I am a political independent who leans either conservatively or in the libertarian direction depending on the issue. I am getting up there in years now and have appreciated watching Fox News and Fox Business for many years. I am grateful that Fox fought against the far left currents of the mainstream media to establish itself 25 years ago. Lately however, I have had the impression that certain Fox News contributors, and Fox News itself have been slipping somewhat. Candidly, I think that One America News often delivers a better and more factual run down on current news events. I recommend One America News to anyone who wants a no bullshit treatment of the news. One America News also features incredibly in-depth coverage of certain critical topics during the weekend. Depth on key, current controversies, such as RNA vaccines side effects, is exactly the kind of information I am not getting from Fox and other mainstream media sources.
I understand it is always easy to criticize. We all recognize that it is easier to critique than to actually do something positive. My intent is thus to give constructive criticism – not that Fox would ever listen. If you watch much Fox News, one thing you will immediately notice is that essentially all of the Fox programs generally repeat the same two-to-four stories a day. Barring some breaking development, the early Fox shows will begin with two-to-four stories in the morning, say the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, inflation, and President Biden and Vice President Harris’ declining poll numbers. All the other news and opinion shows throughout the day will then repeat the same stories, adding very little additional insight from show to show. A notable exception is Tucker Carlson who tends to think a little more creatively and outside the box than most of his colleagues. Gutfeld and Kennedy can be counted on of course to add their own zany take on life and current events. But most of the other shows just drone on covering the same issues and even often deploying the same predictable stable of guests, many who are not actually experts at anything.
Consistent with the tendency for Fox News to cover only 2 to 4 predictable stories a day – Hannity recently dedicated his show to the Rittenhouse trial four days in a row, while pretending he is a lawyer, which he decidedly he is not, although he never admits that. Meanwhile, there are all kinds of critically important stories that Fox News never follows up on and researches. Fox viewers are forced to do desperate Google research to learn really important information, while Hannity and Ingraham bloviate for the fourth or fifth night on the same story, adding very little original insight.
Here are a whole series of stories that Fox News apparently lacked the drive or the guts to follow up on:
1. Who actually went to Epstein’s Pedophile Island? It appears Bill Clinton went. Did President Obama go or not? Surely Fox can find out the answer if Barack Obama visited the Pedophile Island of Jeffrey Epstein. This is a huge story. It is beginning to appear that a significant number of our public school educators and our far left elites may be pedophiles or apologists for pedophiles, like the recent degenerate who suggested we should rename pedophiles “minor attracted persons,” quite a euphemism for one of the most reviled concepts known to man. Epstein gave vast amounts of money to the democratic party. Does Fox News want to investigate that at all or just pay Hannity to malpractice on television without a law license?
2. Same question about the nasty troll Harvey Weinstein. He was also a disgusting pervert, molesting every clean, pretty woman he could lay his hands on. He was a bid democrat donor too. Is Fox News going to investigate this story at all? Was there a racist or anti-Christina component to Weinstein’s predatory behavior? Did he rape or molest any Jewish women or just gentiles?
3. What about Muslim crime in Europe and the United States? A few years ago there was a story out of Europe that crime especially rape and assault on women, had spiked massively (over 90% in some places) after massive Muslim immigration to Europe. By the way, Muslims claim to hate Christians. Sharia Law basically considers non-Muslim women whores who can be assaulted by Muslim men at will. Why do the Muslims even want to come and live in Europe and America if they hate us? Is it simply to collect free benefits so the men do not have to work. Where are women’s groups on this issue? Are liberal women’s groups in America and Europe comfortable with massive immigration to western countries by people who view them as servants and whores? What about gay groups? Even conservative westerners have come to accept consensual gay relationships. Are gay groups ever going to protest massive immigration of Muslim men who believe gay men should be thrown off of buildings? Where are you Fox News?
4. What suddenly happened to attorney general Barr? I thought he was going to help valiantly drain the swamp. Then he was suddenly gone. Where is the Fox News follow up story? For that matter, what happened to Rothstein?
5. Did Comey, McCabe, and others who knowingly signed false FISA Applications ever lose their licenses to practice law. This should have been a complete and utter no brainer. If a lawyer knowingly submits false information to a court, he is immediately subject to disciplinary action for violating the duty of candor and other RPCs. This should have happened automatically to anyone who signed a false FISA Application. This is a separate concept from whether Comey, McCabe or others should be subject to criminal prosecution. I have no idea. I lack the facts and the expertise at criminal law. But their law licenses should have been pulled by now for certain; they deliberately lied to a federal court. Have you followed up on this story yet Fox News.
