Fox News: I Just Read a Bunch of Articles about Hunter Biden, so You Don't Have to!
An analysis of 15 hours of Fox News for week ending 3/20/22
Fox News is back to pushing the Hunter Biden laptop scandal as a one-size-fits-all cudgel against the Biden administration. As the war in Ukraine raged on Fox anchors continued to push the idea that domestic oil production is the quickest path to peace.
Sean Hannity tried to remodel Donald J. Trump’s cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin as a complicated Reagan style covert scheme while Judge Jeanine Pirro brought up Benghazi during a rant on “The Five” because why not?
The week ending 3-20-22 for Fox News continued to be a mix of uninformed impassioned tirades, blended with conspiracy theories and wrapped up in moral indignation.
I’ll start with the clip of the week which I happened to somehow miss in my first edit of Friday’s episode of “Fox & Friends”. I caught this gem when I went back to double check on another clip and had watch this moment twice to make sure I was hearing it correctly.
Former MTV reality star, Rachel Campos-Duffy makes the wild claim that the war in Ukraine was caused not by Vladimir Putin’s long-held ambitions to rebuild the former glory of the Soviet Union but by the drunken and drug-filled antics of the son of President Biden.
The Hunter Biden laptop scandal started right before the 2020 presidential election. Like most nefarious plots promoted by Fox News the details are murky and the twists and turns are a complicated path that leads to no definitive answers.
“The Laptop From Hell: Hunter Biden, Big Tech, and the Dirty Secrets the President Tried to Hide” is an actual book promoted aggressively by Miranda Devine of the NY Post. The NY Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp the same company that owns Fox News.”
Devine’s book was heavily promoted across all three shows I surveyed last week.
Last week the NY Times published an article about the criminal investigation involving Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.
The personalities at Fox News collectively rejoiced over a mention in the article of a laptop that may or may not have been owned by Hunter Biden.
Here’s the two sentences that caused the celebration and claims of vindication over at Fox News.
“Those emails were obtained by The New York Times from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop. The email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation.
The Fox News personalities made quite a few leaps based on those two sentences. The authors of the NY Times peiece are not authenticating the laptop, they are simply saying that some emails on the laptop were authenticated. A third party could have planted the emails on any computer and then created a false narrative about it.
Although several Fox News anchors acted like this article in the NY Times was some sort of smoking gun evidence that would lead to a prosecution of Hunter Biden they left out the following two paragraphs.
“But prosecutors face a number of hurdles to bringing criminal charges, the people familiar with the investigation said, including proving that Mr. Biden intentionally violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, which requires disclosure to the Justice Department of lobbying or public relations assistance on behalf of foreign clients.”
“The Justice Department has given no public indication that it has made decisions about any element of the case, and Mr. Biden has not been charged with any crime.”
The hyperlink in the two sentences about the laptop also link back to an article written in the NYTimes from October 2020. In this older article several problems with the laptop theory are laid out in detail. This is a quick breakdown of the article.
· The laptop was allegedly left at a computer repair shop by Hunter Biden in 2019
· The owner of the shop gave the laptop to the FBI in mid-December 2019
· When the owner didn’t hear back from the FBI he contacted some congresspeople and then eventually the NY Post and Rudy Guiliani, a lawyer for then President Donald J. Trump.
· The owner gave the NY Post his copy of the hard drive from the computer.
· There is debate on whether the laptop contained Russian disinformation
Around the same time as the NY Times article came out in October 2020 more than 50 former intelligence officials signed a letter casting doubt on New York Post story regarding Hunter Biden.
Because of the overwhelming pushback by the intelligence community regarding the NY Post story versions of the laptop story got pulled from various social media outlets and journalist and frequent guest on various Fox News programs, Glenn Greenwald even dramatically resigned from The Intercept after editors refused to publish a piece he’d written about it.
The Hunter Biden laptop stories still leaves a lot of questions unanswered as Philip Bump at The Washington Post explores at length in his article from Friday.
Of course President Donald J. Trump was impeached for trying to shake down President Zelenskyy for dirt on then candidate Joe Biden in exchange for $400 million worth of military aid for Ukraine.
Fox News jumps to a lot of conclusions about this story.
Voters wouldn’t have voted for Joe Biden had this story gotten more coverage.
