Thursday, January 28, 2021

QOTD

 

"When I defended the call for Biden in the Arizona election, I became a target of murderous rage from consumers who were furious at not having their views confirmed.

"Having been cosseted by self-validating coverage for so long, many Americans now consider any news that might suggest that they are in error or that their side has been defeated as an attack on them personally. The lie that Trump won the 2020 election wasn’t nearly as much aimed at the opposing party as it was at the news outlets that stated the obvious, incontrovertible fact." -- former Fox "News" political editor Chris Stirewalt in the Los Angeles Times today.  He was fired as part of a "restructuring" by Fox on January 19.  As Stirewalt notes, his involvement in being the first to accurately call Arizona for Joe Biden caused a furious real- time backlash (including a call to Rupert Murdoch from incompetent princeling Jared Kushner to reverse the decision) and a weeks- long cascade of abuse from Mango Mussolini.  That abuse has been cited as a primary post- election reason why the Republican propaganda channel has seen some of its clueless audience migrate to even more radical right- wing outlets.  Recapturing that audience is what this "restructuring" is all about.