Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Nothing worth doing is easy.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Another Saturday, Another Piece of Journalism from Chris Quinn at Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer

Another Saturday, Another Piece of Journalism from Chris Quinn at Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer

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Our political cartoonist Jeff Darcy had the perfect take last year after depositions in the Fox News Dominion defamation lawsuit showed that Rupert Murdoch and Fox host knew they had lied about the 2020 Presidential election being stolen and continued to do so despite that. The ceaseless lies of Fox News undermine our discourse.

Journalism, again!

Another great piece from Chris Quinn, Editor at Cleveland’s Plain Dealer.  As long as he (and hopefully others) commit journalism, I will keep promoting them.  Please think about sharing this with anyone you know.  (bolding is mine)

The closer we get to the November election, the more I hear from people demanding what I interpret as a false equivalency in our stories and opinion pieces.

No. No. No. No. No.

The only standard that matters is truth.

If we write six stories in six days about lies, exaggerations or wacky statements by Ohio’s JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate, we’re not going to write six stories about his Democratic opponent Tim Walz simply to match up. We follow the news. Also, Vance is from Ohio, which is what we cover. Of course, we focus on him.

False equivalence is a pox on our political discussion these days. Some believe newsrooms are unfair unless everything they do cuts straight down the middle. But news is messy, not some perfectly balanced math equation. There are times – like the week of the Republican convention – when one side commands most of the attention.

And there are eras, like the current one, when people in one party lie, exaggerate or make wacky statements more than the other. To do our job, we have to report that. To pretend otherwise is where the falsity arises.

Although the vast majority of people I hear from applaud how we approach politics, I still hear from some who say our coverage of the Republican ticket is biased.

It’s not. It’s truth. Readers who say they don’t like it are really saying they don’t want the truth. They want bias, but on their side of the equation.

The latest jabs have come because of some appearances I’ve made on Nicolle Wallace’s MSNBC show, Deadline: White House. She has invited me on to talk about the Ohio viewpoint on Vance and the presidential race.

I’m a Wallace fan, as are quite a few others across the country. A strategy of the right, though, is to claim that MSNBC is biased to the left the way Fox News is biased to the right, and anyone who appears on MSNBC is showing a bias. That’s another false equivalence. MSNBC is nothing like Fox News.

I’ve argued all year that Fox News is the single biggest threat to democracy in America. Huge numbers of Americans watch it, believing it to be a news outlet that purveys the truth. Fox News is not a news outlet. It is a money machine for Rupert Murdoch and his family that has learned to rake in billions by lying. People on Fox News lie by the minute, seriously undermining faith in our institutions.

If you listen to Wallace and her guests on MSNBC, however, you don’t hear lies. They tell the truth.

MSNBC is not a counterpart to Fox News. There is no counterpart to Fox News. Other broadcaster don’t have a business model based on lying. You might not like what Wallace and others say on MSNBC, because they portray your party in a poor light, but that doesn’t mean they don’t tell the truth. They do.

I wish one of the major news organizations – one with resources our newsroom lacks — would do a daily fact check on all the lies told in the previous 24 hours by Fox News. It would hold this dangerous organization accountable.

Think about it: Plenty of news organizations do fact checks on statements made by politicians, while Fox News, which reaches far more people, lies with abandon.

Bill Adair is the founder of PolitiFact, which has won a Pulitzer Prize for fact checking. He has a book coming out in October called “Beyond the Big Lie,” which examines the state and evolution of political lies in America. I’ve known him since our newsroom partnered with PolitiFact more than a decade ago, and he calls from time to time to hear the viewpoint from a regional newsroom. He sent me an advance copy of the book, which I’ll write about in more detail closer to publication.

It’s worth reading just for the prologue, a powerful anecdote that I won’t spoil. Overall, the book lays out a strong case for America to get back to holding people accountable for lies. We’ve become numb to lying since the rise of Donald Trump, who has lied too many times to count.

And the book takes Fox News to task repeatedly for its lies.

The only way to stop Fox News from undermining our political discourse is to start fighting back, to put a spotlight on the many ways it lies. Yes, I understand that Fox News viewers likely would not see those fact checks, but calling out the lies day after day would have an impact. The alternative – doing nothing – ensures that Fox News continues to wreck our discourse, continues arming a large part of America with information that is false.

Journalists have a responsibility here. Fox News has corrupted what we do by purporting to be one of us, relying on our credibility to spread damaging lies. We have a duty to protect a profession that has been a key check on government since the republican was founded.

