Media Bias

[Tero]

Fox's last news caster. they still have reliable local news people, weather and all that.

[Joe]

I don't know. He seemed like a good enough natured guy. Good sense of humour. Just pathologically wedded to his world view.

Agreed. I would like to see how his views of Trump have evolved though.

[Tero]

Liberal media fails to critisise Breyer, though he is retired so it is not news. Other than proof that judges have been in the habit of plane rides.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Breyer
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/democr ... cal-issues

[Tero]

Tucker Carlson will do his "TV" show on...twitter
https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/statu ... 2538390530

[rasetsu]

He's got to get out of his contract first. I think Master Tuck may have underestimated how much money Rupert Murdoch has to throw at the problem.

[L'Emmerdeur]

CNN decided to give the former president a platform on Wednesday evening. Onstage, Trump and a reporter. I suppose there is a justification for this--Trump will almost certainly be the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential race. However, CNN packed the audience with Trump supporters. A highly dubious decision, and the result was predictable. CNN's senior media reporter:

'Trump and the Town Hall'

It's hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening.

Kaitlan Collins is as tough and knowledgable of an interviewer as they come. She fact-checked Trump throughout the 70-minute town hall. Over and over and over again, she told him that the election was not stolen. That it was not rigged. That there was no evidence for the lies he was disseminating on stage.

"The election was not rigged, Mr. President," Collins told Trump at one point during the event. "You cannot keep saying that all night long."

Yet, he did. Trump frequently ignored or spoke over Collins throughout the evening as he unleashed a firehose of disinformation upon the country, which a sizable swath of the GOP continues to believe. A professional lie machine, Trump fired off falsehoods at a rapid clip while using his bluster to overwhelm Collins, stealing command of the stage at some points of the town hall.

Trump lied about the 2020 election. He took no responsibility for the January 6 insurrection that those very lies incited. And he mocked E. Jean Carroll's allegations of sexual assault, which a jury found him liable for on Tuesday.

And CNN aired it all. On and on it went. It felt like 2016 all over again. It was Trump's unhinged social media feed brought to life on stage. And Collins was put in an uncomfortable position, given the town hall was conducted in front of a Republican audience that applauded Trump, giving a sense of unintended endorsement to his shameful antics.

[Brian Peacock]

Hmm. Hardly a surprising outcome in the circumstances. Which begs a question...

[L'Emmerdeur]

Hmm. Hardly a surprising outcome in the circumstances. Which begs a question...

It's a conscious choice by the new management at CNN. Trying to revamp as 'objective' in a vain attempt to convince the right that it's not in the 'Enemy of the People' category.

'New "objective" CNN appears to be making itself objectively rightwing'

CNN wants to be the new Fox News and it’s not even trying to hide it. Earlier this year Chris Licht became the new CEO of the cable network and immediately made it clear that he was going to change the network’s direction. One of Licht’s first moves was to embark on what Axios described as a “Capitol Hill diplomacy tour” and others described as a Republican boot-licking tour. Licht met with lawmakers who had become wary of cable news and promised them that CNN was moving away from “alarmist” programming towards more neutral, objective reporting.

What does that mean in practice? Well, it appears to mean firing anyone who is critical of Donald Trump or Republicans. Last month CNN suddenly axed Brian Stelter’s Sunday show in a move many commentators considered politically motivated; Stelter had been an outspoken critic of Trump and was reviled by many on the right. Earlier this month White House correspondent John Harwood was fired shortly after calling Trump “a dishonest demagogue” on the air.

[Brian Peacock]

"One of Licht’s first moves was to embark on what Axios described as a “Capitol Hill diplomacy tour” and others described as a Republican boot-licking tour."

Licht licked.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Indeed.

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Fox News carries on with the blatant lies despite losing one if its most prolific prevaricators. We don't have our leftie from the North to regurgitate the idiotic dishonesty right now, but this one is a zinger.

'Fox News Host Harris Faulkner Caught Telling Whopper About 1918 Pandemic'

Fox News Tonight guest host Harris Faulkner gave her primetime audience Tuesday some revisionist history regarding the 1918-19 influenza pandemic when trying to make a point about school closures due to COVID-19.

In her monologue, Faulkner first marked the 79th anniversary of D-Day, saying, “We proved America is exceptional, and our exceptionalism belongs to each of us. It’s inside of us. It’s our shared history. We sacrifice and then we move through our bravery toward freedom, over and over.”

She then segued into an acknowledgment that “sometimes we make dangerously bad decisions.” To Faulkner, these are “pandemic lockdowns and keeping our own children home from schools when a virus was hurting them far less often than adults”–a clear reference to the curtailed aspects of public life brought on by COVID-19.

