If Fox “News” didn’t spend so much time defending Emperor Trump — and attacking his detractors (of which there are many) — there might be enough time to actually broadcast some real news. No matter, because Fox & Friends — his favourite show — quintupled down, airing another another softball interview with him this morning, which I’ll get to eventually.
In our last exciting episode of Friday Fox Follies: F&F was calling for greater tolerance while attacking liberals in the wake of the Rep. Scalise shooting. However, they looked deeply into a Funhouse Mirror to praise Ted Nugent for his leadership when he pretended he never used intolerant and violent hate speech against President Obama and Hillary Clinton. By the weekend they were hosting Nugent (via a really crappy Skype connection), who laughingly called his previous hate-a-thons “metaphors“.
After helping The Nuge clean up his reputation by blaming others, they started a days-long attack on Joy Reid over on AM Joy on MSNBC for correctly pointing out Scalise’s hateful/hurtful policies. Coincidentally this occurred right about the time Reid was retweeting one of my silly little anti-Trump missives:
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!!! https://t.co/LSNpXRemMX
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— Headly Westerfield (@Aunty__Em) June 18, 2017
That’s the only reason it got so many LIKES and RTs.
Need any more examples of Fox & Friends’ journalistic malpractice this week?
Donald Trump loves the safe space of Fox & Friends
Why Does Trump Love Fox & Friends
So Much? Because It’s the Media
Equivalent of Donald Trump
At Iowa rally, Donald Trump praises
Fox and attacks CNN and NBC
Which brings us to today’s big, sloppy, wet kiss of an interview with Foxy Friend Ainsley Earhardt. Just like he should stay away from the Twitter Machine, maybe Trump should stay away from Fox & Friends. As my editor says in Trump Admits To The Crime Of Witness Tampering In Disastrous Fox News Interview:
After saying that he did not tape Comey, Fox News goaded Trump into taking an arrogant victory lap that turned into a confession of a crime.
Fox and Friends host Ainsley Earhardt called Trump’s lie a “smart way” to keep Comey honest during the hearings.
Trump responded, “Well, it wasn’t very stupid. I can tell you that. He did admit that what I said was right, and if you look further back before he heard about that, I think maybe he wasn’t admitting that, so you’ll have to do a little bit of investigative reporting to determine that.”
Media Matters snagged the train wreck video:
Meanwhile, F&F were also promoting ANOTHER interview with Trump for Sunday’s show, this time with Pete Hegseth.
THIS WEEK IN ISLAMOPHOBIA:
Fox News Uses Finsbury Park Attack To
Promote Muslim Ban And Glorious Trump!
Fox Anchor Ibanez Exploits Finsbury Park
Attack With ‘No-Go Zone’ Fear Mongering
Two glaring problems in one
segment: Fox News’ problematic
coverage of anti-Muslim hate on display
DON’T FORGET: Fox “News” is promoting tolerance (unless you’re Muslim) (or left of center, for that matter).
TUCKER’S APPENDIX: Last week’s sudden attack of appendicitis sent him to the hospital, but after some magical incantations, Carlson was cured without surgery . . . just in time to spew this stunningly lack of self-awareness:
Tucker Carlson: ‘It’s Not Really
Journalism What CNN is
Practicing Anymore; It’s Advocacy’
In any given week there’s plenty of ammunition against Tucker, but when Bret Stephens Angers Tucker Carlson, Other Conservatives With Anti-Trump Deportation Satire in The New York Times, I just about bust a gut.
Tucker Carlson, the bowtie wearing tribune of the common man, came out strongest against Stephens. “He…shows little care for Americans as anything besides units of economic productivity, widgets to fuel the machine of global capitalism that pays Bret Stephens many thousands a year to write mediocre opinion columns in a dying newspaper.”
TO BE FAIR: The prig hasn’t worn a bow tie in years. It just feels like he still wears it.
