Fox News: "They only pretend to believe these things on television for money."

I'd pretend for the money too. It's just crazy people believe them.

 

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/bn48rb/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-rand-paul

I presume this interview?
Explain how he had his ass handed to him.

 

NPR had a piece about this.


Fox News Executive Tries To Rein In Stars As They Cheer On Anti-Lockdown Rallies

Updated at 4:41 p.m. ET

Fox News personalities have been cheerleading protesters across the U.S. gathering in defiance of state lockdown orders. This week, the situation became so extreme that a top executive at the network tried to rein in his stars.

Fox News President Jay Wallace sent a directive Monday urging Fox anchors to take time on the air to remind protesters to practice social distancing, according to a senior executive at Fox. She later said Wallace issued it at the behest of Fox CEO Suzanne Scott. Wallace and Scott declined to be interviewed for this story.

Public health officials say the coronavirus can spread easily when people are packed in tight quarters — including at these protests. Fox hosts have hailed the protesters for standing up for liberty and fundamental American rights, yet have rarely noted the risks involved in those very demonstrations. The hosts have, for the most part, been anchoring their shows from the safety of their own home studios.

Shortly after Wallace's guidance went out Monday, Fox host Harris Faulkner interrupted a guest who said the protesters were not opposing safety measures. Faulkner noted that the footage on the air at that very moment reflected demonstrators clustered closely together, sharing phones and cameras and failing to wear masks.

gotten higher marks than the president in polls on the pandemic.

Trump has called on Americans to "liberate" their states from such governors in his drive to re-open U.S. businesses, despite warnings from public health advocates. And Fox News stars have responded on air.

"They want to keep us locked in our homes. They want to keep us from our churches and synagogues. They want to make sure we don't go back to work," said Fox host Jeanine Pirro, a Trump ally.

"They're protesting in Kentucky, Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia," said Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade. "And as more states go online and get their rights back, that is going to fuel, I believe, other states to go, 'Wait a second — this is getting ridiculous!' "

"Why are you arbitrarily shutting down my places of worship, my ability to access the Second Amendment and my right to assembly in some cases?" said weekend host Pete Hegseth, whom Trump had considered for a Cabinet post. "[It] feels un-American to a lot of people." His co-host, Jillian Mele, noted that Americans who know people who have died from the disease may feel differently.

The liberal watchdog group Media Matters found that Fox News had devoted more than six hours over the past week to the protests, despite the fact that they have drawn relatively small crowds.

Columbia University media scholar Nicole Hemmer, who wrote the book Messengers of the Right, said the rallies draw upon many sources of inspiration. Gun-rights and property-rights activists have gathered, in addition to people frustrated over the weeks of seclusion. There have also been displays of racially charged and anti-Semitic sentiment.

"What Fox does is it takes this very small phenomenon and not only amplifies it, but gives it a particular political meaning," Hemmer says. "It lets people know that there are upcoming rallies — much like we saw back in the day of the Tea Party — as a way of not just throwing light on what's happening, amplifying these protests, but also encouraging them as well."

She noted that Trump himself feeds off Fox by citing interviews and claims made on its programs. In defending their coverage, Fox News officials have pointed to earlier moments when hosts alluded to the importance of people's security and taking safety measures at public protests, observations often made in passing.

For weeks, Trump touted the possible anti-coronavirus benefits of hydroxychloroquine, a drug used to treat malaria and lupus. He was following the lead of Fox News hosts and guests such as Dr. Mehmet Oz, who championed the drug too.

But initial anecdotes of successes yielded to shortages for lupus patients and widespread doubts among public health officials about its usefulness, as Fox's Laura Ingraham learned to her chagrin in an interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

A new analysis of patients being treated by the Veterans Health Administration found "more deaths, no benefit," in the words of the Associated Press. According to CNN, Fox News buried that development on its website in a story that quickly disappeared. A Fox News spokeswoman noted that Oz returned Wednesday morning, to Fox & Friends, and addressed the new VA study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.

Other researchers say that what Fox News does on the air has real-life consequences for its audience.

"The media can have significant effects on behavior," says Harvard University graduate student Aakaash Rao, who studies how messages in the media affect public health outcomes. "If [viewers] hear suggestions from the anchors, then they'll take their suggestions into account, whether those suggestions are about hand-washing or social distancing or, you know, attending public gatherings."

Rao is part of a team of researchers that makes that case in a pointed way. In a working paper posted online this week, the researchers concluded that viewers of Fox's Sean Hannity were more likely to have contracted COVID-19 and to have died from it than viewers of his colleague Tucker Carlson. Hannity, one of the president's strongest allies, consistently downplayed the risk of the coronavirus until late February, when he started to present it more seriously. Carlson put a spotlight on those perils far earlier.

The study relies on overlaying granular geographic television ratings data, county-by-county COVID-19 infection rates and a survey of more than 1,000 Americans 55 years old and above. (More than half of Fox News' viewers are over age 65.) The study, overseen by economics professors at the University of Chicago and the University of Zurich, has not yet been peer-reviewed.

"The selective cherry-picked clips of Sean Hannity's coverage used in this study are not only reckless and irresponsible, but down right factually wrong," Fox News said in a statement released through a spokeswoman. She pointed to specific instances earlier this year in which Hannity had expressed concern about the virus.

Indeed, even before Wallace's directive on Monday, Fox News hosts would obliquely allude to concerns for the safety of protesters. But Fox programs became much more consistent about it afterward.

Even so, prime-time hosts continued to defend the protesters from criticism, including Carlson, who had sounded the alarm about the pandemic early.

"When politicians arrest people who disagree with them, what sort of moment is that?" Carlson asked Monday night.

And Fox was back in the fold.

 

Yeah, I don't think they're serious about it. This so-called leak feels like just another layer of pretense that allows them to hedge their bets.

I think it's like Trump leaving the governor of Georgia hanging (slightly) out to dry while simultaneously demanding the "liberation" of the blue states.
That way, they can play both angles whenever convenient.

 

Trump's infamous quote about the media being the enemy of the American people is so ironic, considering if there is any news media that is the enemy of the American people, it's Fox News. It's vile, click bait, race bait, hysteria-driven satire at its finest.

 

I call BS on this. This is them throwing Hannity and co under the bus to save face but we know they know their audience and they know their billionaires who fund these protests. They are all in on it and maintaining power because of it. Don’t believe for a second that there is someone at FoxNews wondering if they’ve gone too far.

 

Fox News is being sued for their statements about the coronavirus. They asked the court to drop the lawsuit because their coverage is political speech, which can not be censored for being false.

WASHLITE’s attorneys, said the classic example to demonstrate the limits of free speech is someone yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater when there is no danger. Comparably, Hallock said of Fox News: “They’re yelling, ‘There is no fire!’ when there is a fire.”


Fox News, where facts doesn’t matter and falsehoods are common is sadly the number one watched “news”

 

these monsters built these monsters

 

We have receipts...

 

More receipts...

 

LOL this is as true as

The Grand leader has not been discouraging social distancing and has been taking this pandemic very seriously.

 

Yet Trump calls all news fake except his friends are Fox. As for Dr. Oz, he's not looking at the biggest picture. If you take one school, and consider all the family members like parents and Grandparents who care for the children that's just part of it. Add in teachers, therapists, administrators, cafeteria workers, janitors, teacher's aides, maintenance workers, and everyone else they are in contact with, and the odds go up in someone carrying a virus. Then, you put them in cafeterias and crowded classrooms, where kids are sneezing, sick, putting their hands and mouths on stuff they share and touch like pencils, pens, crayons, glue, toys, and the virus spreads easily.

Special Ed and Early Childhood settings require so much close contact and hand over hand teaching. There is carpet time for young children sitting in close contact, playground equipment, PE class, music class, computer class, and so many settings with shared equipment and close settings. It just doesn't make any sense to think it is ok, when we don't have vaccinations yet.

 

Segment yesterday that I wondered if they all busted out laughing as soon as they went off the live feed:
Lou dobbs? They were all hoping Kim was doing well and that if something happened to him, North Korea could turn to a Military dictatorship.

 

Don't know what is more amazing, that people watch this clown on tv or that a state elected him as governor...

 

Is John Oliver even televised in Russia though?

 

Why doesn't the GA governor just legalize bordellos, too?

I mean, just in case hair salons, gyms, bowling, et al., don't give you coronavirus.

 

Judging from his twitter feed, your Stephen L. Miller buddy does wear interesting colored hats.

Ayn Rand would approve.