At long last, proof of the presumed FOX in the Trump-news hen house

When are Republicans and their enablers going to step in out of the deluge of lies and misinformation about today’s politics? When are they going to dry themselves off and admit that millions of us have been “had” by Donald Trump and FOXNews’ primetime anchors and executives, the source of most of those lies and that misinformation?

We now know that they knew and know otherwise, and yet they continue to spew lies about the 2020 election’s fairness, not to mention the 2020-2022 pandemic. Trump’s White House associates have testified that he was told the truth about both, and that he deliberately ignored them so he wouldn’t be blamed for mishandling the coming contagion, lose the forthcoming election, and be embarrassed with the loss he suffered at the polls by some 7,000,000 votes.

FOXNews anchors and their bosses have been exposed in depositions and documents submitted in the voting machine civil action in Delaware, now engulfing them in pre-trial discovery. Carlson, Hannity, and Ingraham have been exposed by their own under-oath testimony for the unethical professionals they are. Whatever else they may be, they are undeserving of the descriptor “journalist.”

If they would so blatantly lie about Trump’s decisive loss at the ballot box three falls ago, how can they be believed about any other “news items” they claim to be peddling each night M-F, for which they are paid millions of dollars?  Of course, to the extent that the FOXes continue to report the lies emanating from the Trump hen-house, the network must necessarily report real “fake news”; after all, they honed their “journalistic” skills communicating most of the 30,000-plus documented mis-statements of fact from Trump when he was in the White House, after his clearly fraudulent campaign of 2016 (re-read the Mueller Report, if you have doubts about that, sans the Barr mischaracterization of it).

There’s an inherent difficulty in relying upon unreliable sources of information and “news” such as Trump and FOXNews. You cannot count on any particular news story to be truthful, that is, factual (a fact is something that was or is and that can be verified by a disinterested observer). That makes their news as reliable as rumors on Wall Street about “hot stocks,” which if acted upon may cost you more than embarrassment. It may cost you money – or more. During the heart of the on-going pandemic in 2020-2022, it actually cost many Americans and Alabamians their health and some, their lives. After reading a report from one of our state’s most accomplished physicians, who spent nearly three years fighting the coronavirus virus and the non-factual rumors associated with it, I am more convinced than ever about that.

That is a high price to pay in order to ignore the obvious signs of “fake news” telecast on FOXNews and coming out of the Trump WH and to insist that Trump was truthful when he spoke on the subject.

What to do?

Stop ignoring the truth; stop pretending that Trump and his once-favorite TV news source were truthful and still are truthful.

My personal rule of thumb in both cases is and has been since 2015: Whatever Trum, Carlson, Hannity, or Ingram say, I assume it is not factual unless and until it has been verified by an independent source in a position to know the matter. Whether it’s the size of the last president’s only inaugural crowd or whether it’s his denials that he possessed purloined top secret governmental materials at Mar-a-Lago, or 30,000 other documented untruths in between, a person would be foolish, indeed, to take his word for it. The same goes for the FOXNews primetime anchors and FOX executives who have been foxing their viewers for two decades. Now we know from their own words that, not only have they cynically and knowingly told their viewers lies and communicated to them misinformation; they have done so for the most crass reason imaginable: to avoid losing TV ratings points and market-share.

To be sure, as Trump has done for years, FOXNews denies what their own words say, objecting that they have been taken out of context. We shall see, when we see the specifics of their defense, what they consider the truth to be. In the meantime, I’ll resort for understanding to these wise words of the 18^th century Dean of St. Patrick’s, Jonathan Swift: “Some modern zealots appear to have no better knowledge of truth, nor better manner of judging it, than by counting noses.” Why does that matter? — Because novelist John Galsworthy was right when he wrote that “honesty of thought and speech and written word is a jewel, and they who curb prejudice and seek honorably to know and speak the truth (— instead of spreading lies —) are the only builders of a better life.” Indeed, our corporate lives depend on it.

Dr. Jim Vickrey, Ph.D., J.D., is a retired lawyer, emeritus professor, and college president, who for fifty years at a half-dozen southern universities sought to teach undergraduates reasoned discourse. He invites responses at jimvickrey@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: At long last, proof of the presumed FOX in the Trump-news hen house