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      Lara Logan, who compared Fauci to Mengele, says Fox News pushed her out

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      Lara Logan, who compared Fauci to Mengele, says Fox News pushed her outLogan says network ‘does not want independent thinkers’ as Fox stays quiet on reports it dropped her after November remark The former CBS reporter Lara Logan, who compared Dr Anthony Fauci to the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, has claimed she was “pushed out” at Fox News because the conservative network does not want “independent thinkers”.“I was definitely pushed out,” Logan told Eric Metaxas, a conservative radio host, this week. “I mean, there is no doubt about that. They don’t want independent thinkers. They don’t want people who follow the facts regardless of the politics.”Fox News has not commented on reports that it “quietly benched” Logan over her remark about Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser. On Friday, a spokesperson for Fox News said the network would not comment.Logan has not appeared as a guest on Fox News since making the comment about Fauci. There have been no new episodes of her show on the Fox Nation streaming service, Lara Logan Has No Agenda, which is still available.Logan made the comment about Mengele, the “Angel of Death” who conducted medical experiments at the Auschwitz concentration camp, in November, during a discussion of the Covid pandemic on Fox News Primetime.Logan said: “Dr Fauci, this is what people say to me, that he doesn’t represent science to them.“He represents Josef Mengele, Dr Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who did experiments on Jews during the second world war and in the concentration camps, and I am talking about people all across the world are saying this.”The show’s host, Pete Hegseth, and another guest, the Fox News host Will Cain, did not respond.The Auschwitz Memorial said: “Exploiting the tragedy of people who became victims of criminal pseudo-medical experiments in Auschwitz in a debate about vaccines, pandemic and people who fight for saving human lives is shameful. It is disrespectful to victims and a sad symptom of moral and intellectual decline.”Kremlin memos urged Russian media to use Tucker Carlson clips – reportRead moreJonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, said: “There’s absolutely no comparison between mask mandates, vaccine requirements and other Covid-19 mitigation efforts to what happened to Jews during the Holocaust.”Fauci, whose work has generated threats to his safety and that of his family, told MSNBC Logan’s remark was “unconscionable” and “absolutely preposterous and disgusting … an insult to all of the people who suffered and died under the Nazi regime in the concentration camps”.Fauci also said he found it “striking … how she gets no discipline whatsoever from the Fox network – how they can let her say that with no comment and no disciplinary action?”Logan rose to fame with CBS during the Iraq war and the Arab spring. After leaving CBS in 2013 over errors in a report about the Benghazi attack, she moved into conservative media.In March, Logan told a rightwing online show she was “dumped by Fox” and added: “I was taken off the air at Fox just before they went into a whole marathon of war porn in Ukraine.”She also repeated Russian talking points about “Nazis” in Ukraine and said Fox News had “a few people like Jesse Watters and Tucker Carlson who are doing their best to add some context and to show what this war is really about”.Speaking to Metaxas, Logan also said she did not like being called a “darling of the right wing”.TopicsFox NewsUS politicsUS television industryTelevision industrynewsReuse this content More

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      Chris Wallace: working at Fox News became ‘unsustainable’ after election

