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Sigh: "Fox News guest blurts out alleged name of whistleblower"

Spoiler

Guests on Fox News say the darnedest things. Quite often those things are bland — filler for the yawning content void of a 24/7 cable news network. Other times, those things are offensive or unfathomable. And on Thursday, those things contradicted Fox News guidance on the touchiest journalistic quandary of the day.

“The fact is, [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi six weeks ago was telling us, ‘I have what it takes to impeach the president,’ " said Portland, Ore., radio host Lars Larson to Fox News host Harris Faulkner during Thursday’s edition of “Outnumbered Overtime.” "And now we’re saying, we’re investigating to find out if there’s anything there that justifies impeachment and the more we learn about it, about [name of alleged whistleblower] and his attorney who said ‘the coup begins now’ and the fact that we’re hearing things second- and third- and fourth-hand.”

With that, a guest on Fox News — not a paid contributor or a staff correspondent — stepped onto the Ukraine scandal’s journo-ethical ledge. The whistleblower’s allegations against President Trump emerged in late September and, ever since, newsrooms have debated whether to name the person, if indeed they could verify his or her identity. Early in this drama, a Bloomberg News official wrote a memo to colleagues indicating that either The Post or the New York Times would “probably” break the news of the person’s identity.

Nope. The big dogs are approaching the whistleblower-identity question with considerable forbearance. As Paul Farhi reported in The Post, countervailing considerations — that publishing the name would put the person in jeopardy; that the whistleblower’s account has been corroborated by others — have persuaded news bosses to stand pat. "I’m not convinced his identity is important at this point, or at least important enough to put him at any risk, or to unmask someone who doesn’t want to be identified,” New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet told Farhi. Back in September, Baquet and Co. sustained a Twitter backlash when they reported some details about the whistleblower’s career on the grounds that the information helped the public to assess credibility.

A Fox News executive on Oct. 31 sent an internal production memo to colleagues requesting that they “NOT fulfill any video or graphic requests” naming the whistleblower, according to CNN’s Oliver Darcy and Brian Stelter.

And yet Larson waltzes right onto the Fox News airwaves and blurts out a name anyway. A Fox News spokesperson issued this statement to the Erik Wemple Blog: “Fox News has not confirmed or independently verified the name of the whistleblower.” Larson’s commentary placed Fox News alone among the major TV news outlets, as CNN, MSNBC, NBC News, ABC News and CBS News haven’t recited a name, according to the Hollywood Reporter’s Jeremy Barr.

As the transcript above makes clear, Larson didn’t make a big deal of the whistleblower’s alleged name. In fact, he mentioned it almost in passing, as just one building block of an argument he was mounting about the Ukraine situation. “I did not think of this as controversial,” Larson told the Erik Wemple Blog, noting that Donald Trump Jr. “has tweeted this out, it’s been on Drudge, it’s been everywhere except the mainstream media.”

Which is to say that Larson didn’t verify for himself the whistleblower’s name. “Do I have any sources 2,000 miles from here on Capitol Hill?” says Larson, who earned a slew of awards as a TV journalist before embarking on a career in talk radio. “No, I don’t.”

Asked what report on the whistleblower’s name he found most credible, Larson pointed to the oft-cited tweet from Wednesday by Donald Trump Jr. “That was the last report that I saw and other than that, nothing specific,” says Larson. The tweet from Trump Jr., for the sake of context, linked to a Breitbart story, which in turn relied upon a previous story by Real Clear Investigations mentioning the name of a government official whose record fit the “description” in mainstream media accounts. Furthermore, Real Clear Investigations noted that the name “has been raised privately in impeachment depositions, according to officials with direct knowledge of the proceedings, as well as in at least one open hearing held by a House committee not involved in the impeachment inquiry.”

Mark S. Zaid, a lawyer for the whistleblower, told the Erik Wemple Blog that confirmation of the identity is a tough feat because there are so few people in a position to know. “When I see, ‘Three people have confirmed that the whistleblower is so-and-so,’ that is garbage. I guarantee you that there are no three sources who guarantee it’s so and so. It’s double and triple hearsay,” says Zaid, noting that he’s heard at least five names floated. “Obviously one name now has taken prominence and people are just pushing forward. . . It seems no one cares if it is or not. It’s not ironic that the Richard Jewell film is about to come out,” he says.

In an op-ed for The Post on Oct. 25, Zaid and Andrew P. Bakaj, another of the whistleblower’s lawyers, argued that a raft of supporting evidence stemming from the impeachment inquiry rendered the person’s identity no longer “relevant." “Much of what has been disclosed since the release of our client’s complaint actually exceeds the whistleblower’s knowledge of what transpired at the time the complaint was submitted,” wrote the lawyers. “Because our client has no additional information about the president’s call, there is no justification for exposing their identity and all the risks that would follow.”

Surely the supporting evidence reduces the centrality of the whistleblower in this national saga. Yet the complaint from the whistleblower launched all this activity, making the person’s background nothing if not newsworthy. Had the whistleblower approached the New York Times or The Post or CNN with the Ukraine allegations, reporters most assuredly would have granted anonymity. No such obligation applies in this case. In a statement for The Post, Kris Coratti, vice president for communications, said the newspaper “has long respected the right of whistleblowers to report wrongdoing in confidence, which protects them against retaliation. We also withhold identities or other facts when we believe that publication would put an individual at risk. Both of those considerations apply in this case.”

As for the personal-risk consideration, we asked Zaid whether he had reported any threats to the FBI. Yes, he responded — three of them. “Any physical harm the individual and/or their family suffers as a result of disclosure means that the individuals and publications reporting such names will be personally liable for that harm. Such behavior is at the pinnacle of irresponsibility and is intentionally reckless," the lawyers said in a statement.

 

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What a surprise /sarcasm "Fox News host Tucker Carlson is loudly ignoring impeachment. It ‘is not only dumb, it’s boring.’"

Spoiler

At some point during his nightly prime-time show, Fox News host Tucker Carlson usually asks the same question: “What’s really going on here?”

He uses the query as a turning point, a way to draw meaning from whatever outrage he is featuring on his show. Invariably, he provides an answer that promises clarity in a world of chaos.

“Ultimately you are watching the flailing of the leadership class that loathes the country it governs,” he recently told his viewers. One of whom is President Trump, who regularly records Carlson’s show, according to aides.

Carlson’s clarity provides an intellectual guide to Trumpism while vowing independence from the man himself. With a prep school pedigree and an anti-elite message, he’s invaluable to the president and to his bosses, the Murdochs who control Fox News’s parent company.

Carlson, 50, will be particularly important as the impeachment inquiry begins its public phase this week. While fellow Fox host Sean Hannity will be running the network’s anti-impeachment war room, Carlson will simply be talking about why viewers should care about something — anything — else.

It’s been nearly three years since Carlson became a nighttime host on Fox News, and he’s since become the second-most-popular host in its conservative prime-time lineup, behind Hannity. His show consistently ranks as the most popular on all of cable during its time slot, not just cable news.

Carlson’s time in his high-profile perch coincides perfectly with the rise of the Trump administration and a hyper-focus on cable news.

“It’s been a really wild existence having nothing to do with the job necessarily but more to do with the moment where cable news seems closer to the center of the national conversation than it ever did,” Carlson said in a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post last week. “Trump is convinced that everything is about him, and his opponents are convinced that everything is about him. So in that, they are in total agreement.”

Already his show has provided the White House with a crucial counterprogram to the impeachment coverage on other networks. Expect that to continue.

“I think impeachment is not only dumb, it’s boring,” Carlson said.

He delivers the same message on his show.

“I’d like to open this evening with a breathless update on how some obscure diplomat you’ve never heard of said something forgettable to an even more obscure Ukrainian government official about a topic that has literally nothing to do with your life or the future of our country,” Carlson solemnly said on his show one night last week, only the mildest tug at the corner of his mouth. “Then we are going to drone on about this non-story for the entire hour tonight, and every night this week, hoping that by sheer volume and repetition, we can give it the illusion of relevance. Hope you find it edifying.”

Then, Carlson broke into a wide smile. “Just kidding. That’s [CNN CEO] Jeff Zucker’s channel. On this show, we’re opting for actual news, things that matter.”

Some of the things that matter to Carlson these days include topics such as: “CNN is reaching new lows” . . . Elites “siding with Fentanyl smugglers” . . . “Joe Biden’s campaign is the saddest thing to happen in America” . . . Former Democratic congresswoman Katie Hill “playing the victim” . . . Beto O’Rourke leaving the presidential race after “thoroughly humiliating himself.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who he said is admirable for her passion, is also, according to Carlson, “a wild-eyed left-winger” and “an unapologetic bigot.”

Carlson’s message hews closely to those of former Trump senior strategist Stephen K. Bannon and former attorney general Jeff Sessions, who announced his run for Senate on Carlson’s show last week. It is a mix of populism — even though Carlson rejects the label — and 21st-century culture wars, all wrapped up in a College Republican intellectualism.

Following the shooting of nine American Mormons living in Mexico, Carlson featured “the brutal war raging out of control just over the border of our two most populous states.” He said Mexico was “becoming a failed state.”

“Does it make sense not to secure our borders?” Carlson asked the sheriff of Cochise County, Ariz. No, it does not, the sheriff replied.

Carlson frequently goes beyond the biggest headlines of the day to find obscure stories, as he famously did in August 2018 when reporting on what he described as the plight of white farmers in South Africa. Soon after, Trump tweeted that he was having his secretary of state look into the situation, which drew an appreciative response from former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke. (The South African government attacked the segment as racially divisive.) White supremacist site Daily St**rmer has also praised Carlson’s work.

“Fox News opinion hosts are in the business of giving viewers what they want to hear, which is largely Trump-friendly perspective and even more so a suspicion or vilification of the media writ large and the left,” Rory Cooper, who served as an aide to former House majority leader Eric Cantor, said in an interview. “And I think it’s the latter part that is more sustaining than simply being pro-Trump.”

Cooper, who has known Carlson for years, said, “Tucker views himself as an antagonist, and he sees the entertainment value in that antagonism,” which represents “a business decision and a production decision — and I don’t know what Tucker really believes right now.”

Carlson has been the subject of two major advertising boycotts in a little over a year. In December, he bemoaned that the immigrants coming across the border make the country "poorer and dirtier," after which dozens of advertisers boycotted the show. In August, Carlson said white supremacy was "a hoax" of an issue, leading to another exodus. (According to a senior Fox executive, the number of advertisers on his show has recovered since August.)

During the first boycott, Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch reached out personally to support him. During the second one, it was Rupert Murdoch, Lachlan’s father, who reassured Carlson, according to people familiar with their exchanges.

Carlson defended himself against his critics and argued that he was not making a commentary about race, but an “economic critique of the people in charge.” Instead of engaging with his ideas on taxes or the economy, “they yell ‘racist’ at me in an effort to shut me up,” Carlson said.

His contention is that neoconservatives (a group of which he used to be a part) are too concerned with the health and well-being of populations abroad rather than those at home. He added: “The second critique is that capitalism has been distorted for the benefit of the few to the detriment of the many.”