6. Finally, where is your expose on the actual filth of electric vehicles? Has anyone at Fox News actually analyzed the vast volume of dirty mining or rare earth minerals required to make electric vehicles? The mining could end up being as filthy as drilling for hydrocarbons. Moreover a vast amount of energy will have to be consumed to generate all the electricity needed to charge electric vehicles. Currently, only 12% of US electricity comes from so called green energy. For liberals who can’t do math, that means 88% of all electricity comes from burning hydrocarbons. When all of this is taken into account, some experts have concluded that EVs are not cleaner than gas powered cars. Where are you on this Fox News? Can you actually do some original research on something?
I could give numerous other examples of news stories that Fox News has simply not followed up on. Although One America News is still small, one thing I love about that station is that they do in-depth stories more than 1-2 hours long on the weekend trying to investigate some of these critical issues that neither cable news nor the mainstream media ever covers. I am so grateful to that commitment to the people.
Finally, I have to say that some Fox News commentators and personalities have shown incredibly bad judgment lately. Judgment that should be addressed by the Fox producers. While Fox has some truly gifted and honest commentators such as Tucker Carlson, Larry Kudlow, Dan Bongino, Jessie Waters, and so on, some of the more popularized bomb throwers have really lost their way lately. Several nights ago commentator Laura Ingraham actually commanded her guests, “stop talking.” She said this of course because Ms. Ingraham can never shut up herself. Ms. Ingraham, you may not realize this, but I generally tune in to hear your guests much more than to hear you. Ms. Ingraham has a condition called pressure of speech where she cannot contain her own talking. She is too undisciplined to shut her own mouth even when required to hear from a world class expert on some topic. She is clunky, lacking in charm and grace, and routinely interrupts everyone else. But the image of her telling invited guests to essentially shut up so she could keep talking more was really too much for me.
Finally, I have to say that Sean Hannity is probably the dumbest conservative commentator on television, and I like conservatists. Several days ago and actually on more than one show Hannity began one of his brain dead litanies where he unthinkingly spouts out nothing without realizing it. He kept saying over and over again that every two to four years democrats come out to ask for black votes. Now I completely agree with that sentiment, but could someone tell Mr. Hannity that two is a factor of four. In other words if they do something every two years they will automatically do it every four years. Hannity look at this: 2,4,6,8,10,12. Do you see that doing something every 2 years makes it inevitably cover every 4 years. It is similar to saying, “I have a Birthday every 1 year and every 2 years;” utter nonsense. Apparently on the way to not going to law school despite his constant pretense, Hannity flunked basic math. He says stupid things like that all the time and shows no interest in improving. He routinely uses an additional phrase in discussing equal protection under the law: he constantly tosses in the additional verbiage equal application under the law, which is just one aspect of equal protection. He could have noticed that real lawyers do not say that.
Lastly Hannity’s full on attempt to give a long legal explanation of the Rittenhouse trial was completely inappropriate. Actual lawyers are quite sensitive about talking too much concerning the specifics of a pending trial. Yet, here was Hannity not openly disclosing he has zero legal experience, purporting to give a twenty minute long dissertation about what was happening at the Rittenhouse trial. At one point, he droned on continuing to present his legally illiterate encapsulation of the Rittenhouse trial, while world class legal minds like Dershowitz sat waiting to give a more informed account than could ever be mastered by Hannity. Later Fox News brought in Rittenhouse’s mother while the trial was still pending. Do you think hearing testimony from the mother could sway a juror? At some point Fox news even elicited questions from the mother that probably violated the attorney-client privilege. For example, they asked Rittenhouse’s mother why her son chose to testify? This trenches on privileged information on whether Rittenhouse should have testified or not and Fox News should not have asked about it until a verdict was rendered.
Fox News needs to be much more professional and circumspect in these situations and compulsive talkers like Hannity and Ingraham need to get more self-control over their own mouths and understand that many of us are much more interested in what their expert guests have to say than in hearing another predictable rant from them. Consistent with this, Hannity should learn to ask more open ended questions of his guests. Quite often Hannity frames a question in the form of his own opinion, such as, “do you agree with the statement I made in 2008 that journalism is dead.” This, of course, is just another way the audience is stuck hearing more from Hannity and less from guests. The Fox News audience is literally drowning in rhetorical pabulum from the likes of Hannity and Ingraham. We would earnestly like to hear more from expert guests and less from crude talking heads.
By Paul H. Beattie
Notes from the Secular Right 