Fox News - the Anti-News!

Rupert Murdoch admitted at least two bombshells under oath:

1) that he—the chairman of a news org—provided debate strategy and info about Biden ads to Jared Kushner

2) that multiple Fox hosts knowingly endorsed false narratives about a stolen election

https://twitter.com/SawyerHackett/status/1630331173002944512?s=20

Speaking of 'anti-news', anyone looked at CBC lately...?

Some speculation it's related to the Dominion lawsuit.   His audience is huge, he is very good at what he does, can't see him being out of work for long.  I am predicting he ends up on the Daily Caller.

Funny you should mention the Daily Caller....

Gee.. I was making a joke about this earlier today since they call him "colleague" on Rossiya1. But in fact he has gotten a job offer:

And Vladimir Soloviev wants him too:

Well, AOC's been getting the conservative press mad with her No Platforming Works video, so that's something I guess.

Some speculation on the Hill that the main reason for Tucker's firing was the Jan 6 footage, and his insistance on airing it.    It is curious that after all the hoopla about him acquiring the footage he only showed a brief clip in one segment then never went back to it.

Whatever happens with Tucker going forward, he will have a smaller platform than on Fox, which is a good thing.   But I am curious how his messaging will change outside the Fox umbrella.

And apparently if that fails to rein Такер Карлсон in they have a sackload of compromising info on him.

https://www.salon.com/2023/04/26/fox-reportedly-has-a-secret-oppo-file-w...

Damn. Where's Glenn Greenwald going to show off his pearly whites on TV now?

And yeah, the fucker was all about fighting corporate privilege and hegemony:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-fossil-fuels-make-us-rich...

Though at this point it is moot.

We don't know if Carlson was fired  because his rhetoric is bad for business (after all, the bottom line is why FOX continued to tell the Dominion lies, according to testimony), or because his statements contributed to their losing the case.

But it certainly wasn't because of inciting violence. That isn't why they lost.

Murdoch admitted that they knowingly pushed lies because they were profitable. Not so profitable when they cost them a good part of a year's profit. And from the perspective of the business and the Dominion case, Carlson cut both ways.

Do you really think Carlson's departure is the reason for the stock nosedive? I'd say the upcoming Smartmatic lawsuit and the prospect of another big hit to their bottom line might have a bit to do with it. 

And did Ocasio-Cortez say FOX News should be taken off the air?

RE: AOC, it would be most fair to say she suggested it:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/aoc-fox-ne...

She knows what the phrase incitement to violence means under hate crime law.   She wants them to apologize for inciting violence as part of their settlement, which would be an admission that what they broadcast was not just false, but a hate crime.  I read her comments as an indirect call for them to taken off the air.   How else do you "contend" with hate speech?

Perhaps we won't agree, but I have not seen anything from Fox or Tucker directly, or examples provided by their opponents, that I would consider direct incitement to violence.   And I distrust and dislike AOC's and much of partisan Democrat media's tendency to describe their opponent's speech hyperbolically, as hate crimes. 

“When you look at what Tucker Carlson and some of these other folks on Fox do, it is very, very clearly incitement of violence — very clearly incitement of violence. And that is the line that we have to be willing to contend with.”

That NBC article nicely summarizes the issue for me, although I disagree with most of it.  RE:  replacement theory -- 

"The theory baselessly holds that a cabal of Jewish people and Democratic elites are plotting to “replace” white Americans with people of color through immigration policies, higher birth rates and other social transformations. The idea circulated on the far-right fringes before moving to the mainstream of conservative media.

“Tucker Carlson has made comments that directly reference this conspiracy theory on his show,” said Michael Edison Hayden, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks white supremacy, hate groups and extremism.

“The rhetoric that he espouses finds its origins in white supremacist literature,” Hayden went on to say, citing examples of websites and other publications popular with white supremacists. He added that Carlson “stops short of naming” Jewish people as the orchestrators of the “replacement,” instead using more general terms such as “the elite.”

......

In poll findings released last week, The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 1 in 3 U.S. adults believes there is an effort underway to replace native-born Americans with immigrants for an advantage in elections.

----

Does Tucker mean Jewish people and Democrats when he says Elites?   Does his audience hear that?    Most people's politics are contradictory and incoherent.   Who gets to decide what Tucker really means and whether his words are "causing violence"?    

Is there be a way acceptable to the SPLC for american media to talk about the view that "there is an effort underway to replace native-born Americans with immigrants for an advantage in elections.", beyond decrying it as hate?   

I'm a sunlight is the best disinfectant type of guy.   We need ways to talk more constructively about views we disagree with strongly.

Smith:  We are somewhat talking past each other, and probably differ on some basic principles around free speech.   I'm not looking to debate free speech here but I do want to be clear about where I'm coming from.  The ADL doc was interesting, thanks for posting.   In it, they write:

"Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom of reach. We should not give those who promote extremism and conspiracy theories a free platform to amplify their inflammatory views. "

I think this is sophistry.  They are calling for all tech platforms to deplatform Tucker, they should own it.   

I think this is dangerously wrong:

"Repeatedly, we’ve seen the link between online hate and offline violence, whereby users access and engage with content promoting hate and violence on platforms—especially those with minimal content moderation and policies—and then sow their grievances through violent ends."

This assumes a 1 way causal connection between exposure to online hate material and violence, and is far too simple.    Tucker is popular because there is demand within his audience for what he's selling, the dynamic is circular and self-reinforcing.    

I've posted a few pieces by this writer on babble before, he is a materialist lefty, and I think this is spot on:

https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/you-cant-censor-away-extremism-or

"One of the themes I’ve come back to many times in my writing is the idea that people mistake empirical claims (this is true about the world) with normative claims (this should be true about the world). Nowhere is this more clear than with “hate speech” and censorship. I think hate speech laws are politically and morally wrong, a normative claim, but more importantly they don’t work, an empirical claim - one which if true renders normative claims that hate speech laws are good irrelevant. ....

Can we actually protect minority groups from psychic harms through laws intended to limit speech? Can we actually prevent people from using offensive terms in any practical and meaningful sense? Can we actually limit political positions, given that they have a tendency to be reworded or rebranded and that trying to restrict them tends to feed them as they bubble under the surface?

Luckily we have international precedent to help us answer those questions. Do they support the idea that hate speech law stops hate, far-right extremism, fascism? No."

Ben Burgis hosts a discussion with 3 other leftish YouTubers about Tucker Carlson's firing, and his false image as a right wing populist. I found it interesting.