Media Bias

[NineBerry]

NEW: Chris Cuomo has been suspended indefinitely by CNN, "pending further evaluation." Story coming shortly.

https://twitter.com/grynbaum/status/1465822377963659268

[L'Emmerdeur]

I wonder, what kinds of advertising are they taking - to what extent do they rely on the parent company to subsidise the bottom line?

I think a significant part of Fox News's revenue comes from cable companies ('affiliate revenue'). The cable companies pay large chunks of money to Fox in exchange for their product (crazy, right?) In essence, everybody who has an active cable connection in the US is indirectly subsidizing Fox News. Fox News occasionally loses some advertisers over shit their talking heads do, but I think most of the advertisers return after a while.

[L'Emmerdeur]

I looked around, and this thread got several mentions of the Smollett case. Yeah, he's been found guilty of making a false report to the police, etc. Somehow I doubt this will change anybody's mind.

'Jussie Smollett found guilty of faking hate crime against himself'

A jury has found the Empire actor Jussie Smollett guilty of faking a hate crime against himself to raise his celebrity profile.

The Chicago jury, which deliberated for more than nine hours, found Smollett guilty of five charges of disorderly conduct. He was acquitted on a sixth count, of lying to a detective in mid-February, weeks after Smollett said he was attacked.

The charges against Smollett, who is Black and gay, had become a touchstone in America’s culture wars at the intersection of culture, racism, politics and celebrity.

Many fellow stars initially rushed to support Smollett when he first made the accusations in January 2019 that he had been attacked by people that had shouted “This is Maga country,” a reference to Donald Trump’s trademark political slogan “Make American Great Again”.

Smollett told police that he had been assaulted on a darkened street by two masked men. According to Smollett, his assailants put a noose around his neck and poured chemicals on him while yelling racist and homophobic slurs and expressing their support for Trump.

But a month later police arrested Smollett himself, accusing the actor of paying two brothers $3,500 to stage the assault in a ploy to get public sympathy and boost his show-business profile.

Prosecutors had described the evidence against Smollett as “overwhelming”, saying what he did in January 2019 caused Chicago police to unduly spend enormous amounts of time and resources.

[pErvinalia]

Cunt used to mention Smollet every second post for a time.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Feh.

[pErvinalia]

Yeahbut Hunter Biden.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Yep, we'll always have Hunter. At least until he manages to get some bad crack or something.

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That damn communist Biden revising the Declaration of Independence. Boy, he's going to get impeached so fast after 2022, just you wait.

A Fox News contributor (who’s also a host on the Fox Nation spinoff service) complained about an assertion from President Biden about male and female equality. That’s not too surprising, so consider this: a female Fox News contributor/Fox Nation host is the one who’s upset here. Yep, Tammy Bruce was not happy at this apparent modification of the Declaration of Independence, which she believes goes too far. But hey, at least this is Fox News taking a break from the wall-to-wall coverage of their burned down “All-American Christmas Tree” at the New York City headquarters, a situation that’s dominated their coverage for two days and nights.

Biden, who was speaking at his democracy summit (via Raw Story) did some paraphrasing here, yes. And plenty of people don’t think it’s too big of a deal. “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” Biden declared. “That all women and men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Democracy doesn’t happen by accident. We have to renew it with every generation.”

Bruce wasn’t a fan of Biden adding “women” to the equality mix, and she made this clear... “You notice how he added women and men are created equal, not just men.” she proclaimed. “It matters, right, that’s not what the founders wrote.” She then called him “Sleepy Joe” and added, “Apparently the sacred words of our founders weren’t inclusive enough.”

[L'Emmerdeur]

A few people may have heard that the plastic 'All American Tree' at the Fox News headquarters got set on fire by a disturbed (and apparently hopped up on drugs) homeless man this week. They didn't waste time in claiming it was an attack on Christmas and Christianity in general, despite lack of any evidence to support their claims.

