March 8, 2023
IT'S WHY THEY ARE AT WAR AGAINST EDUCATION TOO:
Revealing Fox News texts point to the right's long war on the truth (Greg Sargent, March 8, 2023, Washington Post)
Not long after Fox News correctly called the 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden, a senior Fox Corp. executive privately lamented that the network's brand was "under heavy fire from our customer base." The executive suggested Fox viewers might "feel like they have been somehow betrayed."This fear -- that viewers might see telling the truth about Donald Trump's loss as betrayal -- was widespread inside the network, according to newly released texts among Fox News figures. In the texts, they fumed that candor about 2020 was driving the audience away, prompting viewers to defect to competitors who offered a more comforting cocoon. On the air, some of those personalities kept doling out what they privately admitted were lies.This is one of the most extraordinary scandals to ever buffet a major American network. But it also points to an even bigger story: The right wing media's long war on the truth. For decades, conservative media outlets have expressly sought to build and capture an audience that would accept only their version of events, and would be cordoned off to place them beyond the reach of mainstream news sources entirely.
Facts are fatal to ideology--they can't be allowed to penetrate the bubble.
Posted by Orrin Judd at March 8, 2023 6:54 PM