Tag: Fox News

Texas police fact-check Tucker Carlson’s ‘gross mischaracterization’ of Black Lives Matter protest

AlterNet logoFox News host Tucker McNair Swanson Carlson kicked off his primetime program Monday with a monologue about a protest in Texas, which was so ridded with inaccuracies that the Fort Worth Police Department felt compelled to issue its own fact-check.

In a lengthy diatribe, Carlson conceded that Black Lives Matter was more popular than President Donald Trump by 20 points and claimed that the mantra was “the entire premise behind our founding documents.” However, those documents literally said black lives mattered three-fifths as much as those of landowners who were free, male and white.

Carlson then turned his focus to Fort Worth Police Chief Ed Kraus, who the Fox News host criticized for what he described as a negligent level of obsequy to violent protesters. Carlson said he chose to call out Fort Worth, in particular, because the city was led by a Republican. This statement was essentially the extent of his accuracy. Continue reading.

Fox News Personalities Uniformly Defend Monuments To Treason

In 2015, after a white supremacist gunned down nine Black worshipers in a Charleston, South Carolina, church and calls to dismantle the symbols of racism and slavery grew louder, Fox figures rallied around the Confederate flag. When state leaders, led by then-Gov. Nikki Haley, ordered the flag’s removal from public buildings, Bill O’Reilly used his Fox prime-time perch to say it “represents, to some, bravery in the Civil War because the Confederates fought hard.” Then-Fox personality Kimberly Guilfoyle speculated about whether the American flag would be next.

In 2017, when a white supremacist mowed down a crowd of protesters at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia — which was spuriously organized around the city’s plan to remove a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee from a local park — the same pattern emerged. Fox figures defended President Donald Trump’s false equivalence between white supremacists and the counterprotesters at the rally. And they asked whether book burning or removing the U.S. Capitol stone by stone would come next.

Today, the Confederate battle flag and other racist monuments are back in the news. Amid continued nationwide protests over police brutality against Black Americans in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, protesters have begun toppling statues of Confederates and colonizers alike. Continue reading.

Fox News removes manipulated images from coverage of Seattle protests

Washington Post logoFox News on Friday removed manipulated images that had appeared on its website as part of the outlet’s coverage of protests over the killing of George Floyd, which has occasioned peaceful assemblies in cities across the country and, in Seattle, given rise to an unusual experiment in self-government.

The misleading material ran alongside stories about a small expanse of city blocks in Seattle that activists have claimed as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

The police-free environment has become an object of scorn for right-wing activists and President Trump. As protesters occupied a six-block area surrounding an abandoned police precinct — and as Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan (D) promised to protect their First Amendment rights — Trump this week labeled them “domestic terrorists” and pledged to “take back” the city if state and local officials didn’t. Continue reading.

Tucker Carlson’s Racism Repels Five Big Fox Advertisers

Update: Shortly after this post was published, Vari dropped Carlson’s program as well.

Over the past 72 hours, Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show lost four major advertisers: T-Mobile, SmileDirectClub, Disney and Papa John’s.

This recent advertising loss began on Tuesday when T-Mobile announced that it would no longer advertise on Carlson’s Fox News program. T-Mobile’s CEO Mike Sievert also weighed in, responding to a Twitter user who had asked if the company supported a program like Carlson’s by saying that “It definitely is not. Bye-bye Tucker Carlson! #BlackLivesMatter”

On Wednesday, SmileDirectClub, Disney, and Papa John’s all confirmed they would likewise cease advertising on Carlson’s prime-time show. This is a major loss for Carlson and Fox News as a whole. Continue reading.

Fox News Corners White House Spokesman: How Does Trump Unite Anyone by Attacking Mattis?

“He’s the former defense secretary for this president. That’s uniting people, calling him the ‘most overrated’?”

Fox News anchor Ed Henry cornered White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley into a trap of his own making on Thursday when the veteran host repeatedly grilled the flack on President Donald Trump’s attacks on his former Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis.

Mattis, who resigned in late 2018 over Trump’s Syria policy, issued a strong rebuke on Wednesday of the president’s “bizarre photo op” at St. John’s Episcopal Church, calling it “an abuse of executive authority” and an example of Trump’s “deliberate effort” to divide Americans. The president, meanwhile, responded by falsely claiming he fired Mattis, calling him “the most overrated general.”