Anyway, I appreciated the inadvertent comedy when one of the speakers at the lighting of the new plastic tree essentially claimed that this supposed attack on Christianity would not 'extinguish the darkness.'

'Dispatch from The War on Christmas: Fox News Defies Arsonists and Hecklers at Grand Relighting of Tree'

Deafening chants of “USA” and “Let’s Go Brandon” broke out on the corner of 48th Street and 6th Avenue in midtown Manhattan. The occasion: some 40 hours after Fox News’s “All-American Christmas Tree” was set on fire by a suspected arsonist, a new tree with a commanding presence beneath Fox’s headquarters was given the gift of electricity.

“We will not let this deliberate and brazen act of cowardice deter us,” Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott said of the torching, and she was right. Fox News hosts spent the next two days on offense, conjuring sinister motives for the probably random incident, and a replacement tree was debuted by The Five on Thursday evening at an impressively grandiose ceremony.

...

One speaker at the ceremony, Rev. Jacques DeGraff, a Fox News contributor, dramatically compared the suspected arson to Pearl Harbor.

“I’m here because these colors don’t run!” he bellowed from a stage. “Eighty years ago this week, they tried to extinguish the darkness in a place called Pearl Harbor. We didn’t fold then, and we won’t fold now because we’ve come this far by faith.”

The crowd of Fox fans went wild, and drowned out the cries from hecklers who assembled behind them to protest the network’s programming.

[L'Emmerdeur]

It's good to be the 'most-watched' news network in the US.

hours after Biden credited Trump's admin for the development of the vaccines, this is the chyron on Fox



- Oliver Darcy · Dec 22, 2021

[L'Emmerdeur]

When a site devoted to free speech and touted by champions of free speech does a ban, they're totally doing it for a good reason and not like, you know, censorship or anything.

'Bongino Bans Advertiser That Fretted Over COVID Misinfo on His ‘Free Speech’ Video Platform'

One must always seek to “own the libs.”

That is the modus operandi for Fox News host Dan Bongino, who, in his latest example of ostensible lib-owning, has mounted a war against an advertising firm that expressed concerns over coronavirus misinformation on Rumble, the video streaming platform the conservative pundit was an early-stage investor in.

Last week, Bongino shared during his daily podcast that he had warned Tremor International, a multinational advertising firm, to “retract” their claims about misinformation or face a “ban” from his site. “The video platform Rumble announced the termination of its relationship with the Unruly Group and Tremor International after they attempted to censor Dan Bongino,” a Rumble press release noted at the time.

“If you are doing business with Unruly or Tremor, your ads will not be being placed on Rumble,” Bongino added on his program.

Tremor International never put out any retraction or statement and was thus banned from Rumble. “A company tried to play stupid games with us… and they’re going to win stupid prizes,” Bongino explained, failing to square a “ban” with a free speech platform.

It remains somewhat unclear exactly what Tremor said initially to draw Bongino’s ire, but according to the Fox host, the firm cited complaints from partners over the video platform’s lax approach to handling COVID-related misinformation and pulled some of its ads.

The move was akin to “cancel culture” in Rumble’s eyes, as the company’s press release accused Tremor of attempting to “censor” Bongino: “We won’t tolerate politicized attempts to cancel creators,” wrote Rumble’s CEO, Chris Pavlovski.

Notably, in going up against Tremor, Bongino is taking on a firm that is in part still owned by News Corp, the media company owned by Fox News mogul Rupert Murdoch. Bongino, News Corp, and Tremor International did not return multiple requests from The Daily Beast for comment.

[L'Emmerdeur]

On the other hand, when Big Tech social media does bans it's all about silencing conservative voices.

'Marjorie Taylor Greene Permanently Banned From Twitter'

Greene's account was suspended on Sunday after she tweeted an attack on Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX). In the tweet, she slammed Crenshaw for pressing for more Covid-19 testing centers.

But soon after the tweet, Twitter suspended Greene's account. None of her tweets were available after the suspension.

