Fox News: Run for the Hills - Student Debt Forgiveness is Communism!
A condensed overview of 15 hours of Fox News for the week ending 8/28/22
This week a typical Fox News viewer might think that an IRS agent might walk up to their door and demand a check for their neighbor’s student loan debt. They might also United States was on a brink of the Communist revolution and that migrants were taking over the New York Public School system.
A Fox News viewer might not realize rivers across Europe have dropped to dangerous levels, while parts of Asia are submerged by historic floods. They probably wouldn’t know that a nuclear power plant in Ukraine is at risk of a meltdown due to Russian shelling or that citizens of South Sudan are experiencing a devastating food crisis.
Fox did manage to report on the floods in Dallas last week although their coverage of the disaster was added as a brief addition to the weather segment on “Fox & Friends.”
The Student Loan Freakout
Fox News reacted with moral outrage towards President Biden’s plan to cancel $10,000 - $20,000 per borrower in the federal student loan program. To Fox News this wasn’t just a way to lift the burden of crushing student loan debt from an entire generation it was blatant vote buying by a desperate low polling president.
Most Fox personalities acted as if every American would get some type of bill to pay for this loan forgiveness. Of course that’s not how this plan will work. There is no increased tax to pay for any debt forgiveness.
Fox turned this scheme into hard-working waitresses and truck drivers who are now forced to pay for the debts of latte drinking, urbanites with four degrees in basket weaving from Harvard. The terms socialism, communism and Marxism also kept getting brought up in terms of this plan for a total of 20 times.
It never occurred to anyone on Fox that some of its viewers might have children or grandchildren who will directly benefit from this plan.
The network also seemingly didn’t seem to realize that they were also promoting the very un-populist idea that only the children of the very rich should go to college.
At one point Judge Jeanine Pirro explained how her parents had paid for her education but they worked hard which implied that other parents didn’t work as hard or didn’t care enough about their kids to save enough for a college education.
It would seemingly be very American to hope that a poor kid with good grades and high test scores could make it into Harvard or Yale and then use the federal student loan program to help pay for it. Never mind that most college students don’t go to expensive schools and will still rack up debt getting a very boring degree in accounting from a State university.
Some experts have argued that the repayment changes might be more beneficial for more borrowers over the long term but that was never addressed once on the network by anyone even the few liberal voices on “The Five.”
In this clip Martha MacCallum declares that everyone should pay back their loans.
In theory she’s right but it does seem a bit hallow to promote this idea while conveniently forgetting that Fox’s favorite unhinged forever president declared bankruptcy six times.
If someone runs a company into the ground and stiffs borrowers millions of dollars that’s just fine, but student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. It’s somehow a larger moral crime when a 35-year-old who has already paid back several thousand dollars has a medical crisis and cannot keep up with her student loan payments than it is for a mogul like Trump to stiff hundreds of small businesses and subcontractors.
Biden made a slight gaffe, Pete Hegseth tried to run with it.
In this clip Pres. Joe Biden slightly misspoke.
“The debt is especially heavy on Black and Hispanic borrowers who on average have less family wealth to pay for it, they don’t own their homes to borrow against to help pay for college,” said Biden.
Hegseth took this as a gotcha opportunity to skewer Biden for his slight misstatement.
Biden could have easily fixed his statement by saying “On average Black and Hispanic families are less likely to own their homes . . .”
Biden would be completely correct. White families are far more likely to own a home than Black or Hispanic families.
Source - U.S. Census
The reasons why Black and Hispanic families are less likely to own property are varied but include the practice of redlining, housing discrimination, predatory lending, and unfair loan practices.
A home equity loan is money taken out based on the equity accrued in a home, the interest rate is usually quite low and the loan can be paid back early with no penalty. Many homeowners use home equity loans to help pay for part if not all of their child’s college expenses.
Student borrowers of color are disproportionately affected by student loan debt.
From the education data initative :
Black and African American college graduates owe an average of $25,000 more in student loan debt than White college graduates.
Four years after graduation, 48% of Black students owe an average of 12.5% more than they borrowed.
