During 2016, Fox News, not noted for its truthiness, treated us to Bill O'Reilly abetting a witch hunt against a liberal professor, legitimization of Donald Trump's crazy Twitter talk, and bogus persecution of Christians - just to name a few magic moments. So you have to laugh at Ainsley Earhardt's exposé of "the media's most mortifying moments of 2016."
Last week, Earhardt invited us to "look back at the most mortifying moments in media this year." She introduced her guest, Mollie Hemingway, a senior editor at the conservative "Federalist." (No bias there!) The first "mortifying moment" was directed towards the mainstream media's coverage of the election. Video of pundits, predicting a Clinton victory, was shown. Earhardt noted that the word "landslide" was used. Of course, she didn't mention that her beloved Donald Trump erroneously used that same term in describing his victory.
The next whine was reserved for the critically acclaimed and unabashedly liberal Samantha Bee. Earhardt reported that Bee (accurately) claimed that "Trump won because of white people." She played video of one of Bee's routines in which Bee, with a CNN exit poll graph as a backdrop, joked "it's pretty clear who is ruining America." Given that Fox News seems to be America's white power newsroom, it wasn't surprising that Earhardt and Hemingway took great offense at this.
Hemingway commented, "This is the year that the media bought into this hard-left idea that white people are responsible for all of the world's problems."
Given that Fox has been described as an "echo chamber" for Islamophobia, Hemingway's next comment was laughable: "When you group together and generalize and disparage about two thirds of the population, you don't just get factually dubious assertions, it's more than a little bit racist." (Like Trump's commentary on Mexicans and Muslims?)
Ainsley recounted how, after his death, the evil, librul mainstream media praised Fidel Castro. She showed video of media pundits stating, accurately, that under Castro, Cubans received good health care and that Castro was considered "the George Washington of his country." Hemingway provided the requisite validation with her statement about how world leaders, including - wait for it - President Obama "treated Fidel Castro like he was good to his people." (Oh, nooo...) She continued her little right-wing rant: "Western media has adopted communist propaganda to explain Fidel Castro..." (Meanwhile, Trump is BFF with former KGB guy, Putin!)
Earthardt expressed outrage that the mainstream media didn't refer to the Orlando nightclub shooting as a terror attack. She showed video of mainstream pundits analyzing the many factors that contribute to mass shootings, including the easy availability of guns in Florida. Hemingway provided a shout-out to the gun lobby: "ISIS is committing terror attacks on domestic soil and our media is spinning it as some referendum on Second Amendment rights. That's fake news."
Fake news? As Media Matters documents, the right-wing media (including Fox News) doesn't seem to want to admit that nice, white Christian Americans can also be terrorists and that those who shoot up abortion clinics are domestic terrorists - not just lone crazies. And speaking of fake news, the anti-abortion Planned Parenthood "sting videos" have been discredited - but that didn't stop Fox News from promoting them. And then there is the defense and enabling of Donald Trump's lies...
If you want to see mortifying moments, look no further than America's not so "fair and balanced" newsroom!
Watch the whinefest from the December 22, 2016 Fox & Friends.
Crossposted at Newshounds.us