During an interview on America’s Newsroom, Gidley was asked to weigh in on the “war of words” between Trump and his former cabinet official. The Trump flack claimed the former U.S. Central Command leader had his “head in the sand” over the massive protests amid George Floyd’s death. Continue reading.

‘Carnage,’ ‘radicals,’ ‘overthrow the government’: How Fox and other conservative media cover the protests

Washington Post logoConservative news outlets and pundits covering the protests erupting across the country this week have mostly emphasized images of destruction and chaos, blaming “organized” elements for the mayhem and framing President Trump’s calls for a military response as necessary to gain order.

Echoing Trump, some were quick to attribute the violence, without much evidence, to “antifa,” a loosely knit faction of far-left activists known for physically confronting far-right radicals that Trump tried to designate a domestic terrorist organization on Sunday.

“Unfortunately, far-left radicals unleashed this carnage, this destruction across American cities,” Sean Hannity, Fox News Channel’s most popular prime-time opinion host, said on Monday night. His colleague Laura Ingraham went so far as to call it an attempt to “overthrow” the government. Continue reading.

Amid National Crisis, Trump Is Still Taking Cues From Fox News

You can’t disaggregate President Donald Trump’s unnervingly aggressive tweets over the past few days in response to nationwide protests from the context of the cable news coverage he’s been watching. American cities are burning, and Fox News is encouraging Trump to pour fuel on the fire.

Protests are ongoing in cities across the country in response to police violence and racism, sparked by the recent police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky. Those overwhelmingly peaceful protests have spurred an eruption of police violence toward protesters and journalists alike, as well as rioting, arson, looting, and vandalism from a small minority acting out of anger or opportunism.

Trump did not give a public address to the nation over the weekend about this crisis, reportedly because he had nothing to say. Instead, he spent that time doing what he usually does: watching Fox News and using Twitter to lash out at the enemies its hosts identify, whether they be Democratic state and local officials supposedly keeping the police from doing their jobs or purported antifa “domestic terrorists.” The network’s hosts and guests are calling for law enforcement to respond with extreme levels of force and the president is parroting their demands for further escalation, risking an even more disastrous conflagration. Continue reading.

Chris Wallace Slams Kayleigh McEnany: ‘I Never Saw A W.H. Press Sec. Act Like That’

The Fox News anchor went after the White House press secretary for her behavior at Friday’s press briefing.

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace took aim at White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Sunday, slamming her for going after reporters about their religious faith and for telling them what questions they should be asking.

McEnany had on Friday accused journalists of “desperately” wanting churches and places of worship to stay closed after she was questioned about President Donald Trump’s claim he would “override” governors who ignored his demand to immediately reopen churches amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A reporter was asking what legal authority the president has to do so.
“I spent six years in the White House briefing room covering Ronald Reagan. I have to say, I never — and in the years since too — I never saw a White House press secretary act like that,” Wallace said to a panel on “Fox News Sunday.” Continue reading.

Fox News’ Sean Hannity gets caught flat-footed when Mark Cuban demolishes Trump live on air

AlterNet logoBillionaire Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban publicly called out President Donald Trump for “always playing the victim card” during a Wednesday appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show.

“This is what really bothers me about the president: He’s the most powerful man in the world, and he always plays the victim card,” Cuban said. “‘The Dems are out to get me! The media is out to get me!’”

“You’ve got to be the leader,” the billionaire added. “You’ve got to be the strongest man in the game, and he just hasn’t shown that strength.” Continue reading.

Trump attacks Fox News for ‘doing nothing to help Republicans, and me,’ get reelected

It was the president’s second Twitter tirade this week against a network that has generally treated him favorably.

President Donald Trump launched a Twitter tirade against Fox News on Thursday — the second one this week — accusing the network of “doing nothing to help Republicans” and himself get reelected in November.

The president has been quick to attack the network, especially after host Neil Cavuto criticized the president on Monday for saying he was taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventive measure against the coronavirus, despite health experts’ warnings. Trump on Thursday listed Cavuto along with other hosts and contributors he is disgruntled with, calling them “garbage” and adding that Fox News used to be “great.”

“Many will disagree, but @FoxNews is doing nothing to help Republicans, and me, get re-elected on November 3rd,” the president tweeted. “Sure, there are some truly GREAT people on Fox, but you also have some real ‘garbage’ littered all over the network, people like Dummy Juan Williams, Schumerite Chris…Hahn, Richard Goodstein, Donna Brazile, Niel Cavuto, and many others.” Continue reading.