Black and African American student borrowers are the most likely to struggle financially due to student loan debt, with 29% making monthly payments of $350 or more.
From the Brookings Institution :
A 2014 study by Goldrick-Rab, Kelchen, and Houle and a 2015 report by Demos show that black students borrow more than other students for the same degrees, and black borrowers are more likely than white borrowers to drop out without receiving a degree.
A creative 2016 analysis by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth matched data on student loan delinquencies by zip code with zip code demographics and finds that delinquencies are concentrated in black and Latino communities.
Two recently published studies (by Addo, Houle, and Simon and Grinstein-Weiss et al.) use national survey data to show that black students hold substantially more debt by age 25 compared to their white counterparts, and that disparities are evident even after controlling for family income and wealth, indicating that differences in postsecondary and labor market experiences contribute to the debt gap.
Overall Fox kept pushing the idea of fairness. This plan simply isn’t fair. I guess in their ideal world only the children of the wealthy and privileged should get a higher education and brilliant hard working kids from lower socioeconomic backgrounds should just accept their lot in life as one of the lower classes.
Fairness is relative.
Our Border is So Open People Pay Smugglers to Help them Cross it.
The network regularly features desperate scenes of migrants crossing our border at great peril. Fox reporter Sara Carter even had an exclusive interview with an alleged human smuggler, his face hidden in shadow while his voice was digitally altered.
The smuggler claimed children were sold into sex trafficking or basically given to drug cartels for use as free labor. He even said in some cases children are sold for their organs.
I’m not doubting the validity of his claims as there have been plenty of examples of horrific abuse at the hands of smugglers at the border.
The biggest problem with Fox’s argument though is that entering the United States at the Southern border successfully is an incredibly difficult task.
As usual Fox has created their own reality.
As Fox News correspondent Sara Carter puts it,
“So I think the question that needs to be proposed to the Biden administration is, why are you doing this? What are you benefiting from this? What are you looking for? What are you seeking? That border is wide open, and it's wide open. Because they want it to be,” said Carter.
What makes this quote especially outrageous is Carter says this right after interviewing the alleged human smuggler.
If our Southern border was so open there would be no need to pay a nefarious person to help migrants cross it.
Fox News has twisted this issue completely for political purposes. In most cases migrants are people fleeing violence or chaos in their home countries or they are seeking a better life than the limited opportunities they have in their home country.
Fox has reduced the entire crisis to some sort of plot by Mexican drug cartels and the Chinese government to secretly poison Americans with Fentanyl while profiting in the misery of desperate people. They’ve referred to migrants as invaders while at the same time featured the plight of migrants who died trying to make the passage.
The many problems with our immigration system would easily fill a small library. Fox won’t address the bad decisions and lack of decisive action that has gotten us to this point they just create their own reality where a rusted wall could somehow stop desperate people who are already risking their lives to get here.
A Classic Fox News Trick with Numbers
I pulled this clip because it’s a common tactic used on Fox News often. A scary sounding number is used without any context. In this case Sean Hannity declares that 1000 new migrant children will be added to the New York Public School system for the upcoming school year.
The New York City Public Schools contains 1851 schools and 1,050,649 students. An extra 1000 students would be the equivalent of one tenth of one percent of the total student body.
New York City also has an extremely diverse community with plenty of Spanish language programs for students who would need to learn English as a second language. Hispanics and Latinos make up 27.5% of New York City's population.
A Guest Goes Rogue!
Brian Kilmeade was hoping Deanna Purcell, a mother of students in the Ohio school system, was going to go on a tirade about remote learning. This segment was supposed to be a moment to lambast the teacher’s union in Ohio for going on strike.
In lieu of in-person classes during the strike teachers had set up a bare bones remote learning curriculum.
A Fox producer must have found Purcell through some form of complaint she made about the remote learning classes.
This should have been a typical Fox News segment, then Brian Kilmeade asked the wrong question,
“Who do you side with?”
Purcell answered,
“The teachers 1000%.”
