Fox News: What Hurricane? We've Got Migrants, ESG and Dark Brandon to Worry About.
A condensed overview of 15 hours of Fox News for the week ending 9/25/22
A Fox News fan last week might think that ESG was a dastardly plot to transform the U.S. into a socialist nightmare. They’d also might think Florida is being overrun with Cuban criminals and that Biden was barely functioning yet a mastermind hellbent to destroy the American way of life.
A fan of the right-wing network would most likely have no idea how Hurricane Fiona caused excessive damage and suffering on Puerto Rico or that women in Iran are burning headscarves in massive protests. A Fox viewer would probably have missed the story about how Republicans in the Senate blocked a bill that would have revealed he identity of dark money donors.
As usual, anyone who consumed a lot news from Fox would have missed out on major stories and been left misinformed and manipulated.
Last week Fox was a bit scattered as most of their segments were simply based on tearing down Pres. Biden. Fox News anchors take delight in criticizing the sitting President so this is nothing new but the network wasn’t as focused as it normally is.
Hannity had an interview with Donald J. Trump on Wednesday and Thursday night. The interview was so extensive I dedicated an entire newsletter to it.
Show covered last week
Fox & Friends - 1st hour
The Five
The Ingraham Angle
Hannity - Wednesday and Thursday only - just to capture the interview with Trump
Hurricane Fiona - Fox vs. PBS
Fox News did cover the hurricane but waited until it had already hit Puerto Rico before they mentioned it. The first segment about the hurricane was on the Tuesday episode of “Fox & Friends.”
Fox handled the natural disaster as they do most extreme climate incidents - they reduced it down to a one-minute story and made it part of their short weather segments.
In contrast, PBS began their Monday night broadcast with a brief story indicating that their coverage of Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral would come after their full segment on the damage caused by Hurricane Fiona.
PBS also chose to revisit Puerto Rico throughout the week. The network included far more details about how average Puerto Ricans were handling the wreckage and extreme heat without water, electricity and housing.
This is a graph that shows how PBS NewsHour dedicated roughly 11 times the amount of airtime to the hurricane than Fox News. Puerto Rico is part of the United States and Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. Fox News didn’t think this story was that important.
Greg Gutfeld Twists Reality Just like the MAGA King
Greg Gutfeld made the absurd claim that the incident when former President Donald J. Trump called the far-right protesters at Charlottesville “very fine people” was some type of hoax that hadn’t happened.
There is some debate about what Trump meant when he made his remark as he did attempt to backpedal when he said that he wasn’t referring to white nationalists or Neo-Nazis.
The problems with this of course is there were no moderate protesters at in Charlottesville that weekend. Trump claimed he was basing his opinion on footage he had seen from the event.
So far no footage of local residents protesting the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue has surfaced from that weekend. If any locals concerned about the statute did show up they probably left when they saw the Neo Nazis with torches screaming racist slogans.
It’s not like we live in a time where cameras are hard to come by. Between the reporters and people at the various protests that weekend if there were families standing around with signs that read “Save Our Statue!” someone would have at least posted it on Instagram or Twitter.
Fox News Remembered there was a War in Ukraine
When Russia invaded Ukraine Fox News committed a lot of time and resources to the war. For weeks every episode of “Fox & Friends” opened with dramatic footage of Ukrainians fleeing for their lives, bombed out cities or rockets shooting across the sky.
With the exception of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the network took a fairly hardline stance for Ukraine. They even included fundraising promotions for viewers to donate to organizations like the Red Cross to help Ukrainian refugees and war victims.
The network began to pull away from its coverage of war as more and more conservative voices started to criticize the Biden’s administrations handling of it.
Tucker Carlson started calling Ukrainians Nazis while unapologetically making excuses for Putin. Carlson also weaved conspiracy theories that blamed the war on Hunter Biden, bio labs, and even Hillary Clinton.
Laura Ingraham was also never that excited about the United States helping out a small beleaguered Eastern European country.
“Fox & Friends” and “Hannity” remained hawkish towards the Russians but overall since May the network has largely ignored the war.
In the week prior to this one the word “Ukraine” was only mentioned twice in fifteen hours of coverage.
Last week all of their coverage was spun in such a way to criticize President Joe Biden. Fox hasn’t covered how a nuclear energy plant has been in jeopardy due to Russian shelling for weeks. The network didn’t include any stories about how the Ukrainian army has seized territory from Russia.
They also made no mention of the illegal referendum Russia is holding in occupied territory to force Ukrainians to vote to become part of Russia. There is no expectation that the votes will be legitimate.
Last week the focus was mainly that Putin might use nuclear weapons and it was all President Biden’s fault.
This is chart of the percentage of air time both Fox News and PBS dedicated to the war in Ukraine from the start of this project in mid-February.
Fox was Really Trying to make ESG Sound Scary
ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance principals and criteria. All three factors are meant to measure the sustainability and ethical impact of an investment in a business or a company. ESG is just another form of ethical investing that allows some investors to put their money in companies they feel will represent their values.
Anyone can check the ESG score of a company they are considering investing in before making a commitment. ESG scores are created by analysts and data provider companies.
ESG scores are simply meant to give a potential investor more information about what type of company they are putting their money in. Does the company pollute? Are they fair to their workers? Do they improve their community in any way?
I suspect that someone higher up at Fox News directed programs to cover ESG investing last week as the segments about it were mostly boring, hard to follow and seemed stilted and forced. All three shows I analyzed last week included segments about ESG.
The network did a terrible job at explaining what ESG was or how it worked.
Fox just meant to demonize ESG as a takeover of free markets or a means to destroy capitalism. They couched it as a way to force diversity, green energy and left-leaning politics down the throats of the international corporate community.