Carlson, owing to inherited family wealth, is one of the few. He spends his summer in remote Maine with his wife and four children, alongside his brother, Buckley, and his family. They stay in a big old house that has been in their family a long time. He is an avid outdoorsman. His long stays in Maine are facilitated by a studio he had built in town, constructed partly from the wood he got from a friend of his in the area.

He does not drink or smoke, and Carlson announced in a surprise on-air celebration of his 50th birthday in May, that he had recently stopped a 36-year habit of chewing Nicorette gum, which he did when he wasn’t chewing tobacco.

Born in San Francisco, Carlson attended elite private schools and Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. His parents divorced when he was a child, and his father, who ran Voice of America and later became the U.S. ambassador to the Seychelles, married an heiress to the Swanson fortune, who adopted Tucker and his brother. His birth mother, who passed away in 2011, left her two sons $1 each in her will. It’s a topic that Carlson doesn’t like to discuss.

Carlson started off writing for conservative publications such as the Weekly Standard, and after turns at CNN and MSNBC, he landed at Fox News as a contributor in 2009. Two years later, he co-founded the conservative website The Daily Caller.

He was always conservative, but his views appeared to shift, turning against the Iraq War after having been a proponent of it. Eventually, Carlson co-hosted “Fox & Friends” on the weekends, renting a Midtown Manhattan apartment and commuting from Washington.

He stayed at Fox News and was ready to fill in when Greta Van Susteren left the network in November 2016. When Bill O’Reilly was forced out in the spring of the following year, Carlson took up his time slot.

His transformation from a bow tie-wearing Weekly Standard type to a Fox News firebrand has puzzled some of his former associates. His supporters say he has simply come into his own.

Brit Hume, senior political analyst at Fox News, said that “Tucker has always been a superior writer with an irreverent spirit, but his skills as a broadcaster have grown with time.”

Carlson also says his evolution was part of a natural progression.

“Everyone’s views have changed!” he said hotly. “America is a completely different place from what it was 28 years ago when I started in this business. A lot of the things I thought to be true turned out to be totally wrong,” he adds, rattling off the list. In addition to his support for the Iraq War: “I used to support the death penalty! I used to be pro-choice! I used to be in favor of our tax code! It’s hard to think of a view of mine that hasn’t changed.”

Like Trump, Carlson is part professional media critic, and he enjoys trashing cable news rivals CNN and MSNBC, as well as newspapers such as The Washington Post, which he calls "Bezos's pamphlet," and the New York Times. He keeps several televisions in his office tuned to his rivals and to Fox News and notes with disdain that "every one is about Trump."

Carlson’s approach has gained the appreciation of the Murdochs, who have grown concerned over Fox News’s seeming alignment with Trump, according to people who have spoken to Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch about the subject. Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Fox Corp., disputed this notion, adding that “the Murdochs value all the talent.”

Fox has always been defined by its prime-time opinion hosts, who are crucial to the network’s dominance in the ratings, and executives have begun to think about life after Trump.

They seem to be betting on Carlson. His recent on-air fight with longtime news anchor Shepard Smith in September was the final straw in Smith’s decision to leave the network after more than 20 years, according to people familiar with his departure, who requested anonymity to speak about private discussions. It represented a triumph of Fox News’s overheated opinion programming over a network veteran and frequent Trump critic. It was also interpreted as indicative of Carlson’s internal power given his seemingly favored status with the Murdochs.

Carlson and his Daily Caller co-founder Neil Patel penned a column in early October that began simply: “Donald Trump should not have been on the phone with a foreign head of state encouraging another country to investigate his political opponent, Joe Biden. Some Republicans are trying, but there’s no way to spin this as a good idea. Like a lot of things Trump does, it was pretty over-the-top.” But the column went on to argue that Trump’s actions do not merit impeachment.

“No one is pretending that this call with the Ukrainian president is why he’s being impeached,” said Carlson, even though that is exactly what Democrats are saying. “He’s being impeached because everyone hates him!”

Carlson has also provided the Murdochs with a vision of the future for the channel that just three years ago felt like it could be on the brink of collapse. He is a reminder to both Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch, who founded the network alongside Roger Ailes, that Fox can survive beyond its current stars.

“[Carlson] is the most important thing in that place,” says a former executive who has spoken recently with the family. “He’s that crucial to them.” Carlson’s success in prime time is for the elder Murdoch “proof that the enterprise was bigger than who had run it before,” said the former executive, who requested anonymity to describe private discussions.

For his part, Carlson was effusive about his bosses. “You couldn’t ask for a better relationship,” he said. “They are completely supportive. They are nice. They are fun to eat with. They’ve never asked me to go easy on this person or tough on that person. They always stood by the show when people were clamoring for my firing.”

He knows who will be writing his Fox News checks after Trump leaves office, be that five years from now or in just a few months.

 

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5 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

Dean Martin's daughter was on Fox News offering her opinion a day or two ago. Martin did the original "Baby,It's Cold Outside" that John Leg and and Kelly Clarkson remade.

Edited by JMarie
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Good grief. Hannity has "reached out to all 53 Senate republicans, we're asking them to answer some pretty simple questions."

1. Senators, will we allow the Schiff Sham Show to continue where hearsay and conjecture are now admissible evidence?

2.  Is the United States Senate going to allow an impeachment trial to continue where the accuser is a hearsay whistleblower?

3. Are we setting a precedent where the POTUS does not have a right to confront their accuser? Especially in this case, where the accuser is a hearsay whistleblower.

These are the senators who have responded (and we can assume they responded favorably in Hannity's eyes):

Lamar Alexander

Mike Braun

Steve Daines

Ben Sasse

Lindsey Graham

Thom Tillis

Roger Wicker

Josh Hawley

Mitch McConnell

He didn't say when he sent out this all important memo, but I have a feeling many were deleted unread.

