of all stripes continue to do in reporting the goings-on regarding this presidential administration.

The good news for all of them — and the rest of us — is that Donald Trump won’t be president forever. He’ll be gone from the halls of power and will no longer be able to bully the media.

I am waiting for that moment of deliverance from this attack on our essential press freedom.

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Fox hasn’t changed, Mr. President; some of ’em just doing their job

What do you mean, Mr. President, that “Fox has changed”? And you say you’re “not happy with it”?

If you don’t mind my borrowing a phrase: “Big fu**ing deal.”

Fox hasn’t changed, Mr. President. To my way of thinking, it remains uber-friendly to you and what pass for your policies. You still have your friends hosting those talk shows. “Fox & Friends,” Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Jeannine Pirro, Laura Ingraham … am I missing someone? Probably.

It’s just that Fox also has some straight-away journalists who manage to do their jobs. Chris Wallace — who comes from solid journalistic stock, given that his dad was the great Mike Wallace — is but one example of what I mean. Shepard Smith is another. Neither of these men is an apologist for you the way Sean Hannity and the “Fox & Friends” co-hosts have proven to be.

I shouldn’t have to remind you, Mr. President, that answering difficult questions from the media is part of the job you inherited when you won that election in 2016. I know, it’s not written anywhere. But it’s in there, somewhere. Believe me, Mr. President. It’s there.

Your predecessors, every one of them from both political parties, have known that to be the case. You are cursed, though, with the thinnest of skins. As Jack Nicholson’s character, Marine Col. Nathan Jessep, said in “A Few Good Men,” You can’t handle truth!

Maybe you’re upset that Fox has a few token liberal commentators on its payroll these days. I saw where you referred to Juan Williams as “pathetic.” Hey, do you say the same thing about Donna Brazile, the former CNN and ABC News talking head? What about Geraldo Rivera, the grandstander who’s been with Fox since The Flood?

The fact that your perception that Fox has turned on you doesn’t make you “happy” doesn’t mean a damn thing. Presidents cannot dictate how the media do their job. The First Amendment protects the “press” and, by extension, all media from any government interference or coercion. You need to read the Constitution, sir. You took an oath to “defend” it; you damn sure need to know what you swore to protect.

So, my request of you, Mr. President, is a simple one. Pipe down. Shut the hell up. Worry about the important stuff … if you care enough to actually serve all Americans.