We already knew that Fox News made up for American reality, exaggerating social facts to encourage its audience to vote on the “right” side…
The “good” edge: the Republican Party.
Here is the menu served by Fox to its American subscribers:
Obama, an ISLAMIST! ? !
THE woke !
THE WOKES !
Vladimir Putin: a REAL leader!
The real racism IS AGAINST WHITE AMERICANS!
Hydroxychloroquine, IT WORKS against COVID-19 (maybe)!
I capitalize and exclamation marks because that’s the propaganda tone that’s been rolling at Fox for a generation and shaping the reality of millions of Americans.
Fox does not even hide from being stuck on the Republican Party: one of its stars, Sean Hannity, has already presented President Trump on the platform of one of its political rallies…
No wonder Trump and Fox have long been together in a manufactured marriage in heaven, as the Anglo expression goes. A beautiful convergence of liars, what, who fed themselves throughout Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016, until the evening of the 2020 presidential election.
We already knew for a quarter of a century, I said, that Fox made up for reality by exaggerating, diverting and inventing facts. But there, thanks to an extraordinary civil lawsuit against the channel, we know how Fox manufactures its propaganda.
To summarize: Dominion Voting Systems sells machines that count votes.
However, one of the conspiracy theories fabricated by the Trump team to explain the “theft” of the 2020 presidential election is that Dominion “stole” votes from Trump to switch them to the Biden camp. , in Arizona, thanks to its machines.
It’s an invention. Nothing, absolutely nothing supports this, except the lies of the Trump camp.
However, in the chaotic days, weeks and months following the November 2020 presidential election, Fox News let this myth take up a lot of space on its airwaves…
Without ever torpedoing it, or almost. On the contrary.
Dominion has therefore decided to sue and is claiming 1.6 billion US dollars from Fox for having tarnished its reputation.
This is where we lift the hood of the Fox News propaganda machine: the network had to give Dominion lawyers text messages and emails exchanged between Fox air stars and their bosses…
What we discover is mind-boggling dishonesty.
The stars of Fox — as well as their bosses — knew full well that there was absolutely no support for the Democrats’ stolen election thesis. They say it in so many words, in private.
Yet, they shamelessly continued to spit the crackpots on the Trump team who were spreading these lies, including that Dominion voting machines were manipulated to benefit Biden.
For what ?
Because the reality (Trump’s defeat) enraged the Fox audience. It showed in the ratings: Fox began to fall behind an even more propagandistic channel, OAN. It was panic at Fox…
After Trump’s lost election, Fox stars (still privately) slammed the channel for two separate events.
One, the summer before the 2020 campaign, one of Fox’s only real reporters, Chris Wallace, did a close interview with President Trump.
Two, Fox decreed that if-the-trend-continued, on presidential night the hotly contested state of Arizona would be won by Joe Biden (it was).
What did Sean Hannity write to his co-stars Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham about these two “unpleasant” things?
I quote: “It destroys a brand that took 25 years to build and the damage is incalculable. »
Carlson’s response: “That’s vandalism. »
The stars of the network will also claim, in private conversation, the head of a journalist who had contradicted with facts one of Trump’s post-election lies.
Fox the facts, what…
But the most formidable email unearthed by the Dominion lawsuit is from Fox News boss (Suzanne Scott) to her boss (Lachlan Murdoch): “Our viewers are in all five stages of grieving. It’s a question of trust: saying on the air that Arizona would be won by Biden was damaging, but we will put our stars forward and put flags everywhere, to make it clear to viewers that we hear them and that we respect them. »
In short, the facts are a lack of respect for Fox viewers…
To respect them, Fox comedians who play news anchors pander to the lowest feelings of the audience. In short, a safe space for republicans frightened by reality!
Ironic, when you know how Fox News makes buttons about the woke frightened by reality… Freud would speak of projection, I imagine.
Basically, the stars and bosses of Fox News take their audience for idiots…
But just in private.
Sources: The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, PolitiFact