Hunter Biden’s Laptop is a Portal to Hell, Title 42 is a Migrant Ticking Time Bomb, and I Guess We Still Have to Cover this War in Ukraine
A condensed overview of 15 hours of Fox News for week ending 4/10/22
Fox News viewers would believe that Hunter Biden’s laptop caused the war in Ukraine and is part of a massive coverup about the origins of the COVID-19 virus. They might also believe that the U.S. is about to be invaded by millions of fentanyl laden human traffickers the second Title 42, a Trump era policy restricting COVID-19 positive migrants, is lifted. The war in Ukraine was covered but the network’s enthusiasm for reporting on a war that could easily trigger World War III seems to be waning.
The Hunter Biden laptop story has become the all purpose reason for every global calamity. Two weeks ago Tucker Carlson linked the laptop to the origins of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
This past week Laura Ingraham made the bold claim that the true origin of the COVID-19 virus is being covered up to protect Hunter Biden and his business dealings in China.
This is despite evidence from a pair of recent studies that linked the source of the virus back to the wet market at Wuhan.
Clip of the Week
The Republicans are already planning to investigate Hunter Biden if they gain the majority in the next election despite the existing Department of Justice investigation of the president’s son.
The Russians and the Chinese are both exploiting the scandal to promote their own disinformation.
One of the myths promoted about the laptop by Fox News is that other media companies ignored the story. According to Mother Jones and The Washington Post, both Rudy Giuliani and Steven Bannon refused to give reporters access to the laptop or its contents. The alarming images were doled out specifically to right-wing publications.
In search of a poll
For the past few weeks Fox News has tried to tie the Hunter Biden laptop story to Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential election. Commentators from Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Steve Doocy, Greg Gutfeld have all claimed the election was rigged based on the suppression of the story.
They’ve all cited a poll that showed 16% of Biden voters would have changed their vote to Trump if they knew now what has been revealed about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Right before the presidential election the story was blocked on Twitter and other social media outlets due to fears that it was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
This past week Laura Ingraham posted a viral clip of a student confronting panelists at a conference titled “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy” the University of Chicago.
In the clip the student cited the same unnamed poll that has been repeatedly mentioned by multiple Fox personalities.
I decided to find the poll. I had no idea my journey would be so perilous.
I started with a simple Google search for “16% of Biden voters would have voted for Trump.”
This lead me to The Post Millennial a right-wing blog produced by propagandist Andy Ngo who is known for pushing fake and misleading stories.
The hyperlink that cites the poll in The Post Millennial article goes to The Federalist another far right-wing publication. The link doesn’t take the reader to the poll it takes them to an article dated Oct. 5, 2020 about abortion titled, “Babies are Being Left to Die In America. President Trump Just Helped More of them Live.”
I then went to the front page of The Federalist to see if I could find this poll or any information about it.
I found a link to an article dated April 7th written by Evita Duffy, a student at the University of Chicago and colleague of the man who confronted the panel at the lecture on disinformation.
To quote the article directly.
“And we now know that 16 percent of Biden voters say they would not have voted for Biden had they learned about Hunter’s laptop before election day,”
I wanted to ask this student reporter myself, “How do we know? Do we know? Am I supposed to keep track of everything you’ve written and keep notes so when you pull a source out of thin air I know what you’re referencing?”
I kept searching for more information on this poll. Although the article contained 18 hyperlinks 13 links referenced another story published by the Federalist. There was no way to find the original poll.
I went back to The Post Millennial. There in the sub headline I found the source as The Media Research Center. Of course there’s no link but at least I got a name, something the Federalist didn’t supply me with.
When I landed on the Media Research Center site I finally found information about the poll although now the number is 17% not 16% and the actual metric was several negative stories about Joe Biden not just the Hunter Biden story. The article about the poll was full of heated language and partisan pro-Trump rhetoric .
Here’s the first paragraph of the article about the poll
The left-wing news media didn’t just poison the information environment with their incessantly negative coverage of President Trump going into the 2020 election. They also refused to give airtime to important arguments of the Republican campaign — both pro-Trump and anti-Biden — which meant millions of voters cast their ballots knowing only what the media permitted them to know about the candidates.
According to Influence Watch the Media Research Center gets most of its funding from extreme right-wing conservative foundations including the Mercer Family Foundation, the same group has backed pedophile apologist Milo Yiannopoulos, and the ultra right wing news source Breitbart.
The author of the poll also claimed Tara Reade’s accusations of sexual abuse by then Senator Joe Biden wasn’t covered in the mainstream press. The story was widely covered across the media spectrum.
Polls are fairly easy to manipulate. To quote Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting directly.
We may believe that polls tell us what Americans are thinking. But polls also gauge the effectiveness of media spin — and contribute to it. Opinion polls don’t just measure; they also manipulate, helping to shape thoughts and tilting our perceptions of how most people think
The poll repeated throughout the right wing media echo chamber was conducted by a partisan foundation and paid for by billionaire right-wing extremists which is probably why Fox News, The Federalist and The Post Millennial didn’t want to link to it.
More new sources from last week on the Hunter Biden story
Politfact
Fox throws Mitt Romney Under the Bus
Fox continues to promote “The Great Replacement” a white nationalist conspiracy theory.
Laura Ingraham makes the crazy leap to compare what is happening in our Southern border with the war in Ukraine. There is no heavy artillery firing on Texas, apartment buildings in Arizona aren't being shelled and train stations aren't being bombed in New Mexico but Fox insists on going there anyway.
The border crisis is being pushed hard on all Fox News programs. As Title 42 is set to expire in late May. Fox is predicting absolute bedlam at our Southern border.
Title 42 is a Trump era program that barred any migrant who tested positive for COVID-19 from entering the United States with an exception for unaccompanied minors and families.
A week of The Angle in less than two minutes
Stories Fox ignored last week
The last installment of the United Nations Climate report - The report found even more bad news about the dangers of climate change.
Ginni Thomas text scandal - Although Fox News mentioned this scandal in passing once last week they immediately dismissed it.
The acquittal of two men in the 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer - I would have thought this might have been a cause for celebration at Fox News but none of the shows I surveyed mentioned this story.
New abortion bill in Oklahoma - Although Laura Ingraham brought up the story about five fetuses found in the D.C. home of a pro-Life advocate there was no mention of the bill that would severely restrict abortion in Oklahoma.
Riots in Peru over inflation - Fox would never have covered this story as it would have shown that inflation is a world wide problem.
Possible price gouging in the energy sector - This segment included a quote from Democrat Rep. Diana DeGette D-Co., where she claimed oil and gas companies received $30 billion in federal subsidizes. It also included a chart that showed the price of crude oil dropping while the price of gasoline stayed high.
Dubious Expert of the Week
The cast of “The Five” fill this slot again this week with Geraldo Rivera making incredibly uniformed assumptions about the salaries of college professors.
By the Numbers
Fox News and the PBS NewsHour were on two different planets last week.
As always Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was mentioned even though she didn’t have any big stories last week as was Hillary Clinton. The president of Ukraine was barely mentioned but Hunter Biden got as many references as his father.
For this upcoming week my plan is to cover Jesse Watters Primetime in addition to Fox & Friends and The Five. When I’ve covered Fox News in the past the prime time shows tend to show recycled clip shows during holiday weeks. I’m betting that since Jesse Watters is the newest prime time show he might actually produce new material. If he doesn’t I’ll come up with my own “Best of” Decoding Fox News next week!