Fox News: We will Ignore Climate Change until All of North America is on Fire!
A condensed overview of 11 hours of Fox News for the week ending 7/24/22
A typical Fox News viewer would have no idea that the Northern half of the globe experienced record breaking heat last week. They might also believe that gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin narrowly escaped death when he was attacked by a man with a plastic keychain. A Fox News fan would also get a heavy dose of conspiracy theories regarding Bill Gates farmland grab and COVID-19.
In short the past week in Fox News was a dismal mess of disinformation mixed with paranoia, fear mongering and lying through omission. Parts of Europe got so hot they burst into flames but a Fox News viewer would never know it.
Decoding Fox News did get a small spike in followers after Fox News personality Dan Bongino, former police officer and Secret Service agent retweeted a tweet where I mildly criticized him for his stance on the validity of ice core data used in climate science.
I’m not sure why anyone would value Bongino’s opinion regarding climate science but I guess men who yell a lot on Fox News win every argument. Most of the trolls that came at my Twitter account had no more to say than “Summer is hot.”
Clip of the Week
Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson both mocked climate change while PBS reported on reality. Record temperatures were recorded across Europe and North America last week. Wildfires erupted across the continent, homes burned to the ground and airport runways buckled in the heat while Fox News viewers remained blissfully unaware.
Both Hannity and Carlson invited on guests that have made careers denying climate change. All three shows I surveyed last week didn’t even include a mention of the extreme heat waves that scorched most of the Northern hemisphere.
.
Lee Zeldin was Attacked by someone with a Plastic Keychain - Fox News freaked out.
New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin was attacked at a campaign stop by David G. Jakubonis, who was quickly thrown do the ground after he lunged at the candidate during a speech. Zeldin was unharmed, Jakubonis was charged with attempted assault and released without bail.
The New York Post, also owned by the same parent company that owns Fox News, reported mid-day on Friday that the weapon the attacker used was a $10 plastic cat shaped keychain that is marketed as a self-defense device.
Hours later on Fox News Carlson referred to the keychain as a “blade” and Hannity called it a knife. The actual weapon was made of hard plastic and would be incapable of breaking the skin. The edges aren’t sharp or serrated.
Fox News left these details out and insisted that Zeldin was nearly killed. They also kept insisting that Jakubonis was charged with attempted murder. He was actually charged with attempted assault.
Both Hannity and Carlson and blamed Zeldin's opponent, Kathy Hochul for publicizing Zeldin’s campaign appearances. This information would be easily accessible on Zeldin’s website of course. Most campaigns aggressively promote all campaign appearances.
Hannity and Carlson also used the fact that the alleged attacker was immediately released without bail as proof that NY state’s bail reform laws were reckless and irresponsible.
They neglected to tell their audiences that Lee Zeldin’s Campaign Co-Chair is the local District Attorney, Sandra Doorley.
Doorley didn’t charge the alleged attacker, David G. Jakubonis, with a violent felony or seek bail. It seems odd that Jakubonis didn’t face a stiffer charge and wasn’t held for any length of time.
Doorley has since recused herself from the Jakubonis case following public criticism of how her office handled it.
PBS focused very little time on the incident reducing it to a 20 second story in their nightly news summary on Friday. Both Hannity and Carlson had extended segments about the attempted assault included an interview with Zeldin himself where he recounted his near-death experience.
Tucker Vows Fox News will NEVER show the January 6th Hearings on Primetime
I just found this extremely funny since I had just captured, watched and analyzed the Fox Business coverage of the January 6th Committee Hearings. Carlson would have to have known that the network aired the hearings.
How to Debunk the Bill Gates Farmland Conspiracy Theory using 4th Grade Math
Some conspiracy theories have so many layers to them they are difficult to easily debunk. Anyone with a calculator and the ability to figure out a percentage can destroy the theory that Bill Gates is somehow buying up “all or most” U.S. farmland.
Gates is the largest single owner of U.S. farmland but he still only only a tiny fraction of all the land used for agriculture in the United States.
Hannity fact checks Laura Ingraham an hour before her show aired.
Laura Ingraham went on about how the media was treating Biden's COVID-19 diagnoses much differently than Trump's. An hour earlier on Hannity, Dr. Nicole Saphier explained how different COVID-19 is now then in 2020. She also said it's impossible to compare Trump to Biden. I stuck the two clips together to fact check Ingraham’s segment.
Bogus Expert
While on Hannity, meteorologist and climate change denialist Joe Bastardi explained the science behind his theories. His concepts involve folksy stories and things his dad told him. This is an unusual case of a bogus expert as Bastardi does have degrees and expertise in the field of weather patterns.
I’m calling him a bogus expert this week due to the way he uses his specialized education and experience. Bastardi promotes the idea that we can’t change the weather so why bother to even try to avert climate disaster. He also puts a lot of focus on past weather advents which is largely useless.
Other bogus experts of the week included:
Bjorn Lomborg - guest on Tucker Carlson Tonight - All of his degrees are in political science. His views and work have attracted scrutiny in the scientific community. Lomborg has been formally accused of scientific misconduct.
Dr. Harvey Risch – guest on Tucker Carlson Tonight. Risch is a doctor from Yale. He has been widely criticized for using data that was considered suspect and has promoted Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin as a cure for COVID-19.
