Conservative media, a giant fog machine

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Disturbing picture of the local media, decreasing economic foundation, increasing grip by right-wing plutocrats..

It could be a scene in a dystopian fantasy: A chorus of news anchors warning viewers about the scourge of media bias, all reciting the same words in stations across the country. “The sharing of biased and false news has become all too common on social media. Some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias,” they intone. “This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.” The level of groupthink on display is so glaring—so on-the-nose—that the video, created by Deadspin, was widely shared on social media as evidence of the real-life dystopian turn America has taken under Donald Trump, who has regularly maligned the free press as “fake news.”

Deadspin ✔ @Deadspin How America's largest local TV owner turned its news anchors into soldiers in Trump's war on the media: https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-am...1824233490 … 5:11 PM - Mar 31, 2018 92.1K 73.7K people are talking about this 

The dozens of anchors who recited this identical editorial are employed by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the conservative media behemoth that has gobbled up local news stations across the country. If a proposed merger between Sinclair and Tribune Media is allowed to proceed, this type of propaganda would reach nearly three-quarters of American households.

The Local News Crisis Is Bigger Than Sinclair | The New Republic

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And they rail about those mainstream media..

Two conservative radio hosts known for their criticism of President Trump were asked in emails by Salem Media Group executives to support Trump's campaign with positive coverage, CNN reports. Emails obtained by CNN that were sent to KRLA "The Morning Answer" hosts Elisha Krauss and Ben Shapiro explicitly urge the two to tamp down coverage of "negative minutiae" on Trump.  "What I have been hearing on TMA ... has not been in the spirit of 'supporting the GOP nominee,' " Salem general manager Terry Fahy wrote to the pair of hosts.

CNN: Salem radio executives pressured hosts to back off Trump criticism | TheHill

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In the annals of bad TV takes, it’s going to be hard to beat the one offered by a Fox Business guest earlier today: Torture works, and he knows tortures works because it made John McCain cough up sensitive information during the years he spent as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. “It worked on John [McCain],” retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney said during a Thursday appearance on the Fox Business Network. “That’s why they call him ‘Songbird John.’” McInerney, an avid supporter of President Donald Trump, mentioned McCain in a segment about CIA director nominee Gina Haspel. Here’s why: On Wednesday, the senator vowed to vote against her nomination and recommended his colleagues do the same. (Haspel reportedly oversaw the torture of prisoners after 9/11 and the destruction of nearly 100 videotapes documenting some of the CIA’s more brutal interrogation sessions.) 

But let’s be clear: Torture didn’t work on McCain — not even close. Here’s McCain’s account of being tortured in his book Faith of My Fathers: “Pressed for more useful information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line, and said they were members of my squadron.” As Lawfare’s Susan Hennessey pointed out on Twitter, McCain also “refused early release from a prison camp where he was tortured so as not to leave his men behind.” McInerney didn’t offer any examples of things that McCain purportedly gave up under torture, so It’s unclear what he meant by his reference to the senator and former GOP presidential candidate.

But perhaps the network needs to apologize for having McInerney on in the first place. This is a man, after all, who falsely insisted that former President Barack Obama wasn’t an American (and that Obama was a secret Muslim). Here’s how far McInerney once took that argument, per Mother Jones: In 2010, McInerney filed an affidavit in support of an army officer who was awaiting trial for refusing to obey orders from his commanding officers until Obama produced his long-form birth certificate. McInerney said in the affidavit he has “widespread and legitimate concerns that the President is constitutionally ineligible to hold office.”

Fox News guest offensively slams John McCain to claim torture works - Vox

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The depressive thing about these right-wing media fog machines is that they work:

Only 13 percent of Republicans say that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is a “legitimate investigation.” Fully three-quarters of Republicans agree with President Donald Trump that it’s a “witch hunt.” Meanwhile, 76 percent of Democrats consider it a legitimate investigation. That’s according to a new Economist/YouGov survey of 1,500 adults between May 6 and 8 about the investigation. What’s more, 61 percent of Republicans believe the FBI is framing Trump. Just 17 percent of Republicans say the nation’s federal law enforcement agency isn’t after the president, and about a fifth — 21 percent — weren’t sure.

