For the nth time we are led to wonder, how long will Fox News continue to cherry pick what it chooses to cover and call itself a cable “news” network? A major event just happened in Washington, D.C. this afternoon, the indictment of Trump crony Steve Bannon, who famously said, “All hell’s going to break loose tomorrow,” the day before the January 6 riot at the Capitol.
But here’s what Fox News is doing, while the two other cable news channels are all over the Bannon indictment.
CNN and MSNBC are covering the Bannon indictment. Fox News is playing 2017's greatest hits. pic.twitter.com/hmGGBjzR6P
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 12, 2021
And by no means have they run out of gas on the Biden/Satchel Paige incident. This is one of Fox’s most alarming moments. The clip of Biden’s Veteran’s Day comments has been edited to distort the narrative and create an effect, which is Propaganda 101.
Then this morning Fox & Friends opted for full-frontal dishonesty, deceptively editing Biden's remarks to exclude his mention of the negro leagues and make what he said seem racially insensitive. Shameless lying. pic.twitter.com/dbbTtPhFnR
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 12, 2021
Here’s the context in which the comment was made. Aaron Rupar, Public Notice:
Biden’s remark came during a Veterans Day speech while he was honoring former US Ambassador to Hungary Donald Blinken, an Army veteran who’s also the father of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Biden, joking about being 78 years old and the fact that Donald Blinken was celebrating his 96th birthday, said, “I’ve adopted the attitude of the great negro at the time, pitcher in the negro leagues, who went on to become a great pitcher in the pros — in Major League Baseball — after Jackie Robinson. His name was Satchel Paige.”
He continued:
And Satchel Paige on his 47th birthday pitched a win against Chicago. And all the press went in and said, ‘Satch is amazing. Forty-seven years old. No one’s ever, ever pitched a win at age 47. How do you feel about being 47?’ He said, ‘Boys, that’s not how I look at it.’ And they said, ‘How do you look at it, Satch? And he said, ‘I look at it this way: How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?’
Interpreted in context, there is absolutely nothing wrong with what Biden said. His comment about Paige being a “great negro” was merely referring to the fact that he pitched in the negro leagues.
But Fox News smelled an opportunity.
If you knew nothing of Fox News, and you just stumbled on them in the past 24 hours, this is the only tutorial you would ever need.
1) A major breaking news story goes unreported and ignored as if it never happened and
2) A softball story about a 78-year-old man wishing a 96-year-old man Happy Birthday gets deceptively edited and magnified into evidence of racism, or insensitivity at the very least.
There will be more of the same regarding Joe Biden, you know that, I know that and the President knows that. As to the Bannon indictment and other indictments to come, I wonder how Fox News is going to spin that out? Are Hannity, Carlson and Ingraham just going to adopt the poses of the famous monkey meme, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil? We’re going to find out and soon.