Clutch Your Pearls
Dan Bongino, former cop and secret service agent, was outraged that Pres. Biden would visit the Saudi royal family. Bongino seemed to forget that former President Donald J. Trump had an unusual relationship with the ruling family of Saudi Arabia. In some ways Trump was extremely cosy with the Saudis and in other was he was adversarial.
Trump mildly criticized Saudi Arabia after Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi, was assassinated by agents of the Saudi government on October 2, 2018. Trump sided with the Saudi Arabia over U.S. intelligence.
Trump was also widely criticized for his reaction towards Saudi Arabia after a Saudi nationalist killed three sailors and injured eight others at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida on December 6, 2019.
The former president also damaged the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia during the peak of the pandemic in April 2020. Trump told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that unless the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) started cutting oil production, he wouldn’t stop lawmakers from passing legislation to withdraw U.S. troops from the kingdom. There’s no way of course that Trump knew if the legislation would get passed in the Senate.
Saudi Arabia was purposefully increasing oil production in an effort to undercut Russia’s production during a time of plummeting demand. Some may view this as a diplomatic win by the Trump administration but it further damaged our tenuous relationship with a dominant oil producer. The military agreement the U.S. has had with Saudi Arabia stretches back 75 years.
One reason why oil was so cheap for so long had a lot to do with a price battle between Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The Saudis and the Russians were trying to undercut the price of U.S. oil since fracking is a more expensive process than traditional drilling.
When the worst of the pandemic was over, demand for oil dramatically increased sharply all over the world while supply remained sluggish. This along with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have caused oil and gasoline prices to skyrocket.
Fox News of course reduces high oil prices to President Biden’s war with fossil fuel. The network repeatedly portrays the president as a crazed radical hellbent on transforming the world economy to a socialist nightmare that is devoid of prosperity.
Biden is at best a moderate in terms of environmental reforms and his attempts at advancing measures that might curb emissions have been severely curtailed by this current congress. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) just vowed he would not support an economic package that contains new spending on climate change or new tax increases targeting wealthy individuals and corporations.
Stories Fox Ignored
Heat wave in U.S. – Heatwaves and climate change were a major part of the coverage last week on PBS. Last week 28 States had heat alerts.
Heat wave in Europe – The U.K. had record breaking temperatures hitting 104.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Wild fires broke out all over Europe, while rivers were at record lows.
Cases of COVID-19 rise around the world - The new variants are milder and the vaccines and boosters have dramatically decreased hospitalizations and deaths.
The House of Representatives passed a bill that would protect same sex marriage. The bill now moves onto the Senate.
The House of Representatives passed a bill that would protect contraception it also moves to the senate. Both this bill and the bill to protect same sex marriage are a direct reaction to Justice Clarence Thomson’s argued in is his decision to overturn Roe v Wade that the court should reconsider rulings that legalized both.
Bill to help support U.S. made semiconductor chips is waiting another vote in the Senate. – Fox has reported on this but their focus has been on Nancy Pelosi’s husband and possible insider trading. The bill has been criticized by some on the left as it’s seen as a corporate giveaway. The semiconductor chip shortage started during the pandemic and has led to tremendous problems with the supply chain.
Biden issues a new executive order relating to hostages and detained Americans
New director to ATF - Steve Dettelbach, PBS has reported on his confirmation but they did an extended segment with an interview about his vision for the agency. This was also reported on two weeks ago on PBS but they fleshed out the story.
UN Report on Afghanistan – Hannity pretends this is a huge story for him but he consistently ignores stories about the country.
Prime Minister of Italy resigns, the President then dissolved parliament and set new elections for the Fall
The War in Ukraine - Fox News will sometimes mention the war but largely ignores it.
Agreement between the United Nations, Turkey, Russia and Ukraine to help export grain from Ukraine through the port at Odessa. It’s unknown yet if Russia will actually follow through with this agreement.
Sri Lanka – lawmakers chose their unpopular Prime Minister to become the President.
A new federal report found overdose deaths from drug use in the U.S. – higher among people of color than the white population
Thomas Lane, a police officer involved in the murder of George Floyd sentenced to 2.5 years on federal charges
Lee Zeldin attack – whereas Fox News spent a lot of time on this story PBS had one short 30 second segment. On Friday the NY Post identified the weapon used by the attacker as a $10 plastic keychain. Fox called this an assassination attempt and PBS correctly reported that the attacker was charged with attempted assault, not attempted murder. PBS called the keychain a sharp object, Fox News called it a blade.
By the Numbers
Despite the fact that Fox News tried desperately to avoid the January 6th Committee Hearing it was a major topic discussed on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and “Hannity” last week.
The heatwaves across the globe were the second most discussed topic after the January 6th Committee Hearings. This week the contrast between the two networks was incredibly stark.
I checked for phrases about same sex marriage and birth control since bills about both were introduced into Congress last week. Fox News didn’t mention the legislation at all. Biden topped this list again but not as dramatically as the prior week.
Coming up…
This week I’ll go back to my regular schedule of the first hour of “Fox & Friends”, “The Five” and one hour of primetime coverage. I will focus on “The Ingraham Angle” since I have focused on that show since late May.