To the Fox News reporter who's 'tired of it': Clean up your own house
John Roberts, Fox News’s chief White House correspondent, grew frustrated with White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Thursday when she would not give a definitive statement that President Trump denounces white supremacists after he refused to do so in the presidential debate Tuesday. He later lost patience, saying: “Stop deflecting. Stop blaming the media,” Roberts declared. “I’m tired of it!” Really?
Let’s stipulate that Roberts is not akin to the “Fox & Friends” hosts or Fox’s evening lineup of Trump sycophants when it comes to distorting reality and cheerleading Trump. (Disclosure: I am an MSNBC contributor.) However, the White House has been deflecting like this for nearly four years. It has refused to answer all sorts of questions about Russian President Vladimir Putin, about Trump’s finances, about Trump’s embrace of racists and about any topic that would reveal Trump to be clueless or malicious. McEnany is just the most egregious practitioner of the non-response or the out-and-out falsehood. Roberts cannot possibly have just figured this out.
Roberts should look closer to home, if he’s “tired of it.” It is his network that allows Trump on air to spin bizarre conspiracy theories and blatant lies about his opponent. It is Fox News that has become a cesspool of anti-democratic (small “d”) and racist tropes. It is Fox News that tries to avoid — or to borrow a word, “deflects” — topics injurious to Trump, such as the New York Times bombshell about his taxes. It is his network that followed Trump’s anti-mask sneering. It is Fox News that has denigrated Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, and defended Trump’s covid-19 inanities — until he declares he was joking or being sarcastic. Even its “straight news” anchor Bret Baier went on air before the presidential debate to treat wild conspiracy theories about former vice president Joe Biden cheating at the debate as a serious story. It is Fox News that repeats Russian propaganda debunked by our intelligence community and the Senate Intelligence Committee concerning Ukraine.
It would be hard to find one entity on the planet more responsible than John Roberts’s employer for enabling Trump, keeping his base in line, misleading the public about Trump’s corruption, excusing his culpability and giving him a sense of invincibility. It is not the only one, but it certainly leads the pack of Pravda-like outlets whose job is to defend Trump by deceiving viewers and readers if need be.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/02/tired-it-fox-reporter-clean-up-your-own-house/
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