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I just have one (rhetorical) question for Hannity... If Obama or Hillary did something as blatantly wrong as asking another country to investigate a political opponent before releasing aid, would he be okay with a whistleblower sounding the alarm?

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Silly, silly @Audrey2, of course Shamity would be fine with the whistleblower exposing Hillary and/or Obama, because they would have been guilty. Remember, their very existence indicates their guilt in any perceived issue.

Seriously, though, the non-stop hypocrisy is just mind-numbing. I know I fall on the left side of the political spectrum, but if a Dem did something so obviously wrong, I'd expect him or her to be punished according to the law.

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9 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I know I fall on the left side of the political spectrum, but if a Dem did something so obviously wrong, I'd expect him or her to be punished according to the law.

Which goes to show that you fall on the left side of the American political spectrum. :my_biggrin:

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2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

This is all true, I'm sure.

No, Jeanine, the correct term is sub-human.

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(bolding mine)

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/14/media/impeachment-hearing-fox-news-reliable-sources/index.html
 

I wanted to know what President Trump was hearing about day one of the televised impeachment hearings. So I decided to mute all my other TVs and just watch Fox News on Wednesday night.

I heard White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham say that "today was a joke." I heard Donald Trump Jr. say "it's insanity." I heard Jeff Sessions ask, "Where's the beef?"

Here's how I would sum up everything I heard from Fox's prime time hosts: Wednesday's hearing was a bust. It was all just hearsay. It was a "disaster" for the Democrats and a "great day" for the Republicans. Impeachment is "stupid." Impeachment is "fake." There's nothing impeachable here. There's no reason to hold hearings. This inquiry needs to stop right now.

The message was one-sided and overwhelming. Every host and practically every guest said the Republican tribe is winning and the Democrat tribe is losing. I'm sure the president loved watching every minute of it. That's one of the reasons why this right-wing rhetoric matters so much -- because it is reassuring and emboldening Trump.

I decided to write it all down because of something that CNN's Oliver Darcy wrote earlier in the day. "Don't expect viewers, listeners, and readers of right-wing media to walk away from Wednesday's impeachment hearings with a different opinion of President Trump's behavior," Darcy said. "In fact, it's possible they might be more convinced than ever that Trump did nothing wrong. Why? Because right-wing media has largely -- and unsurprisingly -- focused on the moments in the hearing favorable to its preferred narrative."

He was right. Here's what Fox News viewers heard on Wednesday night...

Tucker: "MEDIA MELTDOWN"

On the OTHER cable news channels, 8 p.m. host Tucker Carlson said, "it was like Christmas and New Year's and the Super Bowl all put together." Carlson seemed reluctant to cover Wednesday's news, calling the hearings "stupid" and the importance of the impeachment inquiry "questionable."

Grisham called it a "joke" while others made jokes — Christian Whiton said witnesses Bill Taylor and George Kent, both veteran public servants with impressive resumes, "looked like people who sat by themselves at recess."

It didn't end there. The witnesses were insulted all evening long. And Grisham said foreign service officials who are resisting Trump's policies should resign.

Later in the hour, Carlson mocked news outlets for taking this once-in-a-generation impeachment inquiry seriously. "The media went completely bonkers today," he said, while the on-screen graphic alleged a "MEDIA MELTDOWN." He agreed with his guest Larry O'Connor, who said America doesn't have a free press because the press is made up of "political activists."

Both speakers, by the way, are political activists, and the press IS free.

A few minutes later, Trish Regan on the Fox Business Network ran a similar media-bashing segment. At one point her banner just said "RPT: LIBERAL MEDIA ANTI-TRUMP BIAS," which is just a string of triggering words selected to keep Regan's viewers angry and attentive.

But I digress. Back to Fox News. Carlson wrapped his hour by calling the city where he lives, Washington, D.C., "a city in the grip of insanity." Then he handed off to Sean Hannity...

Hannity: Shut this down!

Hannity dubbed day one "THE WORST SHOW ON EARTH." He said the Democrats are "a national disgrace." He said they are guilty of "an abuse of their power." (This is a classic case of "I know you are but what am I," flipping the charge against Trump back on his accusers.)

The Democrats are "corrupt idiots" who look "dumb, bad, stupid, and shallow" after Wednesday's "sham hearing," he said. House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff? A "congenital liar." Wednesday's witnesses? Just "self-important, uncompelling" bureaucrats. The hearing was so bad, Hannity said, that "I'm not so sure" that all the House Democrats will vote for impeachment. "It was that bad a day for them."

But even though the day was "a disaster for Democrats," and "the Republicans had a great day all the way around," Hannity said "this circus, this sham, this charade" should be "shut down immediately" for "the sake of the country."

As for Hannity's guests, well, Mark Levin called Schiff "an incompetent left-wing boob" and likened the witnesses to "two homeless guys." Donald Trump Jr. said "everything was hearsay" from "career government bureaucrats." Steve Scalise said "a lot" of Democrats are worried about impeachment backfiring. Which brings me to the 10 p.m. hour...

Ed Henry shares hearsay

Laura Ingraham, like her prime time colleagues, criticized Democrats for promoting "hearsay" from witnesses who have never spoken directly with the president.

Ingraham also welcomed Fox's chief national correspondent Ed Henry, who said he had been working the phones on Capitol Hill. Henry said he spoke to "three senior Republicans" who told him that THEY were talking to Democrats who were "absolutely deflated" by Wednesday's hearing.

So... in other words... hearsay. Second-hand information.

Then, as if to back up the "deflated" claim, Henry quoted what a Dem aide told the Washington Post: "The onus is on us to wow some people this week." But that quote came out before Wednesday's hearing, so it did not prove his point. 

