The Media Matters for America website offered some new arithmetic the other day about Fox News, the right-wing cable giant which dares to call itself a news operation instead of a toxic dumpsite for Donald Trump’s talking points.
“Compared to other channels,” Helena Hind writes, “Fox News is hiding the latest Epstein revelations from their audience. If you exclusively watch Fox News, you likely have no idea about the latest fallout from the Epstein files release.”
Well, duh, what a surprise.
This, from the cable propaganda outfit, Fox, that has supplied roughly two dozen of its former hosts into cabinet level and administrative positions in the second Trump administration, even more than they did during the first Trump term.
This, from the same Fox that majors in conspiracy theories; that denies climate change; that offered misinformation during the COVID crisis; that has spent a fortune on sexual harassment charges; that was forced to pay $787.5 million to Dominion voting machines for Fox’s phony claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Or as James Wolcott describes Fox in his biting critique, “Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants: The Looting of the News in a Time of Terror (Miramax Books)”:
“Fox News: Building morons the American way.”
In its latest look at Fox, Media Matters, the non-profit progressive research and information website monitoring conservative outlets, offers the latest numbers on coverage of the Jeffrey Epstein sex scandal.
In the two weeks immediately following the Jan. 30 Department of Justice release of the newest batch of more than 3 million pages of Epstein files — including letters, photos, recordings, videos and other records — MS NOW mentioned Epstein 3,321 times.
CNN mentioned Epstein 2,304 times.
Even conservative Newsmax logged 1,464 mentions of Epstein.
And Fox? Over two weeks in which the sex scandal reverberated across every news outlet across the globe, how many times did they mention Epstein?
Two-hundred-and-thirty nine times.
In other words, over a period of nonstop news operations over 14 days of 24-a-day news cycles, Fox referred to the hottest story of the year roughly 17 times a day.
Or once in slightly less than two hours a day.
These are the files detailing relationships between the sex predator Epstein and such figures from politics and business and academia as President Trump, the former Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Steve Bannon, Howard Lutnick and Larry Summers, and on and on.
“Rather than cover these uncomfortable revelations,” Media Matters reports, “Fox has practically ignored the story.”
Well, duh.
This is what Fox has been doing for years, especially during the Trump White House years. They’re playing to their audience’s utter devotion to Trump, and its rejection of anything, or anyone, veering from the Trumpian gospel.
It’s why folks on differing sides of political debate find they can’t communicate — because they’re dealing with separate sets of facts.
The New York Times has reported that it identified “more than 5,300 files containing more than 38,000 references to Trump, his wife, his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and other related words and phrases” in the latest release of Epstein files.
Wouldn’t you think a news outlet such as Fox, pretending to be legitimate, “fair and balanced,” would report such a thing the way people all over the world are talking about it?
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books, including “Journeys to the Heart of Baltimore” (Johns Hopkins University Press) and “Michael Olesker’s Baltimore: If You Live Here, You’re Home” (Johns Hopkins University).
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