This is reportedly Greene's fifth strike on the social media platform, which would make her eligible for a permanent ban from Twitter.

Twitter confirmed the ban to New York Times reporter Davey Alba.

"We permanently suspended the account you referenced (@mtgreenee) for repeated violations of our Covid-19 misinformation policy," a Twitter spokesperson said.

"She's not coming back," Alba concluded.

[Tero]

Fox spins goofy story about "popular" supreme court and fake liberal media. Gallup says so, media must be fake.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/supreme ... turley.amp

[L'Emmerdeur]

And your little dog too!

Twitter permanently suspended a sitting US President.

They’ve now permanently suspended a sitting member of US Congress.

Of course, both from the same party.

They forget that in 2022 we are taking back the House and we WILL be holding them accountable!

- Lauren Boebert · Jan 2, 2022

[JimC]

Twitter is a capitalist corporation following the profits as always. I'm sure threats from crazies have them trembling in their Gucci boots...

[Joe]

Plus, the crazy has to get reelected. That's not a given.

Where Voters Are Losing Patience With Lauren Boebert

Among voters in Pueblo—the largest and most politically unpredictable city in Boebert’s vast district—there is a growing sense of exasperation with the freshman representative not yet six months into her tenure.

Pueblo County, located on Colorado’s dusty, windswept plains two hours south of Denver, is the swingiest part of Boebert’s district—making it a key test of her staying power. The county is nothing like the conservative, government-skeptical towns west of the Continental Divide, where Boebert is from, or the glitzy, liberal ski areas in Aspen and Telluride, which she also represents. While Boebert’s district overall is purple—about 32 percent Republican, 26 percent Democratic and 40 percent unaffiliated, among registered voters—the Pueblo County electorate flips this dynamic, with about 36 percent of voters registered as Democrats, 25 percent as Republicans and 37 percent unaffiliated. Still, big-money donors here often give to candidates from opposing parties, independents regularly vote Republican, and blue-dog Democrats skew conservative. Boebert’s Democratic opponent in the 2020 race won the county by just 204 votes. Biden won by 1,520 votes in November, after Trump had claimed victory by 390 votes in 2016.

Pueblo’s demographic and economic character also sets it apart. The county is the most diverse part of Boebert’s district, home to the state’s highest concentration of Latinos. Almost 40 years after the steel market crashed, throwing thousands out of work, manufacturing makes up only 6 percent of the workforce. Colorado’s “Steel City” is still trying to reinvent itself today, broadening its economic base with one of the nation’s largest marijuana grow facilities, wind and solar energy, and outdoor activities, thanks to the nearby mountains and lakes. But there’s no question the metropolitan area is struggling, saddled with the state’s highest unemployment rate and some of its highest violent crime and opioid addiction rates. One of every four Pueblo residents lives in poverty.

It’s this reality that makes voters like Perko frustrated with a U.S. representative they see as more focused on her own celebrity than her constituents. “I work for the people of Pueblo, not the people of Paris,” Boebert tweeted in January, a dig at the Paris Climate Accords. But several dozen Puebloans I’ve spoken with in recent weeks, including some who cast ballots for Boebert, say they’re angry that she appears to have spent more time headlining GOP fundraisers than hosting public meetings to listen to their needs. Boebert—whose office did not respond to multiple requests for comment—also has failed to push for policies that would help the community, these Pueblo residents say. While she supports much more scaled back infrastructure spending, she voted against the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which ensured stimulus checks and additional unemployment payments for Perko’s steelworkers, scores of whom lost their jobs a year ago when oil prices hit historic lows. Other voters here decried a fundraising appeal of Boebert’s exclaiming that Pelosi and Biden “want to take our guns,” which was emailed to supporters hours after a shooting at a Boulder grocery store left 10 people dead.

“People here feel Boebert doesn’t represent their values,” says Colorado state Senate President Leroy Garcia, a Pueblo Democrat who is popular with voters in both parties. “There is a lot of passion around seeing her removed.”