Ingraham's angle

These banners summed up Fox's 10 p.m. hour: "DEMOCRATS' STAR WITNESSES BURN OUT" and "DEMS' IMPEACHMENT COLLAPSE."

Ingraham asserted that impeachment is a "cataclysmic mistake" for the other party -- after just one day of televised testimony. One of her guests, Republican congressman Chris Stewart, said "it was really just a huge dud" and "there just wasn't any surprises or any bombshells," even though there was, in fact, a big surprise: Taylor's disclosure about a July 26 phone call with Gordon Sondland.

Later in the day, Trump claimed "I've never heard" of that call. Pretty soon we'll know whether or not that was a lie. But that new disclosure barely came up during Fox's prime time shows.

Another GOP lawmaker, Mark Meadows, told Ingraham that Wednesday was "a swing and a miss for the Democrats." And he accused the witnesses of having a "Ukraine first," not "America first," sentiment.

At one point in the hour, when Fox's banner said the "IMPEACHMENT STUNT WILL HAUNT 2020 DEMS," I looked up at MSNBC and saw a banner that said "REPUBLICANS SCRAMBLE TO DEFEND TRUMP AS NEW EVIDENCE TIES TRUMP MORE DIRECTLY TO UKRAINE PUSH."

Maybe Republican lawmakers are "scrambling" to defend Trump, but right-wing TV and radio hosts aren't scrambling at all. They're sounding very confident. Now, maybe that's just part of the performance, part of the act -- But Fox's stars on Wednesday night were much more effective than some of the GOP questioners at the hearing. They're not talking about the evidence of extortion -- they're talking about bitter Dems and brave Republicans and ensuring the audience that the process will hurt the Dems in 2020...

Notes and quotes

-- Try to square Fox's prime time talking points with "Fox News Sunday" moderator Chris Wallace's midday assessment: "I think that William Taylor was a very impressive witness and was very damaging to the president..." (The Hill)

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Fox News? More Like Trump’s Impeachment Shield

Quote

When President Richard Nixon’s Watergate misconduct was being dissected before congressional committees in 1973 and 1974, Republican support for him collapsed because most Americans shared news sources and inhabited a similar political reality.

In short, facts mattered.

Aides to Nixon did propose to him a plan to create sympathetic television news coverage; Roger Ailes backed the idea; and it eventually evolved into Fox News. And today Fox gives President Trump an important defense system that Nixon never had.

Fox was the most popular television network for watching the first day of impeachment hearings this week, with 2.9 million viewers (57 percent more than CNN had), and Fox viewers encountered a very different hearing than viewers of other channels.

With Rep. Adam Schiff on the screen, Fox News’s graphic declared in all caps: “TRUMP HAS REPEATEDLY IMPLIED THAT SCHIFF HAS COMMITTED TREASON.” At a different moment, the screen warned: “9/26: SCHIFF PUBLICLY EXAGGERATED SUBSTANCE OF TRUMP-ZELENSKY CALL.”

Fox downplayed the news and undermined the witnesses. While Ambassador William Taylor was shown testifying, the Fox News screen graphic declared: “OCT 23: PRESIDENT TRUMP DISMISSED TAYLOR AS A “NEVER TRUMPER.” It also suggested his comments were, “TRIPLE HEARSAY.”

Researchers have found that Fox News isn’t very effective at informing Americans. A 2012 study by Fairleigh Dickinson University reported that watching Fox News had “a negative impact on people’s current events knowledge.”

The study found that those who regularly watched Fox News actually knew less about both domestic and international issues than those who watched no news at all. N.P.R. listeners were particularly well-informed, the study found, but even people who got their news from a comedy program like “The Daily Show” — or who had no news source whatsoever — knew more about current events than Fox viewers.

That may be correlation rather than causation, but at the least it suggests that viewers of Fox News don’t actually learn much.

Yet if Fox News doesn’t inform citizens, it does sway their votes. Two Stanford scholars, Gregory J. Martin and Ali Yurukoglu, published a paper in American Economic Review in 2017 suggesting that without the network, the Republican share of the vote for president would have been 0.46 percentage points lower in 2000, 3.6 points lower in 2004 and 6.3 percentage points lower in 2008.

Let’s pause here to acknowledge that Fox News has some excellent reporters, and let me just say that I’m jealous of Chris Wallace’s interviewing skill. It’s unfair that the real Fox reporters are tainted by blowhards like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, who engage less in journalism than in presidential public relations.

There’s no easy solution at a time when we’re all so polarized, but we can try to stand up for democratic and journalistic norms. It’s of course true that I live in a glass house. I’ve made countless mistakes in my career, and this newspaper makes them almost every day.

Yet that shouldn’t have stopped us from criticizing Father Charles Coughlin’s anti-Semitic radio broadcasts in the 1930s, and it shouldn’t stop us today from pointing out that Fox regularly hands the microphone to a guest, Joseph DiGenova, who might have made Joe McCarthy blush with this absurd anti-Semitic rant: “There’s no doubt that George Soros controls a very large part of the career Foreign Service at the United States State Department.”

While Democrats feel victimized by Fox News and allies like Rush Limbaugh, it’s also true that this right-wing cocoon is a disservice to its own true believers — because it feeds them misinformation. We saw that in the Iraq War, when Fox News anticipated that troops would be welcomed with flowers and that the war would pay for itself.

Early in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I spent a scary, violent day with U.S. troops, and that night we watched a feed of Fox News — and our jaws dropped as commentators ridiculed critics of the invasion and blithely insisted that Iraqis were welcoming us as heroes. The troops and I looked at each other in astonishment.