75 percent of Republicans say Mueller investigation is a “witch hunt” - Vox

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The Sinclair Broadcasting Group — the pro-Trump media conglomerate — is taking over local television. And it’s now using its reach to spread a counternarrative that the media and liberals are playing up the heartbreaking consequences of separating immigrant families at the border. Sinclair regularly forces its 193 local stations to air a segment by former Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn. His most recent segment (flagged by Media Matters) took on the family separation crisis on the border that has dominated the news for several days. The crisis was sparked by the Trump administration’s recent decisions to jail asylum-seeking parents for illegally crossing the border, which led to their children being separated into detention centers. But Epshteyn saw something different in the media coverage of the crisis:

Many members of the media and opponents of the president have seized on this issue to make it seem as if those who are tough on immigration are somehow monsters. Let’s be honest: While some of the concern is real, a lot of it is politically driven by the liberals in politics and the media.
The stories from the border are heart-wrenching: One Honduran man killed himself in a detention cell after his child was taken from him; children are crying themselves to sleep; and some Border Patrol agents reportedly lied to parents about why their kids were being taken away — and how long they would be separated.

But Epshteyn, using his Sinclair-sponsored platform, says such stories may just be the work of anti-Trump liberals. Epshteyn then applauds Trump for stopping family separation with an executive order — “President Trump has correctly decided to step in and sign an executive order that will stop the separation of children from their families at the border” — without mentioning that it was Trump who implemented the policy in the first place.
The segment falls in line with a previous promo local anchors were forced to read, which also aimed to sow distrust in media. Much like Trump, Sinclair is gaslighting its viewers into thinking that maybe, just maybe, their eyes are tricking them — that the horrific stories they see and hear are manufactured by their political enemies.

It’s reminiscent of the way propaganda works in places like Hungary, where government-friendly stories “appear almost simultaneously across several platforms and feature near-identical headlines,” according to a recent Reuters report. Sinclair currently owns 193 stations, which reach 39 percent of US viewers. It might soon reach 72 percent of Americans if its purchase of Tribune Media goes through.

Family separations: Sinclair is taking over local TV — and pushing a pro-Trump narrative that blames liberals - Vox

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No antifa (left-wing radical), quite the contrary in fact. But you wouldn't know from the right-wing media..

After he was arrested earlier this week by authorities in South Dakota, Mark Einerwold immediately became a character in an ongoing narrative within conservative media, where he was depicted as the latest example of a left-wing domestic terror threat. Headlines from a variety of right-leaning outlets asserted that Einerwold was a member of "Antifa," the radical anti-fascist group that has reportedly been accused of domestic terrorism by the Department of Homeland Security and has been the subject of stories on the likes of Fox News and Breitbart. 

Einerwold was arrested on Tuesday in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on burglary charges for thefts in surrounding communities. Law enforcement there said they found bomb-making materials and illegal guns in his home, as well as a two-page anti-government document and a jacket that contained the word "Antifa" in his car. But a cursory glance at Einerwold's Facebook account suggests that he is anything but supportive of Antifa. The profile is littered with pro-Second Amendment memes, and posts that lionize the American flag and criticize welfare recipients. His "likes" include the Tea Party, online conservative personality Graham Allen and the pro-police movement Blue Lives Matter. Just last month, in fact, Einerwold posted a news report about Antifa -- though he hardly endorsed the group. "This is what the social justice looks like," he wrote. "These are the people taking over our campuses. They are militant, they are dangerous."

