Anderson Cooper did a long segment last night called "Poison," and it reminded me of something I think about a lot these days: Radio Rwanda, the incendiary radio station whose propaganda resulted in the 1994 mass genocide of Tutsis. Do you really think it can't happen here?
Cooper pointed out that Fox and the related Murdoch properties like the Wall St. Journal have no problem pumping out right-wing poison.
"I want to read you something a Wall Street Journal reporter told Brian Stelter. 'I think it's disappointing that our opinion section reports so much misinformation.' Another reporter tweeted this from a Daily Beast colleague that says 'Newspapers don't exist so powerful people can publish whatever lies they want.' Both reporters are talking about the paper's decision to publish a letter by the former president full of lies about the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania," Cooper said.
He noted the Journal did not fact check Trump's letter. "They just printed it and that retweet gets into why. Rupert Murdoch is happy to enable his lies and use some of his marquee properties to amplify them. Listen to testimony from a Pennsylvania election official."
"Again, that's a Republican official whose work might otherwise go unnoticed at best. Now living in fear for himself and his family. His experience is only one of many that would not have been possible without misinformation and disinformation being pumped into the body politics by right wing media, most notably by some of the biggest and highly paid names under the Rupert Murdoch umbrella like Tucker Carlson, who did this on his program last night.
"The promo got more specific."
They began the fight against new enemy in a new war on terror. Not Al Qaeda, white supremacy.
False flags have happened in this country. One of which may have been January 6th.
It's called Patriot Purge. We're proud of it.
"The part of the trailer we did not show included a shoot from Ali Alexander, one of the organizers of the so-called Stop The Steal rally which formed the backbone of the mob that attacked the Capitol. A speechwriter for the former president who CNN K Files attended a conference frequented by white nationalists. This isn't about Tucker Carlson, it's about the empire he works for that continues to pump poison into the media ecosystem. Poison that at times violent and deadly consequences. A Capitol police officer died in the wake of what he went through. This is what that misinformation got another officer named Michael Fanone.
Harry Dunn, one of the Capitol police force, joined the discussion.
"If that isn't fear mongering, I don't know what is. That little clip right there. It just makes me angry watching it again. It made me angry that it's very irresponsible for that to be released. He has such a huge following, such a huge people that believe, amount of people that believe the things he says and it's very irresponsible to release something like that because it's not accurate. It's somebody's opinion but it's not facts," he said.
"Carl, to hear in that promo someone talking about the January 6th could have been a false flag operation, that's the stuff of you expect to be the stuff of the zaniest of people, the most crazed people online. The idea that Fox seems to be putting out a program under the Tucker Carlson banner, if they are alleging it as a false flag operation, that's pretty extraordinary," Cooper said. (Gee, Anderson, YA THINK???)
Cameron, who used to be a Fox reporter, wasn't having it.
"There's a whole bunch of extraordinary madness involved in this. Not least of which is that they are fighting against the country's government. they are fighting against facts. They are fighting against their neighbors. It really doesn't make any sense. Tucker's trailer is meant to incite. It's meant to make people angry. It's intended and it's just a trailer. Apparently this will be a streaming series. It's already been decided long time ago people would say you can never walk into a movie theater and scream fire if there isn't one. There's a simple reason for that. You could cause a riot and people could get hurt and it's disturbing the peace. There are limits on quote, 'free speech.' That's one of them. sometimes when you disturb the peace, it can become a misdemeanor and sometimes it can end up being felonious. We already had some of folk who crashed the Capitol on January 6th plead guilty.
"It's interesting because I don't know Tucker Carlson at all. He was in the wilderness for a while trying to find his way on Dancing With The Stars. I read an article about him giving a speech and getting booed in front of a conservative audience because he talked about wanting to create a conservative news organization that was based on facts like the New York Times. Clearly, he was in the wilderness and now has found what pays very well and he, most people I know who know him say what he saying is unrecognizable to the person that he once was," Cameron said.
"He was a colleague of mine. Frankly, the most significant conversation we ever had together is where to get the cheapest Nicorette gum. He was a host. He was an opinion guy. That's not what news journalists do."
A reminder:
