Showing posts with label Fox News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fox News. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

"TV Wasteland" is Fox News and Tucker Carlson?

 

The tvtech site reports, "On May 9, 1961, then newly appointed FCC Chairman Newton Minow called television a 'vast wasteland,' criticizing the medium for its violence, inanity and impact on children." I was working in television in those days and considered it an extremely creative and glamorous business. I still do, except for at least two exceptions, Fox News and Tucker Carlson. Is it possible that Minow could see in the future with the latter in mind when making that statement?

Why do I bring this up? Because of the absurdities Carlson claims on his show; plus the fact, this moron actually admits he lies when cornered. In late January...

Tucker Carlson claimed that the political violence the United States has been suffering is coming from the left, not the right — insisting that the right, unlike the left, has remained “peaceful.”

This is beyond unbelievable since we recently went through four years of the ex-White House maniac, Donald Trump, in his quest to stir up violence almost on a    daily basis. The Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection on the U.S, Capitol is an excellent example of GOP led violence. Carlson, of course, is a lunatic, but it is his statements and and a trove if misinformation that is so indicative of Minow's "wasteland." 

It has been 60 years since Newton Minow's "Vast Wasteland" remark, and I do think television has made some very positive strides. As an example, in my day, TV news and weather was something offered by local stations as sort of a public service, much of it unsponsored. Today, news departments have huge budgets and most strive to provide comprehensive, in-depth news. Admittedly, there are some that slant the news, and, of course, those who completely misrepresent it.

MUST SEE: Still a ‘Vast Wasteland’? Newton Minow on the State of TV...

I have heard the opinion, 'Really...nobody could be that stupid,' referring to Tucker Carlson. Well, he certainly looks the part, but if any of you readers have any insight into this please email me. I have given considerable attention to Fox News in this blog over time because the network stands for everything class journalism isn't, and they are so easy to make fun of and criticize with the largest number of buffoons to ever hit the American airwaves.

The AlterNet's Alex Henderson leads us through a number of radical right wing violence incidents that have happened in recent years completely ignored by Carlson...

"from the January 6, 2021 insurrection to an alleged plot to kidnap and possibly murder Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to White nationalist terrorist massacres in El Paso and Pittsburgh in 2019. Pro-Trump groups like QAnon and the Proud Boys openly advocate violence, and the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, is facing seditious conspiracy charges for his alleged role in the Capitol insurrection."

Back to Newton Minow's observations testifying to Congress...

“When television is good, nothing—not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers—nothing is better,” he told Congress. “But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.”

But this was 60 years ago when Congress was populated with at least a modicum

of statesmen as compared to today's gang of inept politicians whose only goals are to amass power, line their pockets and get reelected, no matter what it takes. Minow recently updated his views of television while adding social media and “fake news.” Here's what he said...

“I think the issues for the next generation are the government’s role in social media,” Minow said, adding that he was proud of the strides television has made in educational TV but that local stations needed to remain diligent in ensuring unbiased coverage to their viewers. He also supports reinstating the FCC’s “Fairness Doctrine,” which was repealed in the 1980’s.

"Unbiased coverage," two words neither Fox News nor Tucker Carlson are familiar with. 







Saturday, October 9, 2021

Fox News...Just How Fake is Fox Fake News?

 

The half I refer to, of course, is the word "News," with most of the legitimate broadcasting community calling it the "no news network." Their motto used to be "Fair and Balanced," now changed to, "Most Watched, Most Trusted," again, half right. They do have a large audience, which is accounted for by the fact this country suddenly has a large population of idiots. That's what it takes to watch a moron like Tucker Carlson who admitted on the air that he lies.

‘I really try not to..." [to lie] was his comment and my gut tells me that attracted even more of the double-digits that watch him. I worked in television in the early days of the

1950s, produced several news shows, and two of the goals most sought after were accuracy and integrity. Fox has neither. Here's more...
Carlson defended a teenage gunman involved in a shooting during a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin and defending white nationalists involved in the storming of the Capitol building.

There are other news blunderers at Fox but no one else has the bold audacity and arrogance to go on the air, day after day, and make a complete fool of himself like Carlson does. Kinda indicates something loose somewhere. Here's a headline from Variety that sums it all up...

"It’s Time for Fox News to Stop Using the Misnomer ‘News’ in Its Channel Name"

I hear Rupert Murdoch is scared of Tucker Carlson? 

Monday, April 13, 2020

Sean Hannity gets top award-Source of most coronavirus misinformation


We knew we were getting bullshit from Fox News and now this Media Matters study proves it...

