The Chickens Are Running The Fox House

The Chickens Are Running The Fox House

– By Ed Kociela –

Look, I get it.

Just like you, I turn on the television and dial in the news for the current report. And, just like you, I am more likely than not going to see some snarky 12-year-old with a cherub’s face, bad clothes, poor grammar, a big toothy grin, and no sense of history faking their way through a piece that requires serious study to get all of the nuance and context necessary to illustrate the importance and relevance of the story.

I hate to be that old man who rushes out onto the porch, waving his cane and yelling, “Get off my lawn!” but more often than not, I am that guy, only I am yelling, “Get off of my TV!”

I find solace, usually, in the fact that at least they are honest, that they simply need to take a few more history classes and brush up on their civics lessons because that sheepskin on the wall doesn’t mean squat unless you retain some of the knowledge that was passed along in the classroom.

While they may seem superficial, shallow, if you will, and lazy, they are at the heart of it all, relatively harmless because at least they are capable of giving us enough of the basics to send us on our way to dig for more facts.

The danger is in the blood of Fox News, the bully on the block who would use brass knuckles on a kitten.

We’re learning more and more about that – particularly a trio of bad actors named Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and the toxic Tucker Carlson, who the network has pimped out to keep ratings afloat regardless of the impact on truth and ethical behavior.

It is all surfacing now as Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing Fox News for $1.6 billion for defamation, releases damning evidence underscoring the unbelievable lengths to which the network went to cling to viewership numbers with lies and contemptible behavior in the content of communications between Hannity, Ingraham, Carlson and network executives. The network claimed that Dominion had rigged the 2020 election in the favor of President Joe Biden even though they knew the allegation was untrue.

The problem was simple. It was clear to almost everybody with an IQ larger than the number of fingers and toes they possessed that the whole business about election fraud was based on a tsunami of lies fed by a torrent of off-the-rack insanity by the far, far right, which, to this day, will argue that Donald Trump won the 2020 election.

Any right-thinking person understands that. But, it was decided by the Fox broadcast stars and executives that, well, it was prudent to perpetuate the lie because of how on election night, they put Trump’s nose out of joint by declaring the Arizona result a win for President Joe Biden. A vengeful Trump started directing his followers to Newsmax, a weak-kneed right-wing mouthpiece that was still in its nascent days. As the fledgling organization started picking up viewers that were dropping from Fox, the network’s stars and execs decided the best way to retain viewership was to continue the lie, which none of them believed. Still, all saw as vital to the network’s struggle to retain its audience.

And, therein, the trust between the media and the public was breached. No longer could Fox retain a claim of watchdog for its community, not when Hannity and Ingraham, and Carlson were discussing among themselves, as revealed in the e-mails that were released as part of the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit, how they did not believe what the Trumpsters were braying about and continued to spread the lie.

However, it is one thing to be the good company monkey and do the corporate dance and quite another to flat out lie and deceive the public. The network stars tried to get a fact-checker fired for doing her job and exposing Trump’s lies. And Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch warned that Newsmax needed to be “watched” and that he didn’t “want to antagonize Trump further” because “everything (was) at stake.”

Back in the day, the only thing at stake was the truth.

The news divisions of CBS, NBC, and ABC were not expected to make any money, they were expected to deliver a fair, honest, daily report that people could bank on, discuss and debate, and make decisions on. It was not part of the corporate endeavor until big business got hold of the networks and started holding the various divisions accountable for assigned segments of the budget. Suddenly, in the mid-1980s, there was a bottom line the news divisions were expected to fulfill. There were no niche broadcasters like today that could satisfy everybody from the most avid political junkie to the wannabe chef who wants to try their hand at duck l’orange or the hapless Raiders fan looking for a way to fire the team’s owner. It is all there now, however, and available whether through clickbait or lies. Fox chose lies, primarily to sail its ship, as evidenced by the communications shared among its biggest stars and executives.

The question has been raised many times about how Trump can hold such sway over political friends and foes and segments of the media.

And, here is the answer: He is a curiosity, the carnival geek biting the heads off of chickens in the sideshow, the wreck on the side of the freeway that slows traffic for the gawking “lookie-Lou’s,” the pied piper of impropriety. He learned the secrets to wealth well: Do as little as possible for as much money as possible because only fools believe that stuff about how hard work eventually pays off. It doesn’t, you know. Your hard work ends up in the bank accounts of investors and CEOs, the guys who park their big cars in bigger garages in the best neighborhoods.

Don’t believe me?

Laura Ingraham makes $15 million a year.

Tucker Carlson makes $35 million a year.

Sean Hannity makes $45 million a year.

Do you think they would let a little thing like truth and ethics get in the way of those salaries?

It’s clear the chickens are running the Fox house.

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