The right-wing media bubble and its conspiracy theories can even be lethal. During the 2009-10 swine flu epidemic, Democrats and Republicans initially expressed roughly equal concern. But then conservative commentators denounced the Obama administration’s calls for vaccination as a nefarious plot. Glenn Beck, then of Fox News, warned that he would do “the exact opposite” of what the administration recommended.

As a result, Democrats in the end were 50 percent more likely to seek vaccination than Republicans, according to the Journal of Health, Politics and Law. Some 18,000 people died in that flu epidemic, so it seems logical that some died because they believed Fox News.

I wonder if Fox viewers are again being misled when they watch Hannity celebrate the opening of the impeachment hearings as a victory for Trump and as “a lousy day for the corrupt, do-nothing-for-three-years radical extreme socialist Democrats.” That is, shall we say, a quixotic interpretation.

In the meantime, Fox News is aggressively defending Trump, joining in smears of public servants and playing a role in history that embarrasses many of us in journalism.

 

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Well, at least they're living up to that banner behind them.

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"Reality invades ‘Fox & Friends’"

Spoiler

“Fox & Friends” will forever be “Fox & Friends,” the morning show where President Trump can always count on the benefit of the doubt. Yet on Friday morning, the three anchors of the highly rated program essentially declared that they’re not “Hannity.” They’re not going that far.

In a stem-winder 53-minute telephone interview Friday morning on “Fox & Friends,” Trump elaborated on themes that he stokes on Twitter: That House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is a “sick puppy”; that the “phony fake dossier” constituted evidence that the Democrats were out to sabotage his campaign; that corruption is bad; and that you can’t hear someone else’s phone calls just by hanging out nearby: “Well, I have really good hearing. And I’ve been watching guys for 40 years make phone calls. And I can’t hear when — you could be two feet away; I can’t hear people making calls,” Trump said, attempting to debunk testimony in the impeachment hearing from an embassy official who claims to have overheard a phone call involving Trump and U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland.

It wouldn’t be a presidential “Fox & Friends” interview if Trump didn’t declare his devotion to the couch trio. “I get the word out on your show. I love your show,” Trump said in the closing moments of the session.

On this particular show, the word was a little wobbly. Perhaps expecting a bunch of nods from his hosts, Trump spun out one of his most self-serving lies/conspiracy theories, regarding the compromised server of the Democratic National Committee: “A lot of it had to do, they say, with Ukraine,” Trump said. “They have the server, right? From the DNC ... they gave the server to CrowdStrike — or whatever it’s called — which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian, and I still want to see that server. You know, the FBI has never gotten that server. That’s a big part of this whole thing. Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company?”

Co-host Steve Doocy wasn’t going to let Trump go on that one. "Are you sure they did that? Are you sure they gave it to Ukraine?” asked Doocy, prompting a well-trodden bit of Trumpian nonsense: “Well, that’s what the word is,” the president said.

Then “Fox & Friends” actually set up the president. Co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked him straight-up if there was any quid pro quo or bribery in his dealings with Ukraine, referencing the by-now-well-established fact that Trump, though personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, schemed to condition military aid to Ukraine and an Oval Office with President Volodymyr Zelensky on his announcement of an investigation into the Bidens.

“No, not at all,” responded Trump, who moved on to free-associating madness: “And let me tell you, he’s a sick puppy. He’s so sick. This guy is so — I’ve been going through it for 2½ years about Russia. I’ve been tougher on Russia than any president in history. But for 2½ years, I’ve had to listen. This was their talking point, Trump and Russia.”

With that denial established, co-host Brian Kilmeade — who has been the most Trump-skeptical of the three co-hosts in the past — placed this inquiry before him: “Mr. President, a couple of days ago, [Sondland] in his opening statement said that there was quid pro quo. ‘There was quid pro quo,’ he said, because you wanted an investigation into corruption, in exchange for a visit to the White House or something like that.”

Again Trump had trouble putting together a coherent thought: “Yeah, well, that’s total nonsense. I do want — always corruption. I say that to anybody. Why should we give money to a country that’s known corrupt? It’s a very corrupt country. I mean, I love the people in Ukraine. I know Ukrainian people. They’re great people.”

The conversation rambled on from there, with Trump filibustering via phone. Kilmeade intervened just enough, however, to ask Trump the sort of question you might hear on other TV news outlets: “Why was it necessary to put Rudy in the middle of the Ukraine, a country he knew little about, as opposed to let the people do their jobs there and just give the same mission?”

Trump responded as if he’d been asked how well he knew the central figures in the Ukraine impeachment proceedings: “Okay. First of all, [Kurt] Volker, I don’t know him," he said. "Don’t know him. But this guy, Sondland, hardly know him. I’ve had a couple of conversations with him. I see him hanging around, you know, when I go to Europe. But he was really the European Union ambassador, and all of a sudden he’s working on this, and, you know, ask about that.”

Given his many years of friendship with “Fox & Friends,” Trump felt enough kinship to place the hosts on the same page regarding the whistleblower who kicked off this entire affair. In weeks past, news organizations have struggled with the ethical question of whether to print the whistleblower’s identity, if indeed they could verify it. Conservative media outlets have taken the step of indeed naming an alleged whistleblower, prompting this exchange:

Steve Doocy: Do you think you know who it is?

President Trump: I know exactly who it is. Everybody does.

Steve Doocy: Is he still there? Does he go to meetings —

President Trump: Everybody does —

Steve Doocy: —does he go to meetings?

President Trump: And by the way, you know who the whistleblower is, too. Otherwise, you’re not doing your job. You know the — everybody knows it. If the whistleblower were on the other side, they would have revealed the whistleblower two months ago.

Moments later — perhaps after getting prodded by his producer — Doocy stopped the transition into a new topic: “Let me just interrupt for a second. Mr. President, you said we know the name of the whistleblower. We’ve seen names on the Internet. We have no idea who the whistleblower is.”