In an apparent attempt to contrast the wise decisions of government officials in 1918 with the ones made a century later, Faulkner then wrongly claimed that schools did not close back then.

“You know,” she told viewers who could not possibly know such a thing because it wasn’t true, “we didn’t actually close schools in 1918 during the Spanish flu pandemic. We didn’t even have penicillin back then. We did sacrifice. We suffered, but then we pressed on. Our enemies hate us for surviving, but they would love to be like us.”

In fact, a simple internet search reveals Faulkner’s error. A July 2020 PBS NewsHour column, for instance, notes that during the 1918-19 pandemic, “the majority of public schools were closed for weeks to months on end.”

[macdoc]

hmmmm a missing antibiotic and influenza ....the sciencefu on this one is sadly lacking.

[L'Emmerdeur]

It didn't take long for Warner Bros Discovery (owns CNN) to kick Licht to the curb.

'Clean Sweep: CNN Boss Chris Licht and His Allies Booted'

CNN boss Chris Licht and some of his top allies have been fired after weeks of turmoil and drama that crescendoed with the publication of a devastating magazine profile.

The embattled CEO’s exit also comes just days after David Zaslav, head of parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, installed his own longtime lieutenant David Leavy as the network chief operating officer.

“This job was never going to be easy,” Zaslav said of Licht’s tenure during the network’s Wednesday morning editorial call. “He was in the line of fire, and he’s taken a lot of hits.”

Zaslav also said that “for a number of reasons, things didn’t work out,” noting that “it’s unfortunate” and “that’s on me.” Licht did not speak on the call and had yet to send a memo to staff about his departure.

He did release a short statement Wednesday evening confirming his departure, while wishing the remaining CNN employees his best.

[L'Emmerdeur]

The Fox News talking head who was yapping while this was onscreen had said, referring to Trump: 'This is the president of the United States about to address a crowd of reporters. Also the first time after being indicted on federal charges, first time in history.' Going all-in on the MAGA propaganda. Trump is the president of the United States, Biden is a wannabe dictator.

'Fox News explains away "wannabe dictator" chyron during Trump speech'

Fox News said on Wednesday that it had taken down an on-screen banner, or chyron, that was displayed on Tuesday labeling Joe Biden a “wannabe dictator”, and noted the company had “addressed” the situation, but without any further explanation.

On Tuesday night, hours after Donald Trump was in court in Miami on federal criminal charges, the rightwing TV channel ran a caption characterizing Biden baldly as a “wannabe dictator” who attempted to have “his political rival arrested”.

The chyron appeared during a live broadcast of Trump’s post-arraignment speech, as the network was the only major cable news channel to carry the Tuesday evening speech in New Jersey live, with rivals CNN and MSNBC choosing not to air the address.

Towards the end of the speech, viewers were presented with a split screen carrying a separate speech from Biden at the White House. Below the image, the news chyron read: “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.”

[L'Emmerdeur]

It was one of Tucker Carlson's former producers at Fox News behind the 'wannabe dictator' banner. Now he can go back to work for Carlson.

'Fox News Parts Ways With Producer Responsible for "Wannabe Dictator" Chyron'

The Fox News producer who authored the network’s chyron Tuesday night labeling President Joe Biden a “wannabe dictator” has parted ways with the company, two sources told The Daily Beast on Thursday.

Former Tucker Carlson Tonight managing editor Alexander McCaskill, who features prominently in a toxic work environment lawsuit by a former colleague, is no longer with the network—a topic that Carlson himself discussed in the latest episode of his Tucker on Twitter video series.

The ousted Fox News host said that after the chyron ran, “the women who run the network panicked.”

“First they scolded the producer who put the banner on the screen,” Carlson claimed. “Less than 24 hours after that, he resigned. He had been at Fox for more than a decade. He was considered one of the most capable people in the building. He offered to stay for the customary two weeks, but Fox told him to clear out his desk and leave immediately.”

...

[Carlson] then went on a sarcastic diatribe suggesting that his longtime producer’s chyron was, in fact, accurate.

“Of course Joe Biden’s not a wannabe dictator. Just because he’s trying to put the other candidate in prison for the rest of his life for a crime he himself committed doesn’t mean he has a totalitarian impulse. That’s absurd! It takes a lot more than jailing your political rivals to earn the title of ‘wannabe dictator,’” Carlson said sarcastically.

Carlson went on to portray Biden as a dictator by pointing to how the mother of deceased Jan. 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt was arrested—after allegedly striking someone in Washington, D.C. in May.

[Svartalf]

I hear bojo has found a new job writing for the daily fail