It's the Fox News, stupid.

[garybeck]

Last edited Fri May 28, 2021, 04:07 PM - Edit history (1)

Yesterday on one of the MSNBC shows I heard the pundits debating what is really the root cause, the seed, what started all of this insanity on the right and discontent in our country. Just 10 or 15 years ago it was not nearly this bad.

For several minutes I heard them go back and forth about it.

I think it was Eugene Robinson, who said it boils down to people on the right being concerned about abortion and guns, and it's just gotten worse in the last few years, for whatever reason.

No.
HELL NO!
FUCK NO!

It's FOX NEWS. Fox News (and yes, other right wing "news" outlets including Rush Limbaugh on the radio and many others) have and continue to fan the flames, to make things worse, to vilify progressives, to enrage people, to blatantly lie, to cover up the truth, and to brainwash 40% of america.

We have to understand, the asswipes on fox news don't give a shit about abortion or guns. Half of them have probably had an abortion themselves, or forced their girlfriend to have one. They don't care about the truth, they don't care about journalism, I'm not sure what the fuck they care about, other than perhaps money in their pocket.

but the truth is, as long as we continue to blame these escalating and dangerous problems on the issues that divide us, things will just get worse.

There will always be issues that divide us and that is a good thing, for the most part.

BUT WHEN PEOPLE ARE TURNING ON THE NEWS AND BEING DECEIVED AND LIED TO AND ENCOURAGED TO TURN HONORABLE DISAGREEMENTS INTO RAGE AND HATRED, OUR PROBLEMS ARE ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE.

If there was ONE THING we could fix, or remove to make our country better, it would not be to get rid of Trump, or to put him in jail. It would be to fix the media problem and in particular the right wing media who continuously lies and enrages everyone who watches it.

FUCK FOX NEWS!

If people weren't turning on the news and getting purposely enraged by lies, a lot of this shit would not be happening.

I don't know what the solution is, but I do know what the problem is. It's right wing media.

I understand there is free speech and there is freedom of the press. but they are breaking both and until something is done about it we are screwed.

[tosh]

1. The absolute truth.

K&R.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

2. + 1000

This is, indeed, the core of the problem.

Innuendo, lies, and propaganda.

Oh ... and there's a whole lot of stupid people lacking critical thinking skills (or at minimum, with no desire to use them).

[Justice matters.]

3. And its owneR lives the good-multimillions life in Australia ffs.

[SheilaAnn]

4. The sad thing is many of Fox watchers won't admit they are their news source. They're embarrassed

and know they're lies but they're lies they WANT to believe so there we are. I know this just from the trumpers in my building. They won't admit they watch Fox but we all know they do. They listen to podcasts from the right that are all lies, lies they want to believe in so....

[Ligyron]

13. THIS!!!

[tiredtoo]

5. Thinking Reagan had a lot to do with this

Remember "Government is not the solution to our problems, government is our problem."

[Mr.Bill]

8. And he wanted to be in charge of the problem. n/t

[KS Toronado]

6. Honesty in the news media needs addressed before the next insurrection succeeds.

[Traildogbob]

7. In war

The military strategy is first take out communications. So when they start their little armed takeover, our first targets need to be Murdock and Fox. Then the next loudest mouth. We would be welcomed and treated as liberators. Providing democracy in yet another country. This time ours. A worthy cause.

[GoodRaisin]

9. Yup. Fox News pushes propaganda all day long everyday.

Guns and abortion are some of the subsets of the hate and lies they push, but yeah, it's Fox News who is delivering it.

[ramapo]

10. Reagan, RW radio, Fox

Nixon, McCarthy (Joe), segregationists, and so on

[Pepsidog]

11. Absolutely correct. Thus is Fox inspired insanity conditioning viewers minds with hatred. From the

personalities to the breaking news chyrons are all designed to brainwash the ignorant masses who are to lazy to learn the truth. It’s is really the biggest propaganda outlet the world has ever seen. Murdoch should be given the Mussolini treatment.

[tblue37]

12. Propaganda works.

[Nululu]

14. Decline of middle class, high cost of living, lack of opportunity

Instead of focusing on the 1 percent who took over the country through propaganda they focus anger on each other. Everyone is fighting over scraps. Today the wealthy are immune to recession.

[aggiesal]

15. What gets me is that any broadcast over the air requires an FCC license ...

but broadcast over cable or website, no license is required.
That's why Faux News can broadcast with impunity, because they are cable based.
Local Faux affiliates do not broadcast lies consistently except with lies of omission.

On top of that the courts in Florida have already decided that just because you
have an FCC license, does not mean that you have to tell the truth. The court said that.