Laura Ingraham started her segment on Wednesday by tying the story to the Clinton Global Initiative.
“I'm talking about ESG investing, that arbitrary rating system that globalists are using to pressure companies to conform their progressive energy practices and other diversity practices. Now, this discussion would not be complete without Blackrock CEO and China stooge Larry Fink getting a tongue bath from Slick Willy,” said Ingraham.
Ingraham then laughed at her joke of calling Bill Clinton “Slick Willy.” Her guest, David Sokol, CEO of Teton Capital took it even further.
“You know, this whole thing is is is part of the breakdown of the institutions that make this country great. This woke is virtue signaling ESG trying to trying to put people on board of directors just for diversity purposes rather than for qualification purposes,” said Sokol.
ESG is completely voluntary. An investor or firm can still invest any amount into companies that make weapons, drill for fossil fuels or engage in abusive labor practices.
When pension plans invest based on ESG scores things can get more dodgy as pensioners don’t really have much of a say in where their money is being invested. The same is true when government entities invest in funds based on their ESG scores. ESG investing is not without controversy or critics but Fox just turned the concept into yet another left-wing boogey man.
When Border Hysteria Becomes Too Much
Fox News is absolutely obsessed with our Southern border. They’ll find just about any reason to talk about it or show footage of migrants crossing through a fence or swimming across the Rio Grande river.
In this segment Brian Kilmeade seemed to forget that Cuban immigrants tend to vote Republican.
“Just because you’re fleeing communism doesn’t mean you get in here, who knows what you’ve been doing?” said Kilmeade.
Laura Ingraham and her guest Charlie Hurt of the Washington Times both made extremely racist comments about the migrants who were sent to Martha’s Vineyard.
“Those fifty migrants landing in Martha’s Vineyard, had they been carrying rakes and mop buckets they would have been welcomed in open arms as they often are. But because they came as human beings looking for asylum these people couldn’t handle it,” said Hurt.
His choice of language was interesting. In Hurt’s mind the migrants weren’t human beings when they were domestic workers.
Ingraham decided to repeat a joke, but she wasn’t sure where she’d heard it.
“If the migrants want to be welcomed they should show up with leaf blowers,” said Ingraham.
Ingraham celebrates how Sweden has Championed the Far-Right
This is an edited clip from a longer segment. The far right just had a major win in Sweden. Laura Ingraham invited Charlie Weimers a member of the Sweden Democrats, a far-right political party to talk about it.
The Sweden Democrats originally had its roots in Swedish fascism and white nationalism. Since 2000 the party has tried to distance itself from its white nationalist past.
In this segment it’s clear the themes of xenophobia and racism are still very much a part of the Sweden Democrat platform.
Comedy Relief - The Trump “Kids!” who are fully grown adults.
Fox News referred to the "Trump Kids" twice last week. They were outraged that the "kids" were sued along with their dad. The "kids" are so old they have children themselves. The "kids" are also high ranking executives at The Trump Organization.
I included a little animation.
Stories Fox News Ignored
Every week I compare 15 hours of Fox News with five hours of PBS NewsHour for the same week. The following list are stories that PBS covered that Fox News did not. It’s always quite long.
Hurricane Fiona slammed into Puerto Rico initially cutting off power for the entire island. - Fox News did cover the disaster but the segments were extremely short and were folded into brief weather segments as a part of “Fox & Friends.”
World leaders addressed the General Assembly at the United Nations. This was briefly mentioned on “Fox & Friends” but there was no actual segment dedicated to it.
The War in Ukraine - Although Fox News included some coverage of the war they ignored stories about recently discovered evidence of war crimes. Fox also neglected to cover a Russia’s illegal referendum meant to legitimize its annexation of occupied territory.
The Taliban freed an American hostage in a prisoner swap with the U.S.
Adnan Syed, a man convicted of murder featured in the popular podcast”Serial,” was released from prison.
Typhoon Manmadol made landfall on in Japan on Sunday and Monday.
Former President Donald J. Trump played what sounded like QAnon music underneath one of his speeches.
The Department of Justice announced today federal criminal charges against 47 defendants for their alleged roles in a $250 million fraud scheme that exploited a federally-funded child nutrition program during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Protests in Iran after a young woman died in police custody after she was arrested for not wearing a head scarf correctly.
Prisoners will soon be eligible for Pell Grants to help them pay for college.
Robert Server, partial owner of the NBAPhoenix Suns and the WNBA Phoenix Mercury sold his stake in the teams after he was disciplined for racist and misogynist comments.
Republicans in the Senate blocked a bill that would require the disclosure of dark money donors.
At least 77 people died after a boat carrying migrants fleeing Lebanon sank off the coast of Syria.
Sammie awards (Service to America Medals) award ceremony for government workers, - Winner Gregory Robinson, director the of Webb telescope program.
Baseball player Maury Wills died at age 89
By Numbers
Fox was really trying to make their ESG stories exciting but failed miserably. Most of Monday’s coverage was dedicated to the funeral for Queen Elizabeth II which is why it’s the third most discussed topic last week. The largest category was simply “Anti-Biden” which are stories where the main focus is not on any specific topic it’s just general criticism of President Biden.
The category labeled “Trump related story” is a collection of segments about former President Donald J. Trump. PBS discussed his influence on the midterm elections, what seemed like his public endorsement of the QAnon conspiracy theory and his various legal battles.
Every week I put all the transcripts together from the Fox programs I analyze and then search for words.
Coming up…
Since there is another January 6th Committee Hearing this week I will only cover “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and “Hannity” in addition to doing a detailed analysis in how Fox News covers the hearing.