FOX NEWS
Sean Hannity
HEADLINE: "Media Watchdog Names Sean Hannity as a Chief Source of Coronavirus Misinformation." The watchdog calls Hannity a, "top Trump Administration propagandist — Sean Hannity has made a career of twisting facts and peddling conspiracy theories." Yes, this is the business of Fox News and here it is explained...
"Now, a new report from the nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters for America labels Hannity one of the chief sources of dangerous misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic. The analysis documents some 50 specific examples in which the commentator misrepresented facts about the outbreak to benefit his far-right agenda."
Here's an example...
"On March 9, for example, Hannity opined that young, healthy Americans have no reason to fear coronavirus. Two days later, on his radio program, the commentator dished up a conspiracy theory about the “deep state” using coronavirus to spin the public."
A despicable person and a contemptible news organization that has done more harm in this country than is imaginable. Its worst...supporting and promoting Donald Trump.   READ MORE...

You're on Progressive Street...Where Liberals Walk...

Monday, March 9, 2020

Trump's self appraisal gets support from his bootlickers


Why coronavirus will go out of control in the United States...

Sean Hannity, one of Fox News' biggest sources of misinformation

The Russians are coming - The Russians are coming...to spread coronavirus propaganda like...
"conspiracy theories — suggesting, for example, that the coronavirus had been created by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or was the result of a bioweapon."
Not so far-fetched when you consider they helped spread hoaxes in 2016 that the Democrats wanted to "destroy T-rump's presidency." Now Putin's gang is fast at work again, this time on the coronavirus to lay the blame anywhere but at Donald Trump's feet, where it belongs. If you can believe anything from Trump's Cabinet...
"A top State Department official said Thursday that Russia is behind 'swarms of online, false personas' that sought to spread misinformation about coronavirus on social-media sites, stressing the 'entire ecosystem of Russian disinformation is at play.'" 
Dumbo Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton is at it again when he went on TV to advance the theory of Chinese bioweapon conspiracy, not backing down when questioned over his remark. Here's the real skinny...
Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University, told the Washington Post, “There’s absolutely nothing in the genome sequence of this virus that indicates the virus was engineered. The possibility this was a deliberately released bioweapon can be firmly excluded.”
The master moron of misinformation speaks on coronavirus...


So back to ground zero where Trump, Pence and the whole lot of misfits and incompetents charge ahead with more cover-up propaganda, rather than pay attention to the crisis at hand. And, that's not good since Fox News' Maria Bartiromo predicts there will be ‘hundreds of thousands’ of US coronavirus cases,' as I reported in yesterday's post. But Salon's Digby Parton cautions...
"If these rumors and lies were started by the Russian government it just proves, once again, that they know their targets. But the truth is that Americans don’t really need their help. The right-wing media is doing a great job of misleading half the country all by themselves."
And Maria Bartiromo is one of the few Fox staff who can be trusted.
Rush Limbaugh

It is beyond frightening that an unbridled GOP can get away with this in modern day America. But this is what it has come down to today and if the American public decides to reelect Donald Trump to a second term. Salon reminded us, "Rush Limbaugh insisted that the coronavirus was just a common cold and it was being 'weaponized' to use against the president." With world-class morons like this in our own country, we don't need any enemies.

And then there is another delusion from Fox News dimwits. They have...
"blamed the homeless population for spreading the disease, despite absolutely no evidence that has happened. This fits with their evident programming directive to demean and degrade the homeless population as often as possible, particularly in states that didn’t vote for Donald Trump."
Now this exceeds the unconscionable when these displaced folks are trying their best to just survive in some cases. And this is the first time I have heard this one, Digby Parton contends that Donald Trump has a "fake reputation," throwing the term back in the face of the blockhead that originated it with "fake news." But here's an unbelievable comment that Trump made to the king of misinformation, Fox News Sean Hannity...
"We have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work, some of them go to work, but they get better."
Many of the mild cases have experienced some improvement and will continue to do so. But another implication they should go to work is asinine and potentially dangerous for those with more serious conditions. There have been 3,570 coronavirus deaths worldwide, 19 in the U.S. There are a number of factors that affect the immunity to this virus and only the experienced medical community should be giving advice, not some dufus sitting in the Oval Office.
READ MORE...

