Getting Past Hating Fox News
I was just reading a Medium essay about a man who felt he had “lost his mother” to FOX News. His story paralleled that told in the excellent documentary by Amy Jaffe, “The Brainwashing of My Dad.”
I have also lost a few friends to Fox News (national) over the last five years; and also to very unprofessional (and sometimes, highly produced) websites, and social media-based and YouTube videos, in which people have claimed all sorts of things, such as: Western wildfires were started by Antifa arsonists, BLM is a fundraising scheme for the DNC, and Bill Gates is the spawn of Satan. Actually, nearly all Democrats and Liberals and even Tom Hanks are the spawn of Satan … So. There aren’t a lot of paths toward constructive dialogue one can take from there.
I do try!
The COVID stuff has been off the rails, with purported nurses (who normally wear masks for hours and hours in surgeries) claiming masks make people sick, actually.* Many of these videos — shared with me by Trump supporting friends — ended their narratives with Donald Trump saving the world from everything, I mean everything — from “Communist” anti-racism to regular racism, to homelessness, famine, poverty, pedophilia, sex trafficking, terrorism and war (not climate change, though). All of this happening to a soundtrack of some very dramatic and heart warming music.
FOX “News” and especially opinion is just one limb of a multi-tentacled fear and outrage apparatus that is now global, and generally, extreme Right-reactionary, teetering on fascist. Maybe fascist, full stop.
We know the Russians are involved; this is documented and confirmed by US intelligence agencies, Russian leaks and the Mueller Report (which one can actually read!) I suspect also the fossil fuel industry — scrambling now and seeking to stop sane, equitable action on climate and our probable coming collapse. Also implicated: Roger Stone, a self-proclaimed and very proud liar. Rupert Murdoch. The late Roger Ailes. The Koch Brothers. The Heartland Institute. Alex Jones. Tucker Carlson. Sean Hannity. Etc. etc. etc.
The scariest thing about this kind of “news” — let us more properly call it propaganda and disinformation — is how it demonizes and dehumanizes whole, huge portions of the US population (and groups in other countries) to the point of encouraging violence against them: BLM activists, people of color in general, immigrants and migrants, “liberals” in general (also called “Libtards,” the “radical Left,” “Marxists” and “radical environmentalists”), “Socialists” (this label is plastered on anyone with a lean toward universal health care, taxing the wealthy, racial equity or mitigating global heating and mass death from such … ) and … the Democrats. Or, “Demon-Rats.” That’s probably more than 60 percent of us.
“QAnon” is particularly dangerous in this regard. How ironic that all the Q “drops” came from chat boards littered with pedophilia, crass sexism, violent porn, Nazism and similar forms of insecurity, fear, hatred and insanity. All enabled by — if not directly originating from — a man whose nickname is the “King of Porn,” Jim Watkins, and his son, Ron.
We saw the strange fruits of all this erupt in horrible technicolor in 2021, on January 6th at the Capitol Building, as well as at the El Paso Walmart mass murder, and ongoing small and large incidents across the nation and globe (New Zealand mosque mass murder; Pittsburgh synagogue massacre). Even in Germany, Nazism is on the rise again and synagogues there have been targeted and attacked very recently. (See the excellent Frontline episode on this.)
So, this is all pretty awful, when you think about it. And I would suggest we all do. And think hard. But we might take stock too of the more centrist and liberal news media.
The more centrist and what some call “Liberal media” also has a tendency to promote “clickbait,” and, during the Trump presidency, was quick to frame everything in the worst possible terms.
This “Liberal media outrage,” which has occasioned mistakes in reporting, and, to be honest, was often a cynical play for viewers, eyeballs and hits, became fuel for FOX News and other pundits, and, was actually difficult to navigate because Trump himself was, in reality, shocking and outrageous — as well as being a massive grifter, racist and wanna-be mobster. (Not opinions, actually. This is all documented.)
I believe too much emotionality, overreach and anger from media pundits is not helping. But on the other hand, not getting angry about attacks on objective truth and democracy, racism, attacks on democracy, alignment with Vladimir Putin and the fomenting of a violent insurrection seems weird.
A recent op-ed (August, 2021) in Le Monde took this liberal outrage to task. I read this piece, but I thought: Sometimes, frankly, outrage is appropriate. We should be careful and factual, but some things are truly outragous. The Le Monde writer, whom I shall not name, could not fathom what the fuss was about, because he was not really looking — the consequences of Trump’s racism, narcissism and authoritarian tendencies seemed lost on him. The “professional class” (who he decried bitterly) may be objecting and upset, but thank God they are! IMHO!