She then went on to list all of the problems in the schools including issues with rundown facilities, improper heating and cooling, mold, asbestos and lack of general repairs.
Kilmeade just looked stunned while she kept going. It doesn’t happen often but every now and then a guest on Fox News does not play by Fox News rules.
Stories Fox News Thought were Newsworthy that were NOT Newsworthy
The Paul Pelosi DUI dash cam video - Fox really tried to make this into something but the dash cam video really doesn’t show much of anything. An elderly man got pulled over after a car accident and complies with the police. There has not been any evidence that anyone tried to pull strings to get Paul Pelosi a better deal. He pleaded guilty, paid a fine, will commit to community service and alcohol awareness training.
Pelosi did flash a card of some sort that showed that he had donated to a police organization but didn’t protest when the card was ignored by the arresting officers.
Stories Fox News Ignored
Every week I compare 15 hours of Fox News to 5 hours of PBS NewsHour. This is a list of all of the stories PBS included that were not mentioned on Fox. It’s always quite long. Each bullet point includes a hyperlink if you want to learn more about each story.
A new version of the COVID-19 vaccine should come out in the Fall - The vaccine is designed to protect against new variants of the disease.
Two men found guilty in a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. A past trial ended in a deadlocked jury.
A guilty plea in the killing of Breonna Taylor - Detective Kelly Goodlett, 35, pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiring to commit two federal crimes. Goodlett admitted that she conspired with another former LMPD detective, both to falsify an affidavit to obtain a warrant to search Breonna Taylor’s home without probable cause, which resulted in Taylor’s death, and to cover up the false warrant by lying to criminal investigators after Taylor was killed.
A special prosecutor found two police officers used justifiable force in the death of Rayshard Brooks
Russian TV commentator Darya Dugina was killed in a car bomb - Her father, Alexander Dugin, was most likely the intend ended target. Alexander Dugin is an outspoken Russian nationalist and supporter of Vladimir Putin. Russia blamed the Ukrainian Secret Service. Ukraine has denied any involvement.
Police in Pakistan filed terrorism charges against Former Prime Minster Imran Khan
Philippines returns to in-person classes for all students, the first time in two years.
A bystander captured the brutal beating by police officers of an unarmed man in Arkansas.
A severe drought and erratic severe rainfall in Africa combined with the war in Ukraine is causing a food crisis in South Sudan.
Heat waves and droughts in Europe has caused a huge drop in most rivers.
Recall on Hyundai and Kia vehicles over fears that they could catch on fire if parked indoors.
Former security chief claims Twitter buried ‘egregious deficiencies’ in regards to security and spam on the platform.
Iranian militia pilots shot down by U.S. forces over Syria after the militia pilots attacked the Americans.
A House oversight committee found Trump officials tried to ‘bully’ FDA over the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 even though studies had shown the drug wasn’t an effective treatment against the virus.
Continuing conflict in Ethiopia as Tigray war escalates
Court rulings on abortion rights in Idaho and Texas. In both cases the lawsuits were to protect women who need an abortion in a life saving circumstance. In Idaho the court ruled against Idaho’s extremely restrictive law, in Texas the court ruled for the State.
The War in Ukraine - A nuclear power plant remains in jeopardy. Russia made a number of strikes on Ukraine Independence Day.
5th anniversary of 700,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled persecution from Myanmar.
By the Numbers
Every week I create transcripts from all 15 hours of Fox News and search for words.
Coming Up…
I got hit with two medical calamities last week. On Thursday and Friday I was temporarily blinded by a corneal scratch and then on Saturday I tested positive with COVID-19. This is my first bout with the virus. I’ve been vaccinated and boosted but it was no match for these new variants. I’ve been completely wiped out with a high fever and a range of other nasty symptoms.
I’m going to take a week away from my usual schedule to recover but I’ll still be working. I’m planning to use this time to get caught up on some projects for Decoding Fox News that I always run out of time to get to. I also will have no podcast this week since my voice has been ravaged by this virus.
I decided to finish the Newsletter since I had already done most of the work for it anyway and I didn’t want to let anyone down.