Friday, May 17, 2019

Conservatives are a fraud? We knew that


Max Boot, formerly of the Republican Party, comes down hard on the conservative movement. Here's the gist of what he had to say...
"The whole ideology has become a 'racket,' he argues in a new op-ed for the Washington Post, a development he dates to 1996 when Fox News was launched. The latest revelations about the NRA, from the vice president Wayne LaPierre’s profligate spending to the various self-dealing projects spearheaded by the organization’s top executives, only hammer the point home."
I like the part where he brings in the NRA and its head gun nut, Wayne LaPierre. It would have been even more interesting if Boot had expounded on the cowards in Congress who suck up to the NRA for regular handouts. The ex-conservative continues...
"Of course, the most obvious sign of the hollowness of conservatism is its figurehead, President Donald Trump. His supposed business success has been exposed as a sham, a sham on which he built a presidential campaign that had no other justification. His supposed religiosity is an obvious hoax. And his policies, supposedly designed to help the 'forgotten man,' have only helped the rich get richer. He has no problem letting countless supporters “fall victim to his trade wars,” as Boot puts it, for the sake of nationalist crusade."
There is no doubt in my mind that Mitch McConnell runs a close second as the lowlife of conservatives. And Boot feels...
"Trump couldn’t survive as the con artist that he is without the unshaken devotion of Fox News, which feeds his supporters a steady diet of propaganda necessary to keep presidential approval above a 36 percent floor." 
He adds that Fox is, of course, the "quintessential con." You have to love this kind of insight into the Oval Office lunatic, especially coming from an ex-conservative. Boot counts multiple irregularities at Fox with sexual harassment, right from the top, Sean Hannity's elitism compared to his $36 million annual salary, and Tucker Carlson's self-described "man of the people," in itself a con. All in all, the conservative movement and its cronies is a "total scam."

Finally, Boot concludes...
"How did this all happen? It’s a complicated story, but the simple version is this: American conservative leaders knew their policy preferences would never be popular on the merits, so they figured out that they needed to trick voters into supporting them. And they’ve been wildly successful."
Isn't it pathetic that the Grand Old Party, the GOP, has to rely on trickery in order to further its agenda?

Thursday, June 7, 2018

Oval Office lunatic doesn't give a fuck about the people, says LeBron James


Yes, that's right, he is laughable
Lebron James' Cleveland Cavaliers and Stephen Curry's Golden State Warriors have already said a resounding NO to any potential invite from Donald Trump to visit the White House, whoever wins the NBA finals. James said it was because of Donald Trump's uninviting the 2018 Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles. I posted on this June 6, indicating the Eagles might as well go to Disneyland instead. James' comment on the White House visit was...
"I know no matter who wins this series, no one wants an invite anyway. It won't be Cleveland or Golden State going."
I am reading a little disgust into his statement for the Oval Office lunatic, but, then, that's me. However, to lend validity to my observation, here is a comment by Lebron James to ESPN...
"The number one job in America... is someone who doesn't understand the people, and really don't give a f--- about the people.”
And that pretty much establishes James'--and probably millions more Americans--opinion of Donald Trump. It is a tragic point in the history of this country when one of the top figures in sports says the President of the United States doesn't give a fuck about the people, some of which elected him. And if Trump's stupidity weren't enough, Fox News printed misleading pictures of Eagles players kneeling in prayer, indicating that the player was protesting the National Anthem. I alluded to this "news network" regularly skirting the facts in its reporting...
"Didn't know Fox needed anything to corroborate their 'facts,'"
But when you look at the people who populate Fox News, there's no doubt in your mind...You'll never get the truth.

Read more: LeBron James, Stephen Curry agree that next NBA champs won't visit White House
                    LeBron James Says Donald Trump 'Doesn't Give a F---' About the People
                    Fox News ripped for misleading photos of Philadelphia Eagles players kneeling

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Philadelphia Eagles will probably go to Disneyland instead...


The fact of the matter is that the Philadelphia Eagles didn't even do what they are accused of by Donald Trump. Not one Eagle Player kneeled for the National Anthem last season, but the Oval Office lunatic in his long-running feud with the National Football League canceled their visit to the White House in honor of their winning the Super Bowl. This bad blood with the NFL exists since the league "stonewalled his effort to buy the Buffalo Bills in 2014." This is what Trump said in canceling the event...
"The Eagles wanted to send a smaller delegation, but the 1,000 fans planning to attend the event deserve better."

The word was that only four Eagles had agreed to appear with T-rump, a statement in itself of the disdain felt for this man around the country. Although the Eagles didn't. players who kneel in protest have been called "sons of bitches" and it was suggested they shouldn't be in the country. This is purely an act to impress his "Make America Great Again" followers. But let's be clear about how this slogan came about; Trump stole it from Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign, "Let's Make America Great Again." And now he claims it's his own.

Fox News is struggling in its support of T-rump's decision but can't seem to find any photos or videos to substantiate the Eagle players were kneeling. Didn't know Fox needed anything to corroborate their "facts," and isn't it interesting that the "news network's" main thrust is to find something to support Donald Trump, even when there is obviously nothing there. The Eagles will survive; as a matter of fact, they had decided not to go to the White House long before the "Anthem" rule was passed. This kind of aversion to Trump must be turned into Democrat/Progressive votes in November.