We need to walk a fine line between acknowledging that which is dangerous and must be brought to light, fought and resisted … and offering constructive critiques. We must be grounded in the actual precariousness of our situation. Much of what was/is happening in our nation was and is sensational and extreme. Indeed, the “mainstream” news failed to cover some of the most shocking parts of the Trump history and presidency, including his oft-stated beliefs in eugenics and “superior genes,” as well as use of Nazi symbology during the 2020 campaign, at his “merch” store, and clear, racist dog whistling including Trump officials posting a white supremacist “message” across the DHS home page.
Correcting excesses of emotion and overeach, as well as misleading headlines, seems a healthy and good thing to do. Taming the impulse to paint large groups of people with an overly large brush also seems wise.
It is easy enough to hate FOX News, and I support efforts to reign in lies and propaganda masquerading as news. This is weakening our nation to the point of near failure, and hobbling us terribly, so we cannot face and address the massive, twin climate and species extinction crises — which includes our own species! Whether we bring back the Fairness Doctrine or apply libel, hate speech and incitement to violence precedents (from the Supreme Court) more rigorously to all news outlets, we should be doing something. Probably a lot of things.
Part of the Right-wing and Russian agenda for the US is to call into question a free press, in general.
So, we can and should be critical of, and correct the news media, but let us also be clear: the Right-wing and Russian agenda for the US is to call into question a free press, in general. To throw shade on good journalists who report accurately on corruption. They are the bane of kleptocracy, fascism and oligarchy. If we begin to distrust all journalists, journalism itself begins to die. If we cannot know the truth about anything, we cannot actually act on anything. In the chaos, democracy falters; confusion, anger and division prevail. This is just what Putin seeks, by the way, for all “Western” democracies.
So, we need to be careful not to make false equivalencies and unfair comparisons. FOX is NOT actually the same as MSNBC, IMHO, although they both have opinionated and emotional pundits. FOX is simply not fact-based, Chris Wallace notwithstanding.
We cannot lump all stations together. We cannot take broad swipes at the “news media.” We need to be nuanced. We need to be honest. We need to distinguish a neo-liberal, corporate lean (nearly all major news outlets) from outright fabrication. We need to support independent journalism and newspapers, some of which are still family owned. We need to put the work in. We need to also admit when “liberal” news outlets are wrong and when they are siding with business interests.
As a former investigative journalist in print media — now with a YouTube channel and podcast analyzing US politics, while also trying to be reflective, calm and compassionate (!), I need to remind us all that journalism is very, very important. It is the Fourth Estate. Democracy does not survive without it.
And good journalism is certainly alive and well! The Trump years galvanized journalists and a lot of us started to pay more attention to politics and news, and subscribe to solid news outlets. Particularly, long-form magazine articles and books and flagship papers such as the New York Times and Washington Post, USA Today and/or your local dailies are all doing great reporting. (Again, these last can have a corporate, neoliberal bias.)
Personally, I have been floored by the New Yorker, as they dive very deep, and the Atlantic and Mother Jones. The Nation is very good, and not corporate. I also take the time to read biographies (recently: Michael Cohen’s, Andrew McCabe’s, even Megyn Kelly’s) and, indeed, the whole damn Mueller Report.
Clearly, I am “liberal,” but most publications I read are fact-based, and less beholden to the current neoliberal system than the larger news outlets, including the New York Times, which is family owned, but has failed to report on major fossil fuel industry crimes.
There are now several websites and fact-checking organizations which lay out the political leanings of media outlets, and it is easy enough to cross check “facts.” People, in their debates over CNN vs. MSNBC vs. FOX, often forget there are excellent books, histories, recorded interviews, think tank reports and documentaries available so freely in this nation, and more everyday. This is a very, very good thing!
It is not enough, if we love our country and also our planet, to just complain about the news media. After all, their “plays” to our baser emotions would not work if we ourselves did not succumb to them!
Rather, we should search out those journalists and news outlets that are fair and balanced; rebellious but with heart — who show and demonstrate a sense of compassion and care for human beings and life on Earth.
This is our job because we are incredibly privileged and so very, very blessed to live in what is still, mostly, a democracy. So many people around the world do not share in this privilege. Free speech is a gift. We should not criticize it out of existence, but by our choices, financial support, thoughtfulness and engagement, make it better.
*This does not mean masks cannot make one feel claustorphobic, and muzzled. They can. And I have friends who cannot actually wear them for this reason.
