Right-wing cartoonist Lisa Benson created a cartoon that has been published on GoComics whining that “conservative news” is being silenced by the “speech police.” The first thing I thought when I saw it was, “Ooh, bad timing.”
I don’t know what Lisa’s talking about. MAGAts been making false claims about being persecuted by big tech and social media, but that’s not “news.” And another thing, news should be news, not conservative news and not liberal news. Yes, there will always be biases but no network should specifically target one demographic. The problem for right-wingers is that facts have a liberal bias. And taking in the NEWS about Dominion suing Fox News is why I think Lisa’s cartoon has horrible timing. It doesn’t reflect reality but then again, that’s the entire basis of the Dominion lawsuit.
Dominion is making a case that Fox News knows they don’t reflect reality. I’ve been making an argument that MAGAt cartoonists, and the cartoonist who works for Sputnik, don’t reflect reality.
Dominion Voting Systems is suing Fox News for spreading lies about their products. Fox News aired claims by Trump and his lawyerly goons, Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani that Dominion was corrupt and switched votes from Trump to Joe Biden, thus stealing the election from Trump for Biden. The lies are preposterous as there were claims of meddling by George Soros, Italian satellites, and Hugo Chavez’s ghost. They’ve also pushed debunked lies about “illegal” immigrants and dead people voting.
The fact is, the only people who tried to steal an election was Trump and his goons. Trump called Georgia’s Secretary of State and literally told the guy to find him “11,780 votes.”
Fox News didn’t just report on the lies, they pushed the lies. And the worst part is, they knew they were lying.
A filing in a Delaware state court by Dominion reveals emails and texts that top executives and hosts didn’t believe Trump’s election lies or the multiple conspiracy theories he and his goons spread.
Tucker Carlson texted Laura Ingraham, “Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane.”
Ingraham replied, “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.” Yet, they continued to give air time to those “complete nuts.”
Testimony claims that Carlson confronted Sidney Powell and said, “You keep telling our viewers that millions of votes were changed by the software. I hope you will prove that very soon. You’ve convinced them that Trump will win. If you don’t have conclusive evidence of fraud at that scale, it’s a cruel and reckless thing to keep saying.”
It was a cruel and reckless thing to keep saying, yet he kept giving her air time to say it.
The filings show that Carlson and Sean Hannity pressured network leaders to fire Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich after she tweeted a fact-check of a Trump tweet promoting lies about Dominion Voting Systems.
Tucker told Sean, “Please get her fired. Seriously….What the fuck? I’m actually shocked…It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.”
Sean replied, “I’m 3 strikes. Wallace shit debate[.] Election night a disaster[.] Now this BS? Nope. Not gonna fly. Did I mention Cavuto?”
After their complaints, she deleted her tweet. These dicks were trying to get a woman fired for fact-checking and telling the truth. Fox News, where truth and fact-checkers are fired.
It wasn’t just Tucker, Sean, and Laura.
After White House correspondent Kristin Fisher fact-checked claims that Powell and Giuliani made at a Nov. 19, 2020, press conference, Washington Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton told Fisher that she needed to do a better job of “respecting our audience.” She was told that she needed to respect that Fox News’ audience is made up of conspiracy-loving MAGAt fucknuts who can’t handle the truth. And if you tell them the truth, they’ll change the channel.
If Fox News won’t lie to their MAGAt viewers, they’ll change the channel to a station that will, which is what they did by changing over to Newsmax, which is a little poodle of a conspiracy network nipping at Fox News’ heels.
Tucker texted a producer, “Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience? We’re playing with fire, for real….an alternative like Newsmax could be devastating to us.” Tucker believes you lose trust by being trustworthy.
Lauren Petterson, the president of Fox Business Network, wrote to other company execs, of Newsmax, “They definitely have a strategy across all shows to try to target and steal our viewers.”
Jay Wallace, the president of Fox News Channel, wrote to fellow execs, “The Newsmax surge is a bit troubling—truly is an alternative universe when you watch, but it can’t be ignored.” Dominion Voting Systems didn’t ignore Newsmax and they’re suing them too.
Between the election and the January 6 insurrection, Fox News’ viewers left and their ratings fell to third place behind MSNBC and CNN. Fox News was the first network to call Arizona for Joe Biden on election night, and that was the moment goons, fucknuts, and yee-haw fuckers started changing the channel over to Newsmax.
It went all the way to the top. Rupert Murdoch knew Trump’s lawyers were lying and told Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott: “Terrible stuff damaging everybody, I fear.”
On Jan. 5, 2021, a day before the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump’s white nationalist MAGA terrorists, Murdoch wrote to Scott saying, “It’s been suggested our prime time three should independently or together say something like ‘the election is over and Joe Biden won.’” Murdoch told Scott that such a statement “would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election (was) stolen.” Such a statement never came which means Fox News may have been able to prevent the attack on the Capitol. It means Fox News was culpable in the attack.
Fox News put the safety of this nation at risk in favor of ratings and profit. They knew they were lying.
Murdoch told Fox News leadership that Giuliani was to be taken “with a very large grain of salt,” and bemoaned the fact Rudy was advising Trump in the post-election period yet, they still put him on the air and helped him push the Big Lie.
Fox News claims that Dominion “cherry-picked” statements for its case, but can’t argue that they didn’t know Trump, Rudy, and Sidney were lying. Fox News can’t claim they actually believed Donald Trump won or that the election was stolen. And the thing is, they’re still pushing these lies.
Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion from Fox News. Quite frankly, I think we should all sue Fox News for the damage they inflicted on this nation.
Fox News is NOT a news source. They’re propaganda which this filing by Dominion proves. They state behind closed doors that their audience can’t handle the truth and that they need to choose lies and conspiracy theories over facts to increase ratings.
The next time you hear a MAGAt goon brag about how Fox News is the ratings leader in news, and that CNN and MSNBC lag far behind, point out that Fox News isn’t a news channel. I don’t know if actual news channels can ever maintain higher ratings than Fox News because there seems to be a larger market for lies and bullshit than facts. Facts can be uncomfortable and Fox News has to “respect their audience.”
Fox News argues that this nation isn’t racist, but the fact they’re the ratings leader argues that is is.
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