Thursday, March 2, 2023

QOTD -- Bolstering Falsehoods

 

"... A few days after the 2020 election, Shah reached out to Fox News’s communications lead, Irena Briganti. Polling from the firm YouGov showed that Fox News was viewed increasingly negatively by its viewers. He had a recommendation:  'Bold, clear and decisive action is needed for us to begin to regain the trust that we’re losing with our core audience.'

"Why was Fox News losing its audience’s trust? [snip]

"... Fox News earns the trust of its audience not by conveying the truth but by bolstering the right’s agreed-upon falsehoods. Within the universe that is conservative media, there was a 'truth' about the election results that quickly became consensus: Donald Trump won; the election was stolen; the Democrats and Biden are crooks. It was this 'truth' from which Fox was deviating — and thus eroding the trust its viewers had given it." --  Philip Bump, Washington Post, summarizing the Fox "News" business model that we know so well and that has been laid bare through the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit's discovery process.  It's a business model that continues with a vengeance today on all the Fox platforms -- bolster the lies about January 6, bolster the lies about white victimization, bolster the lies about the LGBTQ community, bolster the lies about immigration, bolster the lies about the Russian war on Ukraine, bolster the lies about "wokeness," and on and on ad nauseam.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This, it seems to me, to be very much the logic of addiction. The drug is good, the drug is always right, you can quit any time you want, you just don't want to. You hang with people on-line who feel the same way. You hang with people IRL that agree with you. You stick to media sources that will agree with you.

But over time the drug takes over. The drug is more important than friends, or a social life, or personal grooming, or family, or a job. The drug is what you need, the drug is all that you need.

So you lose friends to the drug, you lose family, your job, your dignity. In the end it is just you and your drug of choice.

And then ... the bad stuff happens. You started this journey being an average Joe. You had friends, and a house, and a car, and a job, and credibility, and dignity. But one by one you made choices. It was always the same deal. The drug or ... and you chose the drug and lost another piece of yourself.

You were loyal and dedicated and in love with your drug. You never cheated or wandered. So now it is all gone. Your just a washed up old geezer on a street corner in a MAGA hat shouting at the clouds.

If anyone thinks I'm making this up you might want to ask around. Every family I know has one or more MAGA derelicts. If the family has resources they they are accommodated in spare rooms over the garage. Or stuffed into an old age home where they shout at the nurse that comes to change their diaper. If the family lacks resources, or if they finally give up, they inhabit the woods and median strips. Most squeak by on SSI or DoD retirements. Over time they get sick and tired. COVID takes a good number. Many just give up.

Tump and Newt, FOX and Limbaugh will burn in Hell forever if there is any justice. It is unforgivable what they did to this vulnerable population.

W. Hackwhacker said...

Anon -- great analogy and perceptive comments.