Lies, Damn Lies, and false statistics at Fox News
Get the Point!
When I was a child watching Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, two things fascinated my young mind: 1. The calm and deliberative manner in which those two men, and all of their cronies in the CBS national news room, delivered current events and, 2. The mostly serious manner in which the political figures that they covered within the Democratic and Republican Parties went about their business of crafting the laws that governed our nation.
Tucker Carlson, Fox News…
At some point over the past 40 or so years, two universally solemn and revered professions—journalism and politics—have attracted far too many "entertainers" who spend the bulk of their time fueling grievances instead of reporting the objective facts and, when so assigned, providing their opinions based upon facts—not fiction.
As a freelance journalist for over three decades, I do not mean to suggest that all of my colleagues fall into the above mentioned description; truth be told, the overwhelming majority of journalists are honest and hardworking sorts who do their best each day to adhere to a code of professional ethics while ensuring that their readers, listeners, and viewers get fair, balanced and accurate coverage of current events.
But far too often, some journalists fill their allotted spaces with lies and fanciful claims that have not been vetted or, if partially vetted, provide just enough facts to get a click bait title to drive likes, mentions, and shares among what's now a rigidly polarized readership.
Now, if you think that today's blog is simply to bash a Fox Network that is in scalding hot legal water due to the $1.6 billion dollars lawsuit it's fighting for defaming the Dominion Voting Systems company after publishing lies from former President Donald Trump's legal advisers that the 2020 election was "rigged," you are partially right—and I urge you to keep reading!
But before I get to Fox News, do know that even the venerable Dan Rather saw his legendary tenure at CBS end on a rather somber note after he didn't fully vet claims about former President George W. Bush's tenure in the National Guard during the Vietnam War. To his credit, Mr. Rather not only accepted responsibility for his mistakes by resigning, but his popular blog platform on this same Substack Network has allowed him to continue to analyze current events with integrity well into his eighth decade of living.
Dan Rather (right) left CBS not long after his failure to vet documents about then President Bush's service in the Air National Guard in 2004
The problem, however, is that too many within the small minority of "news entertainers" are too willing to run with lies if it keeps their financial coffers filled. The latest and arguably most notorious example of this centers on Tucker Carlson, the Fox News entertainer who, like his network colleague Sean Hannity, was a Trump administration sycophant who might as well have been a paid member of the official White House press corps from 2017-2021.
Tucker Carlson grinning with Trump
When the 2020 election ended with a dominant victory for Democrat Joe Biden in both the popular vote and Electoral College, the incumbent Trump exercised his rights to challenge the results in multiple states and in numerous federal judicial districts. In fact, from November of '20 until mid-December, the Trump legal team filed over 60 legal challenges in varying courts up to the U.S. Supreme Court—and lost all but one!
The “Big Lie” that Trump won was spread, in large part, by Fox News Corp.
Cognizant that many of the very judges and justices that voted against Trump's legal claims were appointed by Republicans (including Trump), the idea that some huge Democratic conspiracy "stole" the election was fanciful and appealing only to Trump's truest believers who hung onto his mendacious words instead of basic logic. Still, that didn't stop Trump or his legal team from claiming via the court of public opinion, i.e. Twitter and Facebook, that his followers needed to "Stop the Steal" that they claimed had been facilitated by Dominion Voting Systems and affiliated sources.
Fox News ran the Big Lie 24/7 during the run up to the January 6th MAGA Riots…
Most rational Republicans realized rather quickly that when even the conservative dominated U.S. Supreme Court declined to entertain Trump's lies that the die had been cast, and that the Biden/Harris ticket had won fair and square, thus, the congratulatory plaudits that Sen. Mitch McConnell and others reluctantly gave to the incoming administration.
But on Fox News, the lies continued unabated despite the fact that evidence that has since come forth during sworn depositions and in the form of text messages turned over by Mr. Carlson and others on the Network, shows that they, too, knew that Mr. Trump was lying, but they presented the lies each and every night to their millions of viewers who clung to their words.
In fact, arguably the most damning testimony to date comes from none other than Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch himself as he called Trump's election conspiracy theories, "really crazy stuff."
The same holds true for Tucker Carlson, a man who not only profusely lied at the time about the election being stolen, but while championing Trump to his fanatical Fox audience each night, wrote a text message on January 4, 2021—less than 48 hours before the MAGA Riots at the Capitol led to five deaths and millions in property damage based upon those stolen election lies that he helped spread—that he personally believed that Trump was a bad president. Wrote Carlson, “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for (his administration), because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn’t an upside to Trump.”
Indeed...
Now, I do not think for one second that Tucker Carlson is sorry for his part in spreading "The Big Lie" about the 2020 election because if I know nothing else, people of his ilk only care about their personal bottom line, which is ensuring that their check clears their bank accounts every two weeks.
But what the Dominion case as well as the congressional hearings on January 6th prove is that one of the basic pillars of Democracy, an independent press, is surely at risk due to the unfortunate fusion of "news entertainment" with political figures and their policies.
You see, whether it was Walter Cronkite using his elegant voice to question President Lyndon Johnson's escalation of the Vietnam War in 1967, his and his network's reporting of the facts—not fiction—about the Watergate scandal that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation on 1974; or, Dan Rather's nightly reporting about the Iran-Contra scandal that sullied President Reagan's final term in the late 80's, we can remember a time when journalists were a critical component in ensuring that our political leaders were held accountable for their bad acts.
Walter Cronkite respectfully examining and cross-examining Presidents Johnson and Nixon during the 1960’s and early 1970’s—not sucking up and palling around with the Commander-in-Chief…
Such leads me to hope that as the former President gears up for a second run at the White House in 2024, that those who cover his race will remember that they are not supposed to be public relations officers for any one candidate, but arbiters of facts who ensure that the reading, viewing, and listening public gets the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Where the Fox Network is concerned regarding this task, I won't hold my breath…