Read more: Trump's Battle with the NFL Has Reached Critical Mass

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Fox News is Light on Substance but Heavy on Legs

Female news anchors from the "real" network stations like ABC, CBS and NBC are usually positioned conventionally behind a desk, not to necessarily hide their legs but to prevent anything like a potential crotch shot. That's what we called it when I worked in TV in the 50s and 60s. As I told someone recently, there were no female news people in those days and once when I tried to audition a gal at the station where I worked in Memphis they almost rode me out of the studio on the rails. But that has all changed as you can see in the featured picture. Fox News has taken the art of dress and leg manipulation to a new high.  Brian Kilmeade of the Faux News network said:
"To be a female anchor on Fox News, the only qualifications is to look like you’re coming from the Victoria’s Secret catalog, and be able to speak."
This coming from an insider who said "be able to speak," but did not add 'be able to think.' It's bad enough that the network's news is mostly inaccurate but when they lower themselves to relying on legs and boobs to get the viewer's attention, it just shows what a pathetic organization they are.

And then we have Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer, Ann Curry, Jane Pauley, Joan Lunden, Erin Burnett, Connie Chung and Jessica Savitch, just to show there are legitimate female anchors out there.

I can truthfully say that I have never watched a Fox News presentation and after writing this piece I never will.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Fox News Has Become a Retirement Community


There are a lot of things liberals don't know about Fox News and I'll bet this is one of them. The median age of their viewer is 68, not that there's anything wrong with that, hell, I'm 82. But it just doesn't seem right that after that many years these people would want to be so uninformed as the Faux News Network will lead them to be. I did a post on this earlier, "It's Official-Fox News Viewers Are Really That Dumb," that I guess these folks didn't read. Politico talked to Bruce Bartlett who has done a paper indicating that Fox has changed American Media and Political Dynamics with the inference that it has become the leader of the pack. Not so says Politico quoting some figures to back that up. As an example, The O’Reilly Factor claims some 3.3 million viewers tops and that's a drop in the bucket compared to the voting age of over 234 million. But one of Bartlett's points makes good sense, that since the launching of Fox News in 1996, the network only picked up the gauntlet, but is continuing to lead the Republican Party toward radicalized candidates for president.

Frank Rich, a well-known liberal writer discounts Fox News power. In New York he said, "...aside from infuriating liberals, Fox flexes little political power." Tell that to Bill O’Reilly.

Friday, April 10, 2015

AN INFORMED VOTER DOES NOT VOTE REPUBLICAN


Political researchers have said, “When uninformed citizens receive political information, they systematically shift their political preferences away from the Republican Party and toward the Democrats," according to Aljazeera America. That says mountains about Republican voters who depend on the negativity of the GOP, accompanied by Fox (faux) News, and the Tea Party to make their decisions. If putting down their opponents isn't enough, Republicans resort to hate for their message. It is what I call trickle down abomination and seems to be a formula that has worked for the GOP.

Because there is no opposition from Progressives, like...voting. 

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

LOUISIANA GOV. BOBBY JINDAL TALKS REVOLUTION

Bobby Jindal
Bobby Jindal is the Governor of a state that ranks at the top of the list for poverty levels. Louisiana is only topped by Mississippi and the District of Columbia. Yet Jindal on Fox News republished by, who else, the Tea Party, said, “I can sense right now a rebellion brewing amongst these United States, where people are ready for a hostile takeover of Washington, D.C., to preserve the American Dream for our children and grandchildren.” Further, this fruitcake says there is a "silent war" on religious liberty being fought in the U.S. I wasn't aware any recent restrictions had been placed on this right and, if anything, it is the religious right that is trying to take over and run the country. It's the typical Tea Party cry of "no more government" but when Louisiana needs help, where do they look? The federal government, of course. Jindal needs to clean up his own backyard before trying to save the country.

Monday, June 9, 2014

TEA PARTY IS WORRIED WHETHER OBAMA IS SANE?

Now here is the epitome of the pot calling the kettle black except in this case the pot should be called an idiot. In a recent Tea Party post the headline read, "Psychology Expert Worries ‘Erratic’ Obama May Not Be ‘Sane.’" Either the guy is completely incompetent--something an association with TPers might suggest--or it's the usual misinformation we get regularly from Fox News, this time coming from CNN castoff Lou Dobbs.

Here's a typical quote from this organization of fruitcakes:

             “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways of shutting that whole thing down.”     -Todd Akin.  
 
The Tea Party is the group that thinks that people don't die of breast and prostate cancer anymore, believes you give off more CO2 riding a bicycle than driving a car, when a physician removes a child from a woman's body he has removed the biggest organ in her body, and there is no one who doesn't have health care in America...the list goes on. It is hard to imagine these individuals functioning in a normal society, and, of course, some of them don't. Hopefully November will be the deciding factor whether or not this bunch of morons survives or expires, preferably the latter. 
 
 
 
 
 



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