I think all forms of disseminating any type of news in this country should require a license
and that license should require the licensee to inform truthfully.

Call it a communications license.

[Bev54]

16. Fox News has also been responsible for the loss of reputation around the world

When I lived overseas I watched CNN International and BBC. In early 2000's along came Fox. While CNN and BBC were International and at that time only a few domestic shows were aired. Fox does not have an separate International arm and so it is exactly as you get domestically. People would watch the station and think that is how Americans think. It did not go well for your reputation. Finally the UK have prohibited them, I am Canadian and am trying to get my cable company to drop them from the news package.

[TwilightZone]

17. It's more than Fox News.

Their audience is perpetually overestimated by DU and many of our compatriots on the left.

Right-wing talk radio and right-wing social media are also huge factors in the dumbing down of the right. Talk radio is arguably the biggest factor. The audience is many multiples that of Fox News.

We also underestimate the number of people for whom abortion and guns are major issues, often the only issues they care about. And the number of people who are generational Republicans who will never vote for a Democrat regardless.

It's human nature to try to simplify things into nice, bite-sized pieces, but everything mentioned is a factor.

As an aside, Eugene Robinson is brilliant. Anything he opines should be taken seriously.

[garybeck]

18. read the op...

of coruse it is not just fox news. it's right wing radio. it's newsmax. it's ben shapiro. and on and on. but they're all the same. rightwing media that lies and incites hatred and anger on the right.

[Dustlawyer]

19. All the networks do this to some extent which is why the pundits won't say much on the subject.

There are many stories we don’t hear of because their advertisers don’t want it talked about. RW media takes it further in deliberately misleading their viewers to manipulate opinions.

Until and unless this is addressed our country will continue its downward spiral.

The other root cause is our campaign (bribery) finance system. The networks are the beneficiaries of all of that campaign money so we will not hear much on that front as well.

[pandr32]

20. Bravo!

Well said.

[Caliman73]

21. Poor analysis by the panel.

There has always been a divide. People always had issues with guns and abortion, and other things.

As you correctly pointed out. The major change since the 1990's is the introduction of a dedicated, right wing propaganda ecosystem in the media. Conservatives knew as early as the 1960's that their policies and ideas were not popular with the majority of people. This is why they cobbled together their coalition or reactionaries and went all in on racial, gender, and religious grievance. Nixon was a mainline Protestant and Reagan wasn't even religious until Nancy Reagan pushed it. Pat Buchanan and Roger Ailes worked in the Nixon administration and were always pushing for a GOPTv idea. When Nixon resigned after facing certain impeachment and removal, they vowed never again to lose the framing of the narrative to traditional journalism which was NEVER biased against Conservatism, it was just preoccupied with presenting a relatively objective approach.

Fox News and right wing radio changed all that. There were always right leaning and left leaning outlets in media but the Big 3 legacy broadcasters tried a middle of the road approach and left it to the "editorial" segments to discuss "perspectives". Right wingers bought up most of the AM dial and Fox farmed itself out to cable providers for free, taking a huge financial hit in the early years, but establishing itself as the primary network of basic cable, airports, gyms, etc....while CNN, Headline News, and MSNBC sat behind expensive second tier pay plans. They can't win with their policies and message, so they needed to saturate the environment and push their agenda by lying and attacking the traditional Liberal institutions.

Right wing media began to paint all other outlets as "the liberal media" and imply that there was some conspiracy to cover up the truth. They operated almost exactly as a cult, convincing their dupes that they were privy to some special information that everyone else was being kept from. They have made everything into a "one side says this, the other says that" instead of the reality that the mainstream media, for its own biases, tries to report facts, while right wing media has no problem reporting lies and saying they are like facts.

They have neutered the mainstream media because the worst thing that the so-called objective outlets can be called is BIASED so all Fox and their ilk have to say in any argument is that CNN is being biased, and CNN will bring in a bunch of right wing hacks to spew their lies while other pundits and experts answer back with the facts. The fact that the specifically "Right wing" messaging is pumped out daily by this relatively organized media apparatus AND that in order to be "UNBIASED" mainstream outlets allow right wingers to come on to "debate", gives right wingers an outsized influence in the information that is put out to the public. If they remained fringe, then that wouldn't matter so much, but we tend to get a center right, if not clear rightward lean to a lot of the information that comes out, even if it is being mocked or fact checked.

We definitely need to do something about right wing propaganda. I mean we manage to keep left wing media to a minimum. How many actual socialists, advocating for the means of production do we see in mainstream media, or right wing outlets. They are effectively silenced except maybe for Breadtube and minor outlets that never get the time of day.

[ybbor]

22. Wish I could Rec a million times

Everything you said is true