As for MSNBC, if Wallace invites me on to her show, I’ll be there. She’s a journalist who fights falsehoods every weekday. The more journalists who do that, the better our chances, as a nation, of once again having discussions based on truth, not the baloney proffered by Fox News.

I’m at [email protected]

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

46Comments

  1. 1.

    WaterGirl

    Posted this just 30 minutes after the Worker Power Field Notes post.  I hope you’ll still read that one, but I don’t know that there’s a lot to say in the comments, except that they are are doing great things.

  2. 2.

    cain

    The problem I saw is that the other news orgs defend Fox. When Obama tried to kick fox out there was a hue and cry. It was pathetic.

  3. 3.

    BR

    I’ve decided my nerves can’t handle it and I’m going to tune out all blogs and news this coming week. Except for watching Harris’s speech online, because I want to contribute to the view numbers, I don’t think I can handle the media’s anti-Dem spin and the protests and all the rest.

  4. 4.

    WaterGirl

    @cain:

    The problem I saw is that the other news orgs defend Fox.

    Totally agree.  They see themselves first as part of a band of brothers, or something, not as the fourth estate and defenders of democracy.

    The media lost its (collective) way and they will have to hit rock bottom before they wake up.  I’m not sure what rock bottom would look like to them.  We are seeing just the edges of the pushback from the Harris campaign, and the media seems to be noticing, but they are still a million miles from rock bottom.

  5. 5.

    WaterGirl

    @BR: Then it’s the perfect time to join us in the zoom with The Civics Center.  Tuesday at 7:30 pm Eastern.

    You might just come away inspired, and with calmer nerves.

    Send email to me to RSVP.

  6. 6.

    CaseyL

    @cain: ​

    I remember that, and being very pissed off. Like, “If the tables were turned, Fox News would not only NOT come to your defense, they’d cheer on excluding. you. Hell, they’d cheer on rounding you up and putting you in camps.”

    About the only faux-reporter I can think of who the “real” reporters didn’t stick up for was that Gannon guy back in W’s reign. Can’t remember why, maybe because he turned out to be a porn star.

  7. 7.

    Steve LaBonne

    Wow. Thank you, I missed this one. I guess I will have to toss some subscription $$ to cleveland.com- this kind of thing needs to be rewarded.

  8. 8.

    gene108

    Fox News lost at least one lawsuit for spreading 2020 election lies.

    There’s a court case showing they lie. They know they’re lying, and know if they don’t lie they will lose viewers to NewsMax and other right-wing cable news channels.

    Edit: Fox will lose viewers to other right-wing channels that tell bigger lies Republican voters find more reassuring. It’s a damning indictment of a lot of our media this continues and is often defended.

  9. 9.

    Feckless

    Fox News was intimately involved in trying to overthrow our democracy on January 6th.

    I know this only because it was revealed in a civil lawsuit.  Not an FBI investigation, from discovery in a civil lawsuit that settled without a trial.

    Fox is nothing but a propaganda  platform for traitors.

    Maybe our dem leaders should treat it that way 

  12. 12.

    Old Man Shadow

    The only way to stop Fox News from undermining our political discourse is to start fighting back, to put a spotlight on the many ways it lies.

    Why, it’s that kind of attitude that will keep you from going anywhere but regional media!

  13. 13.

    Librarian

    Another difference between Fox and MSNBC is the Fox is owned by somebody who will keep it on the air no matter what, while MSNBC is owned by a corporation which could pull it off the air and replace it with a shopping channel anytime it wants.

  15. 15.

    RaflW

    “It’s truth. Readers who say they don’t like it are really saying they don’t” like Republicans. (FTFY)

    The problem arises because they still think of themselves as Republicans, and can’t figure out the correct response options: change parties, or change the party they believe they belong in.

  16. 16.

    KatKapCC

    Great article, thank you for sharing it.

    Some believe newsrooms are unfair unless everything they do cuts straight down the middle.

    Does that go for everything? “We’re joined now by Candidate A, who thinks the Earth is flat, a totally valid and reasonable notion.”

  18. 18.

    hells littlest angel

    @cain: That the White House Press Corps accepts an asshole like Peter Doocy as an equal brings all of them down to his level.

  19. 19.

    Another Scott

    @Librarian: Roger Ailes was behind both of them, so it’s not surprising that they are actually more similar than many believe.

