On Sunday, Fox “News” media critic Howard Kurtz and Federalist writer Emily Jashinsky complained about MSNBC not airing Trump’s lie-filled rant from Mar-a-Lago after being indicted. Jashinsky suggested that that decision was “really insulting,” and that I mean, that speech got really big ratings for a lot of folks." Not mentioned was that those “a lot of folks” were Trump acolytes who hang on every word he says, including the 30,573 lies he told while in office, the base of whom Trump says he wouldn’t lose any support from even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue. The “lot of folks” who still believes the election was stolen. The “lot of folks” of whom many think JFK, Jr. will come back to life and run with Trump. Those “a lot of folks.” Jahinsky added that MSNBC’s refusal was telling the audience that it “can't be trusted to know that this guy might be exaggerating like politicians do.” Never mind that Trump doesn’t exaggerate, he lies. This is a similar gambit used by the extreme right to bizarrely defend serial fantasist George Santos. But to be clear, “exaggerating” is saying you got an A on a test when you really got a B. “Lying” is saying you graduated from college when you didn’t even go. Missing, too, in her self-serving slam is that it’s not a serious news organization’s job to report lies. It’s to report news. And to be factual. Kurtz built on Jashinsky’s point. “It seems almost condescending to me. You know, we don't want you to hear what the Republican frontrunner has to say because you might fall for it." As opposed to, “We’re not going to broadcast what the Republican frontrunner has to say because his history shows it will be filled with lies.” To his credit, Howard Kurtz has actually criticized Fox “News” in the past, though only on rare occasions and only gently. And he used this to make the point of his occasional semi-fairness (which only leaps out compared to the rest of "Triple-Down Fox") that "When Fox didn't take the two January 6th committee hearings in prime time, I was critical of that.” But equating the two is utterly disingenuous. The hearings were the end result of a year-long, official bi-partisan government investigation into an Insurrection to overthrow the U.S. government and democracy. The Mar-a-Lago event was a self-serving speech by a known-liar just indicted for tax fraud, trying to justify himself. Not quite the same. There are a few very important other things of note here. To start with, to her credit (and in this case, actual credit), the Fox Business host Liz Clayman pushed back and actually defended MSNBC. “I’m wondering if Emily would think it's insulting that Fox News in the past has decided on occasion not to cover a Donald Trump rally or speech," Clayman noted. "That has been happening in the past. And you know, I love people who don't, who just want to throw that out there and say the editorial decision was supposed to be this. Editorial decisions are made for all kinds of reasons." And then she rightly added, "And MSNBC feels that their viewers probably didn't want to see what maybe they felt was going to be the same old grievances or some lies.” Boy, did Liz Clayman nail that on the head. Good for her. Good as it was, though, left out were some other critical factors -- The election is a year-and-a-half away. Trump isn’t even the Republican nominee yet, just a candidate. The leading candidate, certainly. But in 2016, Jed Bush was the leading GOP candidate at one point. In 2008, Rudy Giuliani was the leading candidate early on – before crashing and burning. No news show has even the slightest obligation to broadcast an entire speech by a political candidate this early. Or even the entire speech of a nominee a month before the election. What most do is record a speech and show excepts – which is, in fact, exactly what MSNBC did. And almost most hilarious of all is this criticism of MSNBC to not air live an entire self-serving rant by someone just indicted was done by those on a network that is pretty much not reporting on a $1.6 billion lawsuit by Dominion against that very network, in which text messages between their own on-air reporters showed that it was relentlessly lying to its viewers. Man, talk about actually “condescending,” “really insulting” and showing as clearly as anything that you believe your viewers “can’t be trusted.” There is nothing “almost condescending” about it. That is pure-grade, 100% condescension – topped only by fear of exposure. In the end, Kurtz defended his position. “I just think, let the viewers decide. They're smart, and you don't have to shield them from this sort of thing." “They’re smart” is always good for a laugh. Because it lets me point out again that back in Fairleigh Dickinson University released the results of their survey of TV news which showed that people who watched no news at all were better informed than people who watched Fox “News.” Ah, the ol’ “We report, you decide” gambit. Though of course, as their own private texts show, what Fox reports often has little bearing on the truth. Making the whole “you decide” thing a wee bit skewed. On the other hand, MSNBC does let viewers decide. And what they’ve decided is that when someone has lied to you 30,573 times, they don’t need to hear it all yet again live. Because when you do keep listening to it, you become less informed than those who watch no news at all. And think the election was stolen. And that JFK, Jr. will come back to life. And Jewish space lasers caused the California wildfires. And Anderson Cooper eats babies. And think that Trump only exaggerates. But still, it’s good to see Fox attempt to criticize actual news channels on the question of standards. Good because it wasn’t clear that Fox was aware of the concept.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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