This week Friday Fox Follies has been thinking about the golden days of Yellow Journalism, when newspapers took circulation wars to new heights with lurid stories. Proving only the technology has changed, Jim Bob, Michelle Duggar Open Up to Megyn Kelly About Their Son Josh Molesting His Sisters is fishing for ratings, as opposed to any truth.
Why would they go running to Fox? The Connections Between Fox News And The Duggars May Explain Why Megyn Kelly Got The Interview. Before the interview Megyn Kelly: I Told Duggars They Won’t Get ‘Pass on the Tough Questions,’ yet fair-minded viewers saw Megyn Kelly Plays Defense Attorney For The Duggars. Compare and contrast this with an interview with someone she disagrees with: Megyn Kelly Presents The Duggars As Liberal Media Victims – And Makes Their Scandal About Bill Clinton!
Megyn Kelly [thinks]: Media ‘Dining on the Carcass’ of Duggar’s Victims’ ‘Dead Privacy Rights’ and yet, Megyn Kelly Will Also Speak with Two of Josh Duggar’s Victims. And — only to help garner additional ratings — Megyn Kelly Previews Sitdown with Two of Josh Duggar’s Sisters, Victims. So who’s dining on whose carcass? Eat up, Megyn.
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Cue the false equivalency because Howard Kurtz Likens Duggar Criticisms To Attacks On Caitlyn Jenner while this headline claims Megyn Kelly Presses Duggars on ‘Preaching About Moral Values’ Hypocrisy. Kelly didn’t press very hard, allowing them to play the victim over and over: Michelle Duggar to Megyn Kelly: ‘As Parents, We Felt We Were Failures.’
The magazine that started this all, In Touch, Hits Back at Duggars: Releasing Records Was Legal, and BTW, You Lied a Lot while The View Rips Duggars: When Will You Show Same Forgiveness to Others? CNN asks the musical question, Did the Duggars dig themselves into a PR hole? As CNN’s Chris Cuomo [observes]: Megyn Kelly’s Duggar Interview Was “A Conversation Among Friends,” as opposed to a grilling, while CNN’s Brian Stelter [notes]: “Fox News Barely Covered The [Duggar’s] Scandal Until Megyn Kelly Was Able To Secure This Interview.”
Oddly, there were a few dissenting opinions from inside the tent, but no one criticized Kelly’s ratings grabber:
Gutfeld: Would Conservatives Show
Compassion for Duggar if He Were Muslim?Fox’s Gutfeld Goes Off On ‘Sick Creeps,’ The Duggars
DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH: With the news that Comedian Tom Shillue Will Take Host Duties at Fox News’ ‘Red Eye,’ FFF confesses not knowing Shillue was a comedian, since we’ve never seen him say anything funny. This is why Right Wing comedy fails.
The reason Red Eye needs a new unfunny? Because the last unfunny host got his own unfunny show. Not content in just being unfunny on The Five, Greg Gutfeld takes his unfunny schtick to Sunday nights. Don’t believe me? Watch the monologue. It went downhill from here:
No less an aunthority than Variety says ‘Greg Gutfeld Show’ Doesn’t Look Ready For Primetime, while NewsHounds finds the yucks with Greg Gutfeld’s New Show Jokes About Hillary Clinton As Satan. Meanwhile, Alibi’s Devin D. O’Leary nails the first episode in Comedy In Name Only:
“Saturday Night Live” has a dozen cast members and can’t fill up an hour of comedy on a weekly basis, so it’s hard to figure out why anyone thought Gutfeld could generate 60 minutes’ worth of yuks all on his own. Gutfeld started his show with a tried-and-true monologue. Delivered from behind a desk. With no studio audience. Wow. That is not how comedy works, people. Later, there were cameos by such Fox News heavyweights as Geraldo Rivera and Gretchen Carlson (proving that—Brian Williams aside—news anchors are not actors). The show borrowed Jimmy Kimmel’s man-on-the-street quiz—which didn’t work because everyone in Times Square seemed perfectly capable of answering Gutfeld’s questions about famous American women. At one point Gutfeld argued about how the left demonizes conservatives by using the word “evil,” which should be reserved for terrorists like ISIS. True, but hardly a knee-slapping observation. Still, it’s better than Gutfeld’s occasional stabs at one-liners (e.g., “Torching a girl is a true war on women. Unless you see it as the next renewable fuel.”).
And, for those who care about such things, Fox’s The Greg Gutfeld Show Debut Loses to CNN, HLN, and MSNBC in Demo. There’s no where to go but up, or out.
