Conservative media, a giant fog machine

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Earlier this month, a Steve Bannon ally and conservative filmmaker appointed by President Donald Trump took over running the vast global network of news agencies funded and operated by the US government. Within hours of introducing himself to employees, he’d purged four top officials — and critics are calling it a blatant effort to turn America’s state-run news organizations into Trump-friendly propaganda outlets. But Steve Bannon, who was deeply involved with getting Trump to nominate his ally Michael Pack, sees the ousters as a reckoning for an agency that he believes has been too soft on covering China. “We are going hard on the charge,” Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist and executive chairman of Breitbart, told me. “Pack’s over there to clean house.” Michael Pack was confirmed this month as the new CEO of the US Agency for Global Media, a government department that oversees five media organizations — Voice of America, Middle East Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Open Technology Fund — and is collectively one of the largest media networks in the world..

The US broadcasting firings by a Trump and Steve Bannon ally, explained - Vox

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Tucker Carlson slammed Anthony Fauci as a "total fraud" after the top infectious disease expert's Friday testimony on Capitol Hill, with the Fox News host asserting that "there is nothing" Fauci "won't opine on as long as it doesn't offend the popular and fashionable left." During a segment on his prime-time show Friday night, Carlson played a heated exchange between Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Fauci on Capitol Hill earlier in the day, with the two figures sparring over the possible spread of COVID-19 at mass protests.

Tucker Carlson calls Fauci a 'fraud' after tense hearing | TheHill

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GREG GUTFELD (HOST): I don't know, I would rather have a leader who lacks empathy and doesn't build body-- have body bags come in every week. You know I would rather have a tweeter who is a dove than a polite person who lets people die. JUAN WILLIAMS (HOST): Wait a second, what is the body count on the COVID virus. The virus has a lot of body count. GUTFELD: Well that has nothing to do with Trump. I don't think he created the virus in the lab, Juan. I don't think so. I'm talking about war. I’m talking about war. WILLIAMS: I think Americans think that Donald Trump's lack of ability to deal with the virus has resulted in a lot of deaths.

Fox host: COVID-19 death toll has "nothing to do with Trump" | Media Matters for America

• Yea right, virus casualties have nothing to do with Trump
  
• See for instance how Vietnam, much closer to China and much less equipped to deal with the virus, reacted and kept victims to a minimum.
  

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On Friday, Fox News confirmed much of the reporting by The Atlantic on President Donald Trump disparaging American service members. The network followed the Associated Press and The Washington Post in largely confirming the reporting. But even after Fox News reporters matched the reporting, Fox News personality Greg Gutfield falsely claimed on-air that the story had been “debunked.”

Chaos at Fox News as some refuse to believe the network’s own reporting on Trump’s contempt for troops – Alternet.org

• Fox at war with itself as one of their reporters confirms the Atlantic (and Associated Press, Washington Post) story that the President disparaged the troops..
  

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The president’s Fox News media ally Tucker Carlson has meanwhile attracted derision after claiming on air that he had “damning” documents about the family of Democratic challenger Joe Biden, whom he accuses of corrupt business dealings overseas, but that he could not broadcast them because they “suddenly vanished” in the mail.

Trump news live: Latest Biden updates as Supreme Court rejects president’s mail-ballot bid | The Independent

• LOL
  

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A Thursday night news brief on Fox News contained a remarkable claim — that the network doesn’t have enough information to determine what motivated a man spouting right-wing conspiracy theories to shut down a significant portion of Washington, DC, around the Library of Congress by claiming to have a bomb earlier in the day. “So far, no word on a possible motive,” said anchor Jackie Ibanez at the conclusion of a 15-second brief that amounted to the entirety of Fox News’s Thursday night coverage of the incident.. 

But Ibanez’s comment may have been intended to obscure an uncomfortable truth for America’s most-watched cable news network. In videos streamed to Facebook before and during the bomb threat while he sat in a truck, Roseberry made clear he’s immersed in right-wing conspiracy theories and grievances that receive heavy play on Fox. “Once this dickhead Biden’s out of office and the Democrats sitting down there in the f**kin’ jailhouse, our president’s gonna be Donald Trump, and this is no limit on his pardons,” claimed Roseberry in a video posted early Tuesday morning, alluding to a lie propagated by former President Donald Trump on Fox News as recently as Wednesday about the 2020 election being stolen from him..

Fox News ignores bomb threat inspired by right-wing conspiracy theory culture - Vox

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The CEO of the right-wing German multinational media conglomerate Axel Springer SE, one year before his company sealed the deal to purchase the highly-influential U.S. news brand Politico, sent an email to his top executives before the 2020 election asking if they would like to join him to pray for the re-election of Donald Trump, according to reports. “Do we all want to get together for an hour in the morning on November 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?” Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Germany-based Axel Springer, wrote in an email, The Daily Beast reports, citing an article in The Washington Post. “No American administration in the last 50 years has done more,” Döpfner wrote.

Politico’s new owner invited executives to 'pray' for Donald Trump to be reelected - Alternet.org