They're Still Doing It
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The New York Times is out with a blistering piece on Fox News, talking about how FNC’s biggest stars continued to downplay the coronavirus and how badly Trump was handling the situation as it moved closer to the United States.
The Times writes that the person who could have stopped the flow of misinformation was Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive of the Fox Corporation. But he wasn’t paying much attention.
The 48-year-old heir to his family’s media fortune was focused instead on buying a streaming company called Tubi for $440 million, a person who has spoken to him said. The acquisition would drive “long-term growth,” he proudly announced in a news release on March 17.
The Times says, the most-watched news channel in America has become, since the fall of its powerful founder, Roger Ailes, much more like the Trump White House: a family business where it’s not entirely clear who is in charge.
Adding, Fox failed its viewers and the broader public in ways both revealing and potentially lethal. In particular, Lachlan Murdoch failed to pry its most important voices away from their embrace of the president’s early line: that the virus was not a big threat in the United States.
The communications chief at Fox News, Irena Briganti, said, “The cherry picking of clips from our opinion programs is the definition of politicizing this serious threat, as is irresponsibly attacking Fox News in the middle of a pandemic that has evolved considerably over the last few weeks.”
But, just yesterday, Fox News hosts were tweeting out a post on Medium that once again downplayed the coronavirus.
After millions of views, Medium pulled the post for violating their policy.
But, that did happen until after a number of Fox News hosts posted a link to it:
There even must have been a lull in the action over at Sexy Vinyl that Brit Hume chimed in.
While many at Fox News are claiming that the “mainstream media” are politicising the virus to drag down Trump, it seems Many at FNC are doing much of the politicising to defend Trump.
We would be more than happy if this coronavirus went away today and all the stores and restaurants could open and people could be working again.
But that’s not happening.
Fox News and the others should be focused on getting people to listen to the CDC, distance themselves and help stop the spread.
All news organizations should also be focused on holding those in power accountable when it comes to those that have been impacted. Unemployment should be paid out at 100% of lost wages. Small businesses should be bailed out before big corporations. Banks should pause mortgage payments for the next 90 days.
We are in charted waters and the last thing we need is a mixed message from the media and people downplaying this pandemic.