    Variety.com – Ailes’ May 2017 obituary:

    […]

    In 1992, Ailes retired from political and corporate consulting to return full-time to television. He worked as a top consultant and/or executive producer for numerous syndicated television shows, including “A Current Affair,” “The Maury Povich Show” and “The Leeza Show.”

    Ailes lured conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh to television for a latenight syndicated show, executive produced by Ailes, but it never took off. In 1993 Ailes was named president of NBC’s business news and talk network CNBC. He was also tapped to help form another NBC cable network, America’s Talking, an information-talk channel that later morphed into MSNBC. America’s Talking debuted on July 4, 1994, with Ailes hosting his own nightly show “Straight Forward.”

    Between America’s Talking and CNBC, Ailes was responsible for more live programming than any other television executive in America – 31.5 hours daily. He also created the CNBC “Talk-All-Stars” concept, attracting such notable names as Tim Russert, Geraldo Rivera, Chris Matthews and Dee Dee Myers.

    Under his leadership, CNBC established itself as the fastest-growing cable network in America, and its ratings and profits increased dramatically. Ailes also oversaw the network’s 1996 worldwide expansion to Europe and Asia. Despite these successes, Ailes had a falling out with management and was eventually pushed out of CNBC.

    Ailes joined Fox News in February 1996 to launch the network’s first weekly public affairs show, “Fox News Sunday.” He also oversaw the launch of Fox News Channel, which skeptics thought would never be able to compete with CNN. Against all odds, with enormous investment from what was then Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., the personality-driven network surpassed CNN to become the No. 1 news network in the U.S.

    Ailes hired O’Reilly, who quickly became the network’s primetime star. Ailes also hired Geraldo Rivera, with whom he had worked while he was at CNBC.

    […]

    Ultimately, for-profit broadcasters are about profits. And these days, that means fear and anger and “engagement” and hitting quarterly numbers.

    None of this is new, of course, as we remember Father Coughlin and others. But the world is a smaller place now, and in many ways institutions are more fragile because people think that they’ve always been there and will always be there so they don’t need to pay much attention…

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  20. 20.

    WaterGirl

    @Old Man Shadow:

    Why, it’s that kind of attitude that will keep you from going anywhere but regional media!

    Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

    I would like to see local media used most exclusively thru the election in November.  Plus social media, etc.  But not the big entitled media groups, screw them.

  25. 25.

    Baud

    I wonder of CPD has seen a big rise in subscriptions by speaking truth. If so, hopefully market forces will work.

  26. 26.

    Anonymous At Work

    Fox News once plead in legal briefs that Tucker Carlson and others were NOT journalists but entertainers and that no rational person would believe them (this was BEFORE the Dominion lawsuit as well).  Rubber meets the road and money is on the line and Fox said “We aren’t news but entertainment.”  Hold them to that.
    Reality Check: It was a bit more limited than that, but the principle is the same.  When it came time to defend themselves as a news organization (and lose a defamation suit) or weasel-plead, Fox chose to weasel-plead.

  27. 27.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: This election, I’m hoping Vice President Harris sits down with the editorial boards of the main Pittsburgh and Philadelphia newspapers. John Fettetman did that in 2022 and I think it went well for him.

  28. 28.

    TBone

    The FTFNYT has a both sides, he said she said “fact check” article today.  It is exactly as shitty as you’d think.  It’s headlined:

    Assessing Trump’s and Harris’s Attacks On Each Other

    Not linking, kinda pissed that I gave it a click but in light of this topic I wanted to say Fuck the Fucking NYT again.

  30. 30.

    trollhattan

    In its heyday The Daily Show was relentless in airing Fox lies segments and I don’t believe their work was appreciated beyond the actual TDS audience. Which is a shame because they did it well and of course used all that material as fodder for their own content.

    Often wondered who the poor sods were that had to plow through tape after tape of Fox content for the material. Has to turn your brain to mush after a time.

  35. 35.

    cain

    @Anonymous At Work:

    It should be used to kick them out. Simply stating that in court they said they were an entertainment company and that their show hosts are entertainers.

    The priority 1 is kicking fox news out of the briefing room.

  42. 42.

    Dmbeaster

    The most essential remedy for Fox is the media calling it out for its lying propaganda content.  Instead, they largely treat it as just another legitimate news outlet with a point of view.  They are complicit in the disease since they will not stand up for a core principle of journalism.

    I have no problem with journalism written from a clearly disclosed point of view.  It’s the intentional toxic lies that are the problem.

    Facts have a liberal bias these days.  But the media largely has a bias in favor of disinformation that sells.  They envy the success of Fox.

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