Right-wing media called him a leftist terrorist. He appears to be a pro-gun conservative

LOL

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A longtime Fox News reporter has criticised his own network over their coverage of the death of Mollie Tibbetts, a college student who was allegedly murdered by an undocumented immigrant in an Iowa cornfield last month. Ms Tibbetts’ death has ignited a fierce political debate in the US, with Republicans like President Donald Trump claiming it proves the need for stricter border control. Others, including Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera, say the case has been used to stereotype undocumented immigrants as violent criminals. “I know that most of the Fox audience disagrees with me, but I’m begging you to have compassion and not brand this entire population by the deeds of this one person,” Mr Rivera said in an interview with anchor Martha Maccallum on Thursday. READ MORE Fox news host ridiculed for comparing Denmark to Venezuela “We at this network are putting that spin on the story,” the 17-year Fox News veteran added. “This is a murder story, not an immigration story.” Fox News has covered the Tibbetts case incessantly since the charging of Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a 24-year-old immigrant from Mexico who authorities say was residing in the country illegally.

Mollie Tibetts: Fox News reporter Geraldo Rivera slams network for ‘spinning’ coverage of murder case | The Independent

Serving multiple purposes:

• Exploiting an emotional event to instill fear of foreigners and increase loyalty to Trump's anti-immigrant agenda and rhetoric.
  
• Deflect from the conviction of Manafort and the accusation of Trump by his former lawyer, which happened on the same day.
  
• The US sees 350 gun deaths a day, why single out only the ones that are committed by an illegal immigrant?
  
• The supposed perpetrator might not even have been illegal (that's what his lawyer claims).
  
• The family of the victim asked not to politicize the murder.
  
• Undocumented immigrants on average commit less crimes than native-born residents.
  

And Fox got a little help from their friends:

A network of Russian-linked Twitter accounts have been disseminating divisive content about Mollie Tibbetts' death in an apparent attempt to divert attention from explosive news surrounding Donald Trump and his former associates.  Almost immediately after a guilty verdict was announced in the trial of Paul Manafort, the president’s former campaign chairman convicted on eight counts of bank and tax fraud charges, there was a flurry of activity among hundreds of pro-Kremlin Twitter accounts believed to be controlled by Russian government influence operations. Those accounts began posting thousands of tweets about Ms Tibbetts, the 20-year-old University of Iowa student who had been missing for nearly five weeks.  Police had a major break in her case on Tuesday when surveillance footage led them to Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a 24-year-old suspect who brought authorities to a cornfield where they located a body believed to be Ms Tibbetts.

How Russian bots used Mollie Tibbetts' death to distract from Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort | The Independent

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"Antipathy toward the media right now has risen to a level I’ve never personally experienced before. The closest parallel in recent American history is the hostility to reporters in the segregated South in the 1950s and '60s," Todd wrote. "Then, as now, that hatred was artificially stoked by people who found that it could deliver them some combination of fame, wealth, and power," he added. "Some of the wealthiest members of the media are not reporters from mainstream outlets. Figures such as Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, and the trio of Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingraham have attained wealth and power by exploiting the fears of older white people. They are thriving financially by exploiting the very same free-press umbrella they seem determined to undermine." Todd went on to call Ailes, who passed away in May 2017 after being ousted from Fox News in July 2016 amid sexual harassment allegations, "the godfather of the Trump presidency." He asserted the former real estate mogul and NBC reality TV star could not have been elected without Ailes, who served as a media consultant to former Presidents Nixon, Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Chuck Todd: Limbaugh, Drudge, Fox hosts 'exploiting the fears of older white people' | TheHill

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And then they call CNN fake news.. From Fox:

GINA LOUDON: My book actually uses science and real data and true psychological theory to explain why it is quite possible that this president is the most sound-minded person to ever occupy the White House.

Hannity guest says "science and real data and true psychological theory" shows Trump "is the most sound-minded person to ever occupy the White House"

HANNITY: OK excuse me, let me correct the record because the person that stopped the practice that went on during the Obama years would be Donald J. Trump, so if you're going to talk about the separation of family issues, let's talk about under Obama and George W. Bush because it happened under them too. Then when it was brought to the attention of the president, the president fixed the problem, something nobody else before him did. You could say, "Thank you President Trump."

Sean Hannity says we should thank Donald Trump for ending family separation at the border

Amazing stuff.. the length they go to is breathtaking.

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This is just hilarious, from Media Matters

Watch a Fox panel become speechless after a guest defends universal basic income
Stuart Varney: "Our viewers are not going to be very happy about this"
Video ››› 11 hours 5 min ago ››› MEDIA MATTERS STAFF
[img=35x0]https://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/drupal/layout/icon-email.png[/img]
From the September 12 edition of Fox Business' Varney & Co.

STUART VARNEY (HOST): Felix Salmon is with us, he is the chief financial correspondent at Axios, and he knows a thing or two about social networks and regulations. Good morning, Felix.
FELIX SALMON (AXIOS): And even universal basic income, which is a great idea, I'm all in favor of that.
VARNEY: What? You don't believe that.
SALMON: If Mike Huckabee actually wants to take people from poverty and put them into work, if you look at the actual evidence --
VARNEY: Oh God.
ASHLEY WEBSTER (FOX BUSINESS): Oh God.
SALMON: Giving people guaranteed money increases the probability that they'll find a job.
VARNEY: You've got a British accent. Are you an Englishman?
SALMON: I am.
VARNEY: What the devil's going on where the Brits export their socialists over here?
SALMON: Well, they're exporting all of their people because it's falling into the sea because they left the E.U.
VARNEY: What are you thinking? You support a universal basic income system?
SALMON: Maybe not universal, but certainly for people in poverty.
VARNEY: Wildly expensive. Free money, for God's sake.
SALMON: Free money is awesome. The best way to get people out of poverty is to give them money.
VARNEY: Do you pay tax?
SALMON: I do.
VARNEY: You'd have no objection to your tax money going to people, free, do what you like with it, here's a transfer, just do it.
SALMON: Yeah, unconditional cash transfers, yeah, they're incredibly powerful.
VARNEY: You like this?
SALMON: Yes.
VARNEY: How long are you going to be in America for?
SALMON: I'm a citizen now.
VARNEY: You're a citizen? So you vote?
SALMON: I'm going to, yes.
WEBSTER: But didn't they try this in Finland and it fell apart? They've yanked it, it didn't work, it was no incentive to go and work.
ELIZABETH MACDONALD (FOX BUSINESS): Because it was so costly.
SALMON: That was not the reason.
MACDONALD: It was the reason, because it was so costly.
SALMON: The cost was the reason, but the work incentive actually played out. You wind up working more, and being healthier, and having healthier kids who go to school more, those findings, especially -- is stronger in places like sub-Saharan Africa, where you can see the differences happen much more rapidly. But there's a good case to be made that it happens in all countries. It happens in Alaska, Alaska is a Republican state, and they give everyone an unconditional check every year.
MACDONALD: That's a dividend out of the oil supplies.
VARNEY: That's from the dividend from the oil, it's got nothing to do with universal basic income for heaven's sake.
SALMON: It's universal income.
VARNEY: Are you a socialist?
SALMON: No.
VARNEY: What are you?
SALMON: Maybe.
VARNEY: Way left of center? Did you declare that when you came to America and became a citizen?
SALMON: They asked me if I had or had ever been a member of the Communist Party, and I had not.
VARNEY: And you had not.
SALMON: I had not.
VARNEY: So you're off the hook.
SALMON: Exactly.
VARNEY: You can be a socialist on television, but you don't tell the immigration authorities about it.
SALMON: Now it's too late now, I'm a citizen.
...
VARNEY: Our viewers are not going to be very happy about this.
SALMON: They should be because it's free money. Who doesn't like free money?
MACDONALD: Taxpayers don't, they have to pay for it.
VARNEY: The people handing it out. People like me.
SALMON: Well, you have too much.
VARNEY: Oh. You've done it now. You've really done it now. I gotta move away to something else. Get off my set.

Related:
Slate: Three new findings show us how a universal basic income might work
Previously:
Fox host dismisses economic hardships faced by many Americans: "What's the word 'struggle' really mean?"
Fox host: It is a "tragedy" that municipalities are raising the minimum wage to provide a living wage
Fox Business pushes almost every minimum wage myth in just 90 seconds