As the Fox News/Dominion lawsuit is about to begin, Rachel Maddow calls out the network for pushing Russian propaganda.
Video:
Rachel #Madhu “It’s the network that has been spreading fake documents to make it look like Russia is definitely winning the war and Ukraine is definitely losing, and that’s the document that Fox News highlighted on their network last Thursday night.” pic.twitter.com/3Kc4PcYB2t
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) April 18, 2023
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Madou said:
Another point here is that perhaps the biggest problem with this is that there is a problem with the Fox News Channel in this whole scandal of posting these classified documents online, you may have heard on the street that some of the documents were changed, so it wasn’t. Since this is classified material that the public is not supposed to see, part of the issue here is that some of these documents have been changed from what they originally said. Well, according to The Wall Street Journal, the redacted, doctored documents that were posted online by this woman or her network, this pro-Putin, pro-Russian social media network, brought them into wide circulation, especially well redacted, in the war. One has changed to make Russian victims look smaller than they are. And to make Ukraine’s casualties appear higher than they are, Russia pretends that Russia is doing better than them in the war and that Ukraine is losing badly.
Another way to describe it is the way they explained it while discussing it on Fox News: “The second thing we learned from these slides is that despite direct US involvement, Ukraine lost the war.” Seven Ukrainians are being killed for every Russian.
Ukraine is losing the war Ukraine is losing the war, seven Ukrainians are being killed for every Russian. That’s not what you learn from the slides. This Massachusetts Air National Guard learns from the documents that were allegedly seized that week, but to get that seven Ukrainians killed for every Russian, to get that, they released classified information from the first level, slides that were brutally supported by Russia’s pro-Putin media network, but reported after they changed the documents. They were trying to pretend that the Russian war was going better than it was, so how did it happen? The documents are being circulated by an unusual pro-Russian social media network linked to a US Navy deserter, the same network that circulated the fake documents, which were brutally altered to make it look like Russia was definitely winning the war. And Ukraine is definitely disappearing and that’s the document that Fox News highlighted on their network last Thursday night.
Maddow never mentioned Tucker Carlson by name, but she played a clip from him and added that Russian propaganda appeared on Fox’s top-rated hour. Carlson knew the documents had been altered, but he spread the lie anyway.
It’s the same feature the network did after the 2020 election. Evidence suggests that even though Fox knew Trump’s claims about stolen elections and voting machines were false, they ran with them anyway.
The larger point is that Fox News is a source of disinformation, and even the pressure and scrutiny of Dominion’s lawsuit hasn’t forced a change in behavior. Fox News may never change. He has to go out of business or be limited by losing one big lawsuit after another.
The other side nailed it. Fox News and Tucker Carlson are destroying the United States.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a member of the White House Press Pool and Congressional Correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a bachelor’s degree in political science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform activities.
Awards and professional memberships
Member of the Association of Professional Journalists and the American Political Science Association