Tracking scandals and controversies involving the conservative Fox News Channel.
Racism
Fox News host Greg Gutfeld said that Black people imitate bad behavior and so when they protest they generate more violence than “largely white” riots.
Defending Trump
Fox host Mark Levin claimed that indictments of Donald Trump for alleged criminal behavior were “an attack on our people” and that “every indictment is an attack on our freedom.”
Fox News contributor Leo Terrell claimed there was “nothing wrong” with Donald Trump calling up the Georgia Secretary of State to demand 11,000 votes be added to his cause in Georgia during the 2020 election. Trump has been indicted over his attempt to steal the election he lost to President Joe Biden.
Fake News
Fox Aired Phony Video Of Chinese Balloon Exploding. ““Governor, I hate to pull random video off the internet and ask you to respond to it, but this is going around,” Carlson said Friday evening, as Twitter footage of a bright flash in the clouds over Billings, Mont., played on the Fox News split-screen. “It appears to be some social media video of an explosion over your state, showing what looks like a smoke trail in to the sky.”” [Washington Post]
Emails Showed Fox Knew Election Lies Were Fake While Promoting Them On Air. “Employees at Fox News knew that claims blaming election fraud for Donald Trump’s 2020 loss were outlandish and false, even as the network continued to promote them as credible, a newly unsealed court filing appears to show. The document, which pulls from a host of internal communications from Fox News employees involved in election coverage, includes comments and quotes revealing that producers, executives and stars of the network knew that the election wasn’t stolen and that many fraud claims were bogus.” [NBC]
Fox Used Woman Who Said Wind Spoke To Her As Election Fraud Source. “A woman who says the wind talks to her and put forth claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential race that she admitted were “pretty wackadoodle” turns out to be a key source of allegations that Fox News presented, night after night, to millions of viewers late that fall.” [NPR]
GOP Connections
Matt Gaetz Said He Coordinates Daily Messaging With Fox News. “Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) boasted to colleagues that he coordinates with bookers at Fox News on daily messaging, according to a new profile of the bomb-throwing lawmaker in the New York Times.” [Mediaite]
Police Brutality
Fox Host Demanded Police POV In Tyre Nichols Murder Case. “BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Does it bother you that we don’t have the cops’ perspective at all? I mean, it looks overwhelming — I get it — but don’t we need both sides? These were evidently elite cops. These weren’t just fresh out of the academy. ” [Media Matters]
Fox Guest Blamed Single Black Mothers For Tyre Nichols Shooting. “JASON WHITLOCK (GUEST): They don’t want us focused on reality. Hey, if they want us to devote an hour of coverage to this and weekend coverage to this and they want to take us to a good place, I would examine the racial element of this. Because there is a racial element. And this is a story about young Black men and their inability to treat each other in a humane way. Everybody involved in this, on the street level, was either 24 to 32 years old. Everybody, it was a group of young Black men, five on one. It looked like gang violence to me. It looked like what young Black men do when they’re supervised by a single Black woman, and that’s what they got going on in the Memphis Police Department.” [Media Matters]
Roger Ailes Sexual Harassment
Former Fox News Staffer Says Roger Ailes Called Her His “Sex Slave.” “Laura Luhn, who worked as a booker for Fox, first came forward with allegations against Ailes, the former CEO and chairman of Fox News, in 2016, after other accusations against Ailes surfaced. The lawsuit filed Wednesday in the state of New York details the alleged abuse as well as efforts to silence and intimidate her. “Ailes’s abuse of Luhn was among the worst he inflicted on his many victims,” the lawsuit said, adding: “He physically forced Luhn to perform oral sex on him regularly. And he constantly reminded Luhn that he ‘owned’ her, that she was his ‘sex slave,’ and that she was forbidden from telling anyone about the abuse or he would make her pay dearly.”” [Business Insider]
Anti-LGBTQ Bigotry
Fox Anchor Complained That Disney Had “Gay Days” Events For Families. “In an exchange with Disney president Robert Iger on the August 5 edition of FOX News Channel’s Your World w/ Neil Cavuto, substitute host Stuart Varney managed to transform a conversation about Disney’s new children’s Dream Desk computer into a derisive attack on “Gay Days,” an annual gathering at Disney World organized by private groups. “You got any ‘Gay Days’ on the Mickey computer?” Varney asked Iger, adding, “You don’t protect the kids from ‘Gay Days’ at the theme parks, do you?”” [Media Matters]
One of the first political bloggers in the world, Oliver Willis has operated OliverWillis.com since 2000. Contributor at Media Matters for America and The American Independent. Follow on Twitter at @owillis. Full bio.