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      Chris Wallace: working at Fox News became ‘unsustainable’ after electionJournalist’s new show begins on archrival CNN’s streaming service after nearly 20 years with the right-leaning cable channel Chris Wallace has said working at Fox News became “increasingly unsustainable” before he jumped ship to CNN last December after almost 20 years with the right-leaning cable channel.His departure dealt a blow to Fox’s news operation at a time when its opinion side had become preeminent. The veteran journalist’s new show begins on archrival CNN’s streaming service this week and the 74-year-old spoke to the New York Times.‘Tucker the Untouchable’ goes soft on Putin but remains Fox News’s biggest powerRead more“I’m fine with opinion: conservative opinion, liberal opinion. But when people start to question the truth – ‘Who won the 2020 election? Was January 6 an insurrection?’ – I found that unsustainable,” he told the newspaper.He added: “Before, I found it was an environment in which I could do my job and feel good about my involvement at Fox. And since November of 2020, that just became unsustainable, increasingly unsustainable as time went on.”When asked why he didn’t leave Fox News earlier, he said: “I spent a lot of 2021 looking to see if there was a different place for me to do my job.”And he acknowledged: “Some people might have drawn the line earlier, or at a different point…I think Fox has changed over the course of the last year and a half. But I can certainly understand where somebody would say, ‘Gee, you were a slow learner, Chris’.”After Donald Trump lost the November 2020 election to Joe Biden, Fox skewed further from news to comment, ending its 7pm nightly broadcast, firing the political editor who had been part of Fox accurately projecting on election night that Trump had lost the crucial state of Arizona and promoting Tucker Carlson, the populist commentator and host who has consistently downplayed the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, by extremist Trump supporters, the New York Times noted.Carlson and other voices aired by Fox have spent the past four weeks playing down Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, going soft on Putin, and undermining the messages of the invaded country’s sovereignty and the Biden administration and Nato in supporting Ukraine.“One of the reasons that I left Fox was because I wanted to put all of that behind me,” Wallace said, adding that: “There has not been a moment when I have second-guessed myself about that decision.”Fox has won praise from the Kremlin earlier this month.TopicsFox NewsTV newsTelevision industryCNNDonald TrumpUS elections 2020US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Kremlin memos urged Russian media to use Tucker Carlson clips – report

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      Kremlin memos urged Russian media to use Tucker Carlson clips – reportRussian government document instructed outlets to show Fox News host ‘as much as possible’, Mother Jones says The Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson has been widely accused of echoing Russian propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine. According to a report on Sunday, earlier this month the Putin regime in Moscow sent out an instruction to friendly media outlets: use more clips of Carlson.‘Cynical, craven’ Republicans out to bash Biden, not Putin, over gas pricesRead moreMother Jones, a progressive magazine, said it had obtained memos produced by the Russian Department of Information and Telecommunications Support.One document, it said, was entitled “For Media and Commentators (recommendations for coverage of events as of 03.03)”, or 3 March. The magazine published pictures of the memo, which it said it was given by “a contributor to a national Russian media outlet who asked not to be identified”.It said the memo included an instruction: “It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticises the actions of the United States [and] Nato, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the eastern countries and Nato towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally.”The document, Mother Jones said, summed up Carlson’s position on the Ukraine war as “Russia is only protecting its interests and security” and included a quote: “And how would the US behave if such a situation developed in neighbouring Mexico or Canada?”Carlson and Fox News did not comment to Mother Jones. Fox News did not respond to a Guardian request for comment.On air last Wednesday, 9 March, Carlson said testimony by Victoria Nuland, a US undersecretary of state, about Ukrainian “biological research facilities” had shown Russian claims of US involvement were “totally and completely true”.Fact checkers said they were not.“Russian state TV featured Carlson’s take the next day,” the Washington Post said, adding that the Russian claim about US participation in biological laboratories in Ukraine was “straight out of the old Soviet playbook. But that doesn’t mean prominent commentators like Carlson should be so quick to fall for it”.Citing another Russian “recommendations for coverage” memo, dated 10 March, Mother Jones said the text advised Russian hosts to relay the message that “activities of military biological laboratories with American participation on the territory of Ukraine carried global threats to Russia and Europe”.On Sunday Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told NBC Russian claims about biological warfare facilities in Ukraine could indicate Russian willingness to use such weapons.“When Russia starts accusing other countries of potentially doing something, it’s a good tell that they may be on the cusp of doing it themselves,” he said.The Fox News journalist fact-checking channel’s pundits on air over UkraineRead moreMother Jones said no other western journalist was named in the memos it obtained, which it said also included advice on how to cite Carlson about how “Biden’s sanctions policy” was actually an economic “punishment for the American middle class”. That memo, the magazine said, also cited the New York Post, like Fox News owned by Rupert Murdoch.On Sunday afternoon, Julia Davis, an analyst of Russian media, tweeted a still from “Russia’s state TV” showing “none other than Tucker Carlson” on a screen above a discussion panel.“They always follow the Kremlin’s directives,” Davis wrote, “namely to use Tuckyo Rose clips as often as possible.”“Tokyo Rose” was a nickname given by Americans to several women who broadcast Japanese propaganda during the second world war.TopicsFox NewsUS television industryVladimir PutinRussiaUkraineUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Tucker Carlson leads rightwing charge to blame everyone but Putin