Investigating Trump for his ties to Russia and Ukraine somehow led to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Hunter Biden committed a slew of crimes and will be indicted even though at this point that seems unlikely
Fox News also left out that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner reportedly made $460 million during their stint at the White House while many have argued they were both in violation of anti-nepotism laws.
The cast of “The Five” also made the same claims as Rachel Campos-Duffy regarding the Hunter Biden laptop.
Sources – Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden Paid Tax Bill, but Broad Federal Investigation Continues – New York Times - From March 16, 2022
The forgotten — and ignored — context for the emergence of the Hunter Biden - Washington Post - March 18, 2022
What We Know and Don’t About Hunter Biden and a Laptop - New York Times - October 2020
Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say - Politico
Benghazi because why not!
Many Twitter uses pointed out that Judge Jeanine slurred half her words and mispronounced last names. I’m just going to let the clip speak for itself.
Another Judge Jeanine - Nuclear War? Well, we’ll see!
Hannity tries to make Trump into Ronald Reagan while bragging about Iran-Contra
I was a bit stunned to see Sean Hannity brag about the Iran-Contra Affair and Operation Cyclone as neither covert CIA action is really anything to brag about.
For the sake of brevity I will simply add that Iran-Contra was an illegal act carried out by members of the U.S. government and sanctioned at least in part by then President Ronald Reagan.
Operation Cyclone started under President Jimmy Carter but continued through until the George. H.W. Bush administration. It was an incredibly expensive military endeavor that inadvertently spread expensive military equipment and weapons throughout the Middle East which increased violence and instability in the region. Some have argued Operation Cyclone inadvertantly emboldened terrorists like Osama Bin Laden, who years later ordered the 9/11 attack on the U.S.
Sources - Iran-Contra
Iran-Contra Affair - Britannica
American Experience: Iran-Contra - PBS
Understanding the Iran-Contra Affairs - Brown University
Sources - Operation Cyclone
Arming Afghan Guerrillas: A Huge Effort by the U.S. - NY Times
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 - Wilson Center
Stories Fox promoted that PBS didn’t.
As always I compare the 15 hours I cover each week on Fox News to five hours of the non-partisan PBS NewsHour. Yet again Fox News thought the Jussie Smollett trial was important enough to dedicate 2% of its airtime on. Meanwhile the PBS NewsHour only spent all if 15 seconds to the story.
Fox’s coverage of the trial was 20 times longer than PBS when the two networks were compared evenly.
Fox also featured a short segment about a student protest at a free speech conference at Yale Law School that was not mentioned even briefly on the PBS NewsHour.
Student protests aren’t exactly rare and nothing exceptional happened at the event except the police were called. No one was injured and there was no major property damage or vandalism.
Call the police: college-aged students scream profanities at an event!
The bigger part of the story was that a conservative Judge Laurence Silberman attempted to blacklist students who took part in the demonstration by sending emails to every federal judge in the U.S. urging them to not hire the protesters as clerks.
Fox News didn’t mention Judge Silberman in their segment about the conference.
Stories Fox News ignored completely
Although the PBS NewsHour didn’t spend an excessive amount of time on the story they did have a seven and a half minutes (3% of the total broadcast for the week) to Britney Griner, a WNBA player who is currently jailed in Russia for a minor drug charge.
As I pointed out in past newsletters, Fox News has continued their pattern of selective coverage regarding Black Americans. They seem to love to show Black people who are in some sort of legal trouble but completely ignore cases where Black people are victimized or discriminated against.
Dubious expert of the week
In this clip, former NFL player and Army Ranger, Jake Bequette makes a fairly bold claim that China is suppling Russia with weapons and military equipment. Although there has been some talk of this, when this clipped aired on Friday China had not formally agreed to supply Russia with weapons. Bequette is currently running for U.S. Senate in Arkansas.
By the Numbers
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is back on the list as is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Hunter Biden was mentioned as often as Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy.
Next week I’m going to switch things up just for one week and one week only and cover just the primetime shows - Tucker Carlson Tonight, Hannity and The Ingraham Angle. I want to see how the three extremely popular shows handle the war in Ukraine over the course of one week. I will go back to my usual Fox & Friends, The Five and one primetime show after that. See you here again, next week!