Earlier this year, “Malcolm Turnbull accused Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp of eroding democracy in the US and Australia by dividing people and undermining institutions with lies and populist rightwing ideology. Murdoch’s News Corp accused of undermining democracy:
The former Australian prime minister told a parliamentary inquiry that Donald Trump’s presidency was to some extent a creation of the media mogul and that the attack on the US Congress in January was a consequence of partisan campaigns led by Murdoch’s Fox News.
“What does Vladimir Putin want to do with his operations in America? He wants to divide America and turn Americans against each other,” said Turnbull, a trenchant critic of Australian-born Murdoch, whom he has known for 45 years.
“That is exactly what Murdoch has done: divided Americans against each other and so undermined their faith in political institutions that a mob of thousands of people, many of them armed, stormed the Capitol.”
[Turnbull] alleged News Corp outlets were “utterly liberated from the truth”. He also questioned whether Fox News’ relationship with Trump was comparable to state-owned media in an authoritarian country, by apologizing for and not holding to account its favored government.
Turnbull likened News Corp to a political party that was not accountable to anyone. He alleged the group’s outlets in the US and Australia promoted climate denialism, incited animosity towards minorities, particularly Muslims, and peddled untruths, including that President Joe Biden had stolen the election from Trump.
“If you don’t think that is a threat to American democracy and undermining the strength and capability of our most important ally, then, you know, you are kidding yourself,” Turnbull told MPs.
“[T]he most powerful political actor in Australia is not the Liberal party or the National party or the Labor party, it is News Corporation,” Turnbull added. “And it is utterly unaccountable. It is controlled by an American family and their interests are no longer, if they ever were, coextensive with our own.”
Personally, I would denaturalize the naturalized citizenship of Rupert Murdoch and his spawn, and deport them for their crimes against American democracy. And I would reverse the FCC Rule on foreign ownership of U.S. media companies enacted in 1995 to allow this Australian yellow rag purveyor to build his Fox television network, and take away his prized flagship company. No really, let’s have this discussion.
Rupert Murdoch’s yellow rag the New York Post just got busted for doing exactly what Malcolm Turnbull said: News Corp outlets are “utterly liberated from the truth”.
Huffington Post reports, NY Post Reporter Resigns, Says She Was ‘Ordered’ To Write False Kamala Harris Story:
A New York Post reporter said Tuesday she had resigned after being ordered to write a false story that claimed migrant children were being given copies of a book authored by Vice President Kamala Harris in “welcome kits.”
The story, published last Friday, set off a days-long misinformation cycle among Republican leaders and in conservative media. The Washington Post debunked the claims Tuesday, demonstrating that the article appeared to be based entirely on one image of a single copy of Harris’ 2019 children’s book that was propped on a bed at a Long Beach, California shelter.
The reporter, Laura Italiano, announced her resignation on Twitter:
The Kamala Harris story — an incorrect story I was ordered to write and which I failed to push back hard enough against — was my breaking point.
— Laura Italiano (@Italiano_Laura) April 27, 2021
According to The Washington Post, Italiano’s been writing for the New York tabloid since the 1990s. Neither she nor the Post immediately responded to HuffPost’s requests for comment.
The article, which was published both online and in print, featured the front-page headline “Kam On In” in the print edition. The tabloid used a Reuters image of Harris’ book, Superheroes Are Everywhere, on a cot at a migrant shelter to suggest that the vice president’s work was being distributed en masse to undocumented kids.
Multiple high-profile Republicans amplified the story, suggesting that Harris was using taxpayer funds to profit off the situation at the southern border. A Fox News reporter even quizzed White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki about the book during a press briefing last week.
Fox News published its own version of the article over the weekend. The story was mentioned on its airwaves during at least five different programs.
In reality, Harris’ book was one of hundreds donated as part of a citywide book and toy drive, a spokesperson for the city of Long Beach told The Washington Post.