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      Tucker Carlson leads rightwing charge to blame everyone but PutinThe Fox News host has defended the Russian leader’s invasion of Ukraine, saying ‘Has Putin ever called me a racist?’ As Russian troops encircled Ukraine, politicians and media pundits in the US were largely united in their condemnation of Vladimir Putin’s imminent attack.Tucker Carlson, however, took a different approach. Hours before Putin ordered his forces into Ukraine, Fox News’ biggest star was still praising the Russian president.Putin’s bellicose threats towards Ukraine and assembling of up to 190,000 troops on the country’s border, was, Carlson said, a mere “border dispute”. Carlson, who played into Kremlin talking points by declaring that Ukraine was “not a democracy”, launched an apparent attempt to humanize Putin.“Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia?” Carlson said as he then recited a right-wing tip sheet of pet causes.Tucker Carlson film on George Soros is his latest antisemitic dog-whistleRead more“Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity?”Just over 24 hours later, Putin effectively declared war on Ukraine.Carlson was roundly condemned, but he wasn’t alone. Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s sometime-advisor turned podcast host, has praised Putin for being “anti-woke”, for not flying pride flags, and for his hostility to trans people.Charlie Kirk, a right-wing media personality and the founder of Turning Points USA, suggested Putin felt emboldened by “energy policies that Joe Biden put forward”.“Could it be that Greta Thunberg and Leonardo DiCaprio actually might be to blame for what Vladimir Putin is doing?” Kirk asked on his eponymous internet show.“That’s a take you will not hear anywhere else,” he added.By the end of the week Carlson’s colorful defense of Putin was being played on Russia 1 and the Kremlin-backed RT television network.“As Russia prepared to invade Ukraine, the biggest star on Fox News was busy doing what he does best: being thoroughly and appallingly wrong,” Margaret Sullivan, a media columnist for the Washington Post, wrote.By Thursday night, after Putin’s forces had begun bombing Ukraine, and after widespread US and global outrage at the carnage, Carlson had changed his tune.“I don’t think anybody approves of what Putin did yesterday. I certainly don’t,” he said on his show.Carlson added: “Vladimir Putin started this war.” He continued: “He is to blame tonight for what we’re seeing tonight in the Ukraine.”But those expecting a mea culpa from Carlson, who has recently also become enamored with the authoritarian regime of Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, were disappointed.The overt praise for Putin may have receded, but Carlson and his Fox News co-hosts and pundits have continued to blame others for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.“Well, I think we all know if Donald Trump was president, this would not have happened,” Lara Trump, Fox News contributor and daughter-in-law of the former president, told Fox and Friends on Thursday.“We exuded strength on the world stage when Donald Trump was there. Now you see Joe Biden in office. And gosh, how many times have we all talked about how weak America has looked since the day that Joe Biden was inaugurated?”Fox News Twitter feed on Friday essentially served as a tribute to the same viewpoint, lavishly quoting almost identical statements from Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Marsha Blackburn.“Rather than blame the actual aggressor for attacking his weaker neighbor, right-wing media pinned the blame on Biden for supposedly projecting weakness and vulnerability to Putin,” Media Matters, a non-profit which monitors conservative media, wrote.“In the right-wing media echo chamber […] the fault for this invasion lies with a mind-boggling variety of scapegoats, including President Joe Biden, Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, American environmentalists, the LGBTQ community, and even the team here at Media Matters for America – anybody, that is, other than Putin.”The narrative has received some pushback from journalists at Fox News itself, particularly Jennifer Griffin, the network’s national security correspondent, who has spent weeks painstakingly correcting her opinion-host colleagues as Russia surrounded Ukraine.On Thursday morning, the anchors on the morning show Fox and Friends were opining about how sanctions against Russia “have not worked”. Steve Doocy asked Griffin if “the people at the Pentagon” were frustrated given American troops were not involved.“No I wouldn’t say that Steve. In fact they know that they had limited options going into this because Russia of course is a nuclear power, and Nato and the US are not go to war with Russia over Ukraine, their goal is to contain this and keep this from spilling over into an Article 5 nation,” Griffin said.“You talk about how the sanctions haven’t worked, I don’t know that we can say that yet. Overnight, the stock market in Russia fell by half, 50%.“This is just the beginning of what is being described as a ‘shock and awe,’ if you will, of rolling sanctions that have not even begun to be felt yet by Putin, by his oligarchs, by the cronies there.”The talk and tone among the hosts of Fox News and others in the right-wing media ecosystem is unlikely to change any time soon. But in some corners there are journalists willing to drag those hosts back to reality.TopicsFox NewsUS politicsRussiaUkrainefeaturesReuse this content More