This is unusually dishonest even by @TuckerCarlson's standards. Apparently they didn't teach satire at St George's. https://t.co/H5y3bxvP67
— Bret Stephens (@BretStephensNYT) June 20, 2017
Laugh? Thought I’d surely die.
BOLLING FOR DOLLARS: While Trump fan-boy Eric Bolling‘s show The Specialists is going down in flames with regular Fox viewers, he’s making noises about running for the Senate. No. Really. And just to demonstrate what a thoughtful legislator he will be, he advocated a preemptive nuclear strike on North Korea. No. Really.
SCAMMITY UNHINGED: Forget F&F and Bolling. There’s no greater Trump shill on Fox than Sean Hannity (now that Loofah Lad is gone). Here’s a partial roundup of this week’s crazy conspiracies, hypocrisy, and Trump defense:
Hannity calls Trump’s false threat of Comey tapes one of the “most brilliant … tweets in the history of mankind” • Sean Hannity: “A soft coup is underway” against Trump with “sinister forces quickly aligning” • Sean Hannity sounds the alarm, says there is a “soft coup” to “overturn November’s election results” • Alex Jones: “Sean Hannity is currently the main leader of the resistance against the globalists” • Fox News’s Sean Hannity is encroaching on Alex Jones territory • Hannity’s Attacks On Shakespeare Play Shows His Love For Free Speech Is As Sincere As His Pledge To Be Waterboarded • Free-Speech Loving Hannity Adores Attacks On Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar Play • On The Sean Hannity Show, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow calls for grand jury to investigate Comey • Hannity Unhinged: Dog Whistle To Violence Edition • Hannity Unhinged: Rachel Maddow Edition • Hannity Hate Machine: ‘Important Question’ Edition • [on radio] Sean Hannity invokes Seth Rich in discussing his “suspicions” that DNC staffers were responsible for email hack • New MSNBC host Hugh Hewitt is Sean Hannity in glasses
I’m waiting for Hugh Hewitt to interview Erick Erickson.
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT’S DUE:
Steve Doocy Accidentally Destroys
Republicans’ Secret Health Care Strategy
THE TRUMP DUMP: Defending Trump is still a full time job.
Fox’s Ainsley Earhardt Exploits Death Of Otto Warmbier To Smear Obama And Glorify Trump • Lowering the bar: Fox host lauds Trump for not flying off the handle after student held prisoner in North Korea dies • THE STORY: Fox News mocks the “media outrage” over hidden White House press briefings as “inside baseball” • Fox’s The Story Deceptively Suggests Americans Don’t Care About Russia Investigation
However, things don’t always go well for Trump . . . or Fox, for that matter:
Jay Sekulow’s bizarre debut: Donald Trump picked a lawyer he saw on Fox News and it isn’t going well • Watch Trump Atty And Hannity Pal Sekulow Completely Blow It On Fox News • Fox News host begs Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow: Please keep the president off Twitter
But, that doesn’t mean that Fox won’t keep trying.
PASSAGES:
How moving to CNN saved Alisyn Camerota’s career
Whatever your view of Camerota’s performance, Zucker claims that her addition to the program has given “New Day” a key asset in its bitter ratings battle against “Morning Joe” over on MSNBC. In 2015, Camerota’s first full year on “New Day,” the program zoomed to an impressive lead over “Morning Joe” in the pivotal 25-54 age demographic, after establishing a tenuous edge in 2014. “You have to look at this and go, ‘Huh, something changed,’ ” says Zucker. In 2016, “Morning Joe” regained a narrow lead in this category. The competition, as far as Zucker is concerned, doesn’t include the morning offering at Fox News. “We don’t look at them as a direct competitor. … That’s not a news program at Fox in the morning, and I don’t think anybody looks at it that way.”
Which brings us full circle to Fox & Friends and their newest mess:
How Fox News botched a Comey story
and then furiously tried to backtrack
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Headly Westerfield, the Not Now Silly Newsroom‘s Head Writer, has been writing Fox “News” criticism for nearly a decade.