HOLLYWOOD HOTEL: Whenever an evil, librul Hollywoodite says something that swings to the left, Fox “News” can’t wait to trash that person, noting that no one goes to these people for trenchant opinion. Yet, Ignoring Experts, Fox News Gets Its Fake Gun Facts From Vince Vaughn and those Foxy Fox & Friends Hosts Gun Extremist Who Thinks Politicians Should Fear Being Shot To Defend Vince Vaughn. Meanwhile, Actor Paul Sorvino Plays A Military Expert On Fox’s Outnumbered.
MUST WATCH TEE VEE: Kirsten Powers Tells O’Reilly, ‘I Really Wish… I Could Just Punch You In The Face.’ Watch and read along to NewsHounds’ transcript:
O’REILLY: What are you, Little Bo Peep tonight? …You’re acting like Little Bo Peep tonight. …”Where is it? I don’t see it.”
That’s when Powers struck back. Figuratively, that is, from Fox’s Washington bureau.
POWERS: I am not acting like Little Bo Peep and I really wish I was sitting there so I could just punch you in the face. But I can’t. It’s why you keep me down here.
O’Reilly laughed. “You’re not alone, Powers. There’s a line… Get to the back of the line, there’s 50,000 people.”
“I will pay top dollar to get to the front of that line, Bill,” Powers shot back.
Crowley, in the studio with O’Reilly, said she’d punch O’Reilly on Powers’ behalf, “for a small fee.”
I’d pay Power’ airfare to see that.
FOX “NEWS” ELXN: Wagging the GOP dog Fox News Debate Creates Fundraising Opportunity For Longshot Carly Fiorina:
Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina is asking supporters for money to help her qualify for Fox News’ August 6 debate. Fiorina’s appeals further cement the conservative network’s gatekeeper role in the Republican presidential primary.
Fox News announced on May 20 that its debate, the first of the presidential cycle, will only include candidates “in the top 10 of an average of the five most recent national polls.” That criteria could mean the exclusion of Republicans like Rick Santorum, John Kasich, Lindsey Graham and Fiorina.
The Los Angeles Times’ Doyle McManus wrote that the debate rules make Fox a GOP primary gatekeeper. McManus added that according to Republican strategists, candidates on the qualification fringe “will be even more desperate to boost their name recognition — by appearing on Fox News.” A Media Matters study found that in May, Fiorina made five appearances on the network.
In The Fox News Primary For May: Huckabee Takes An Early Lead and here’s How Sean Hannity Is Trying To Make Himself The Most Important Media Figure For The GOP Primary. Fox is one biggest contributors as Conservative Media Paid Ben Carson Hundreds Of Thousands While Bolstering His Political Career.
THE NON-COMEDIAN STAYS UNFUNNY: Right-Wing Media Scandalize Deceptively Edited Anti-Clinton Clip From Republican PAC, but Fox’s Gutfeld Scolds America Rising PAC For Producing Deceptive “Out Of Context” Video Attacking Hillary Clinton:
GUTFELD: Can we just look at this video that we showed? She said [to] the woman to go to the end of the line, because that’s where you get your stuff signed. She wasn’t being rude. This thing that’s from America Rising was out of context, and when companies do stuff like that, we no longer trust you. Because I don’t know what to believe, but if you look at the whole video, she was saying, oh I’m shaking these hands, if you meet me over on the other side, you could sign it. She wasn’t being rude at all. Believe me, there are too many problems with Hillary. We don’t need to do this. … She was being nice.
While Gutfeld is right for a change, Fox & Friends was just one of the many shows that still made hay out of this story deceptively edited Vine.
FOX BYTES: Donald Trump Wages War on Fox’s ‘Dummy’ Charles Krauthammer • Todd Starnes Encourages White People To Shoot African-Americans? • Fox News Calls For ‘A White Republican’ As Mayor Of Baltimore • One Day After Calling For A ‘White Republican’ Mayor Of Baltimore, Kevin Jackson Gets Some Megyn Kelly Love • Fox psychoanalyzes Joe Biden after son’s death with psychiatrist who accused VP of being a drunk • Fox Psychiatrist Who Previously Thought Biden Was A Demented Lush, Now Calls Him ‘Resilient’ In Wake Of Son’s Death • Fox’s Special Report Suggests Obama Administration “Employing Scare Tactics” To Sway Supreme Court On ACA • Fox host repelled by kindergarten diversity training because of ‘transsexuals’ and ‘stuff that’s gross’ • Andrea Tantaros defends body shaming: Women ‘with a functioning brain’ work on their bikini bods daily • Ron Paul Attacks Republican Candidates Who “Roll Over” For Fox News • Bill O’Reilly Trashes Online News Sources’ Ability To Educate Young Voters • Fox’s Geraldo Rivera: “Stop, Question, And Frisk” Is The Only Way To End The Civil War In The “Black Ghettos Of America”
Headly Westerfield curates Headlines Du Jour at the Not Now Silly Newsroom.