After the Post published its fact-check, the NYC tabloid took down its false article. It was later restored, with an editor’s note: “The original version of this article said migrant kids were getting Harris’ book in a welcome kit, but has been updated to note that only one known copy of the book was given to a child.”
UPDATE: Politicususa reminds us that “[T]he New York Post has a history of publishing questionable news stories. The paper featured a widely discredited story about Hunter Biden back in October of 2020. When asked why he brought the story to the Post, Rudy Giuliani said, ‘either nobody else would take it, or if they took it, they would spend all the time they could to try to contradict it before they put it out.'”
Paul Waldman of the Washington Post writes, Elite conservatives want you to be a terrible person (excerpt):
What else do you learn on Fox, the central hub of the conservative media universe, about what’s going on in the world? You learn that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, of course, but also that President Biden wants to limit the number of burgers you’re allowed to eat (he doesn’t) and that government officials are handing out copies of a children’s book Vice President Harris wrote in 2019 to immigrant kids (they aren’t).
The conservative media figures and Republican politicians who spread those lies know that they’re false. But they use them to keep their supporters in a state of perpetual outrage precisely because they hold those supporters in such boundless contempt.
You have to think — no, you have to know — that your audience is pretty darn stupid if you think they’ll believe that the president is going to ban hamburgers. But that’s exactly how elite conservatives like their supporters: dumb, gullible and easily enraged.
* * *
The answer to the question “Who are you?” begins and ends with “I hate liberals.”
That might turn out to be politically effective, at least for a while. But it’s no way to live.
Turn off right-wing propaganda media, grow up, get over it, get a life.
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“The lies these days are moving at the speed of light while spreading so much darkness. Take, for example, the uproar over this New York Post story that claimed that copies of a children’s book written by Vice President Kamala Harris were being given to migrant kids in their welcome kits. That tale from the border didn’t just border on B.S., this was USDA, grade A bullshit. And the reporter who wrote this story resigned, claiming she was forced to make it up, but the damage was done, pumped out over the airwaves at the bullshit factory known as Fox News.” — Jim Acosta, on CNN.
I’ve never understood why Juan Williams still works for Fox, but he may be reaching his breaking point, like Shephard Smith did. “Fox News Host Slams False News Stories Pushed On His Own Network”, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fox-news-juan-williams-debunked-stories_n_60891f6de4b0b9042d8c695d
Fox News host Juan Williams cited two false news stories that have been pushed on his cable news network in the last week as his reason for skepticism about allegations involving former Secretary of State John Kerry.
During Tuesday’s broadcast of “The Five,” Williams responded to a report that Kerry had discussed Israeli intelligence with Iran’s foreign minister. Kerry, now the Biden administration’s special climate envoy, tweeted Tuesday that the allegations, which have gained traction in right-wing circles, were “unequivocally false.”
“It just worries me, like last week we had the hamburger story, ‘Oh, Biden is going to take your hamburger.’ Kamala Harris’ book is being given to immigrants,” said Williams, referring to two now-debunked stories peddled as fact by the network’s personalities.
“These stories are false, but the right-wing echo chamber starts going crazy because you can go after a Democrat,” Williams added.
I live in NYC where I see the NY Post headlines.
They are lying daily but have the right to free speech unless they’re sued for libel.
How about that as a remedy?
Dominion sued Fox for lying about the voting machines.
Can the reporter sue for being asked to write a false story?
Unlikely. She admits that she wrote the story, and “did not push back hard enough.” She has been a reporter at The Post since the 1990s, so how many other stories has she done like this during this time? She could be a witness however. Kamala Harris has a defamation claim that meets the “actual malice” standard of NY Times v. Sullivan, but it is politically untenable to engage News Corp. in a fight that it would relish with 24 hours a day news coverage to smear Kamala Harris. This is what makes Rupert Murdoch so evil, and so dangerous. As Malcolm Turnbull indicated, News Corp. is a political force unto itself.