There’s some context to Doocy’s intrusion. Fox News had a minor flareup recently when a guest came on the air and blurted out a name alleged to be that of the whistleblower. Fox News put out a statement saying that it hadn’t verified the identity. It wasn’t a proud moment, and apparently the network was not going to relive it.

The real-time clarification irked Trump. “I don’t think Steve has ever told a lie, Ainsley and Brian, in his life. But that one I’m sort of thinking, ‘ ////, come on,'” said the most prominent and prolific liar in American political history.

There was more, of course, as there tends to be in a nearly hour-long interview with a president who has little to do. Earhardt got Trump to douse the speculation that he would abandon Vice President Pence for Nikki Haley as his running mate in 2020. They talked about China; they talked about his physical over the weekend.

In one telling moment, Trump suggested that he’s not in charge of his own media decisions, only to retract such a notion: “If it was up to me — and it is up to me, and we’ll do it more often,” he said, referring to his appearances on “Fox & Friends.”

“More often” would doubtless suit the folks at “Fox & Friends.” The president, after all, feels so comfy in these confines that he makes news even when he’s not being asked pertinent questions. CNN, for instance, found 58 “bananas” comments from Trump. And even when they’re inclined to press the president on this or that, the “Fox & Friends” crew cannot possibly keep pace with his lies and distortions. Meaning, the main casualties are the truth and a few Fox News commercial breaks.

 

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In case anyone had any doubts about Faux’s true allegiance:

 

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"Fox News guest nails it: ‘Why in hell does Tucker Carlson have a job here?’"

Spoiler

Fox News host Tucker Carlson is a propagandist, though a clever and savvy one. And on his program Monday night, he was up to the usual routine of discrediting the entire Democratic presidential field — talking up their divisions and reaching far to fetch a solution. Michelle Obama, he said, was “one of the only people who could unite the party’s warring factions.”

On the morning program “America’s Newsroom,” host Bill Hemmer used Carlson’s comments to introduce a chat with Michael Blake, a New York state assemblyman and a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. “What do you think about the prediction on Michelle Obama?” Hemmer asked. “Would you like to see that?”

It was a curious way to premise a conversation on the Democratic presidential race, as Blake noted in his response. “Well, she’s not running,” Blake stated right off the bat.

Then came the haymakers: “But the core question is why in hell does Tucker Carlson still have a job here in the first place. The reality is this is someone who said white supremacy is a hoax and why does Fox allow him to still be here in the first place?”

Phenomenal question! Over the summer Carlson did indeed aver that white nationalism is a hoax — a false claim of the gaslighting variety. In truth, white nationalism is alive and, unfortunately, thriving. It even has a champion in the White House. Another point Blake might have noted is that Carlson has accused Democrats of hating their own country, even though Carlson remains a registered Democrat.

It will not surprise die-hard Fox News viewers that the smooth Hemmer managed his way out of this live on-air bind with aplomb. Here’s how he and Blake socked it out:

Hemmer: Well, I mean, his opinion there was that Michelle Obama may get in this race. Do you think that will happen or do you not?

Blake: Not going to happen but I think the core question is he shouldn’t be on here at all.

Hemmer: I got it. We didn’t bring you on to talk about Tucker Carlson. I brought you on here to talk about the Democratic field.

Blake, though, wasn’t content with just a single jab at Fox News on Fox News. He kept at it. As Blake gave his broad view of contemporary politics, he couldn’t help but include mention of the network on which he was unfurling his analysis. “People are sick and tired of the noise out of D.C.,” said Blake. “We’re talking about jobs while [President] Trump is ignoring the truth. We’re talking about health care while he’s ignoring the truth and the question must be for Donald Trump, for Fox News and for other entities,” said Blake, in a fit of on-the-mark wisdom.

Hemmer barged in: “Listen, I didn’t bring you on to bash our network, so with all due respect, why don’t we just keep it on topic.”

Blake rebutted: “But it’s relevant.”

Hemmer: “No, it’s not.”

Blake: “Well, the Tucker Carlson premise.”

Hemmer: “It is not relevant to the conversation we’re having. Save it for later.”

With that, Hemmer undercut his own credibility as a host on the supposedly “straight news” side of Fox News. When it comes to the ongoing presidential race, Fox News is absolutely “relevant.” Its opinion hosts — chiefly Carlson and Sean Hannity, two of the most powerful people in the U.S. United States today — either set or regurgitate talking points for Trump and his lackeys in Congress. It discredits truth-telling mainstream media outlets when they report negative things about Trump and hails them when they report negative things about Democrats. Its viewers regard those opinion hosts as cultural heroes and flawless truth-tellers. It provides a farm system for Trump administration recruits.

All of this is out there in plain sight. Fox News is such a powerful component of contemporary politics that any straightforward analysis of the presidential contest must include mention of the network. That Blake did it with such detachment and matter-of-fact delivery slammed the point home.

Fox News likes to say that its news division — home to Hemmer, Bret Baier, Martha MacCallum and others — and its opinion people — Carlson, Hannity, “Fox & Friends” and others — are separate entities. If so, why would Hemmer use a comment from Carlson to kick off a segment on the supposedly straight news program “America’s Newsroom”? The thing is, Fox News has a history of doing just that — taking clips from Hannity or former host Bill O’Reilly or Carlson and using them to launch segments. Hemmer & Co. beware: There is great risk in this juxtaposition.

And, more importantly, there is no substantive rebuttal to Blake’s objections. Hemmer did his best to steer clear of the force field created by the corruption of his own employer, insisting that Fox News was irrelevant to the discussion. But he didn’t venture a defense of Carlson because there is no defense of Carlson.

