Any thing I write will be written off as rant, so I’ll spare my contempt for their mission to destroy American Democracy and simply share some information and background. How Fox and Murdoch are destroying US democracy and to once again make it safe for the Robber Barons
… Murdoch’s first monster is the Fox News audience, which after long cultivation into the Fox News fantasy land, refuses to believe any news that does not fit its prejudices. Fox, as a result, feels compelled to reinforce its delusions rather than report accurately.
Murdoch’s second monster grew out of the first – a Donald Trump-dominated Republican Party. Murdoch wanted to make Trump a “non-person”, but the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month showed Trump now dominates the party like no one else in living memory. …
… After former President Donald Trump, Fox News apparently did more than anyone else to promote and spread the false claim and accompanying lies that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump.
In doing so*, Fox* made a dangerous contribution to undermining the confidence of millions of Americans in the honesty and integrity of our elections and to greatly damaging our democracy.
The Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against Fox for knowingly broadcasting lies about Dominion was settled this week with Fox agreeing to pay a historic $787.5 million.
But, left out of the settlement was any requirement that Fox inform its audience about what it had done in spreading false information and lies about the 2020 presidential race. Fox ultimately had some of its anchors read a brief three-sentence statement on Tuesday acknowledging that the court had determined “certain claims about Dominion to be false.”
We can expect that Fox will make no real effort to correct the enormous damage it has done to our country. …
Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note Prospect magazine | April 20, 2023
April 5, 2023, By Matthew d’Ancona
Television is not a gimmick, and, if you think it is, you’ll lose again.” So said Roger Ailes—the 27-year-old executive producer of the syndicated Mike Douglas Show—to Richard Nixon in the autumn of 1967. While waiting to be interviewed by Douglas, Nixon had been grumbling about the triviality of the medium.
So struck was the Republican presidential contender by the young man’s audacity that he hired Ailes as his television strategist more or less on the spot. The next year, eight years after his defeat by John F Kennedy, Nixon went on to win the GOP nomination and the presidency.
Ailes, for his part, continued to be a hugely influential adviser in Republican politics and subsequently a force to be reckoned with in the television business. In 1996, believing there was a conservative audience just waiting to be served by a cable channel in tune with their instincts and beliefs, he and Rupert Murdoch founded Fox News. It fast became the market leader, a political phenomenon and a cultural juggernaut. …