As to Blake’s question of why Carlson remains in the employ of Fox News, there’s a twofold answer: One, because he gets good ratings. Two, because his divisive style has won the support of his bosses, the Murdochs. Which is to say, he has a job because he says things like white nationalism is a hoax, not despite them.

 

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Because management at Faux doesn't care what the "personalities" do: "Fox News personalities continue to stump for GOP candidates"

Spoiler

When Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro appeared onstage at a rally for President Trump last year, Fox publicly rebuked them. The network said it didn’t “condone” its employees’ direct involvement in behalf of political candidates and causes. It also said it had “addressed” the issue with Hannity and Pirro, implying it had put the matter to rest.

Except maybe not.

Despite Fox’s apparent misgivings about the practice, Pirro and other Fox hosts and paid contributors have attended Republican fundraisers and stumped for GOP candidates in recent weeks. The practice, apparently routine at Fox News, is unusual elsewhere; most news organizations prohibit their employees from such participation on the grounds that it compromises the independence of the organization.

For example, Pirro, the host of the weekly Fox News program “Justice With Judge Jeanine,” appeared at an event hosted by the Volusia County Republican Party in Daytona Beach, Fla., last month. The keynote speaker at the gathering was Dan Bongino, a regular Fox contributor and sometime fill-in host for Hannity. Another Fox contributor, Tomi Lahren, keynoted the event in 2018.

The next week, Pirro appeared at a fundraiser staged by the Seminole County Republican Party outside Orlando.

Mark Levin, who hosts a Sunday evening program on Fox News, was the featured speaker at a rally in behalf of Republican state Senate candidate Geary Higgins of Virginia last month. He was also the headline attraction at a fundraiser for Higgins in May.

After Levin’s involvement with Higgins was highlighted by Media Matters for America, the liberal anti-Fox organization, Levin pushed back on his radio program. “Let me explain something to [Media Matters] and the whole world: I didn’t violate any rules, number one. Number two is: I will never be silenced. Ever. . . . They don’t get to tell me what to do. Nobody does. . . . Nobody on this planet is going to stop me. No corporation. No left-wing group funded by billionaire, America-hating pukes. Nobody.”

Others at Fox News who have appeared this year before Republican or conservative groups include news anchor Shannon Bream, legal analyst Gregg Jarrett and commentator Rachel Campos-Duffy.

Jarrett was the featured speaker at the Columbiana County (Ohio) Republican Party’s annual dinner in April. He will also be the headliner for the Trump Club 45 USA organization, which bills itself as the largest pro-Trump group in the nation, at its meeting later this month in West Palm Beach, Fla.

The commentary duo known as Diamond and Silk (Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson), who co-host a program on the Fox Nation streaming service, headlined a Trump campaign event in October in Pennsylvania.

News organizations typically prohibit their employees from associating themselves with political causes, candidates or organizations in any public way. The restriction is intended to maintain the news organization’s independence from any candidate or party; directly assisting in fundraising for a partisan cause or candidate is widely considered a breach of that independence. The rules at some organizations even ban placing yard signs at employees’ homes or putting campaign bumper stickers on their cars.

The Washington Post, New York Times, NBC News, MSNBC, NPR and the Associated Press all said on Monday that news employees aren’t permitted to speak to or to fundraise in behalf of political organizations. They were unaware of any employees who had violated these rules in the past year.

Fox appears to be different. Critics have frequently noted that its opinion hosts, and sometimes its news division, favor Republican candidates and have been especially friendly to Trump. By appearing at rallies or speaking at fundraising events, the network’s hosts and contributors risk making the connection to the party more than just a rhetorical one.

“I do think that this shows how blurred the lines are at Fox News, where the talent doesn’t neatly divide between news and advocacy,” said Bill Grueskin, a professor at the Columbia Journalism School. He added, “If a newsperson is being used to sell tickets, that’s a problem.”

In fact, Republican groups trade on the Fox News personalities’ prominence in their promotional literature for their fundraisers, sometimes using Fox News’s logo to help sell tickets.

Fox declined to address specific instances, but a spokeswoman said the network has addressed the issue with its contributors and hosts, as well as third-party agents who book events. She did not say how it was addressed or why it continues to arise more than a year after Hannity and Pirro’s appearances at Trump’s rally.

However, behind the scenes, the network appears to have to gone to considerable effort to stop its on-air personalities from promoting Republican events and causes. Network executives have intervened to cancel a long string of fundraising appearances that were to have featured Fox News figures, according to people at Fox, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe its internal operations.

Among others, Pirro has been asked to cancel eight events that she was scheduled to speak or appear at this year, including seven since September, according to internal documents. The canceled events include four fundraisers for Trump’s reelection campaign in Florida, and a “Jexit” brunch rally featuring Trump associate and felon Roger Stone at the Trump International Hotel in Washington in October (“jexit” refers to a movement to encourage Jews to leave the Democratic Party).

Brian Kilmeade, co-host of the “Fox & Friends” morning program, canceled his participation in a Republican fundraiser in Tennessee in January. Kilmeade was due to be the keynote speaker for the event, in which ticket prices started at $150 per person and a reception with Kilmeade cost $200. The group cited “scheduling conflicts” for Kilmeade’s nonappearance.

Bream, a Fox anchor, canceled her keynote address to the James Madison Institute, a Florida think tank that has received funding from libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch. The group didn’t explain Bream’s cancellation in a news release.

And Pete Hegseth, who co-hosts the weekend version of “Fox & Friends,” canceled on the Bridgeport (Conn.) Republican Town Committee fundraiser in April after the event was flagged by Media Matters.

 

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Former ambassador to Russia responds to tucker:

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