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      Fox anchor survives second Covid case and tells detractors: ‘Sorry to disappoint’

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      Fox anchor survives second Covid case and tells detractors: ‘Sorry to disappoint’Neil Cavuto returns to Fox Business to say doctors told him only vaccination saved his life this time The Fox anchor Neil Cavuto returned to the air on Monday, to say he nearly died from a second bout with the coronavirus and to tell detractors including those who sent death threats over his support for vaccines: “So sorry to disappoint you.”Queen cancels virtual engagements due to CovidRead moreMore than 935,000 Americans have died of Covid-19 in the last two years. The seven-day average daily death rate is just under 2,000 – the vast majority unvaccinated.Fox has strict vaccination requirements for staff. But hosts, prominently including Tucker Carlson, have spread misinformation about vaccines and resistance to Covid-19 public health measures including vaccination mandates.Cavuto is immunocompromised, with multiple sclerosis and having survived heart surgery and cancer.After his first positive Covid test, in October, he implored viewers: “My God, stop the politics. Life is too short to be an ass. Life is way too short to be ignorant of the promise of something that is helping people worldwide. Stop the deaths, stop the suffering, please get vaccinated, please.”Some viewers did not stop the politics. Cavuto revealed that he received disturbing messages, including death threats.On Fox Business on Monday, Cavuto said he had been hospitalised for weeks but Fox had not publicised his condition out of respect for his privacy.His second Covid case, he said, was a “far, far more serious strand” because of his immunocompromised status. He had, he said, been in “intensive care for quite a while”.“It was really touch and go,” he said. “Some of you who’ve wanted to put me out of my misery darn near got what you wished for. So sorry to disappoint you.”Cavuto also said: “Let me be clear: doctors say had I not been vaccinated at all, I wouldn’t be here.“This was scary. How scary? I’m talking, ‘Ponderosa suddenly out of the prime rib in the middle of the buffet line scary.’ That’s how scary.”Fox News/Business host Neil Cavuto explains on air that he was out for a while because he was hospitalized with Covid, adds, “doctors say that had I not been vaccinated at all, I wouldn’t be here.””I’m not here to debate vaccinations for you. Just offer an explanation for me.” pic.twitter.com/DwI5dKZAL3— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 21, 2022
      He also dismissed the idea the vaccine caused or contributed to his second Covid bout.“No, the vaccine didn’t cause that,” he said. “That ‘grassy knoll’ theory has come up a lot. Because I’ve had cancer, and right now I have multiple sclerosis, I am among the vulnerable 3% or so of the population that cannot sustain the full benefits of a vaccine.”In October, Cavuto described some of the threats he received for taking and advocating the shot.He also said: “I cannot stress this enough: it’s not about left or right. This is not about who’s conservative or liberal. Last time I checked, everyone regardless of their political persuasion is coming down with this …“Take the political speaking points and toss them for now, I’m begging you. Toss them and think of what’s good not only for yourself but for those around you.“I dare say people who experienced this and see loved ones who have been affected by this or have died from this are not judging the wisdom of mandates.“They’re wishing they got vaccinated, and they didn’t.”TopicsFox NewsCoronavirusVaccines and immunisationUS televisionUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      AOC calls Tucker Carlson ‘trash’ for saying she is not a woman of colour

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      AOC calls Tucker Carlson ‘trash’ for saying she is not a woman of colour‘You’re a creep, bro,’ says New York congresswoman after Carlson attacked Ocasio-Cortez in Fox News segment The Fox News host Tucker Carlson attacked Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday night, claiming the US congresswoman was not a woman of colour.“She’s a rich entitled white lady,” he said.In return, the New York Democrat, popularly known as AOC, said: “This is the type of stuff you say when your name starts with a P and ends with dejo.”Dictionary.com defines pendejo as “a mildly vulgar insult for ‘asshole’ or ‘idiot’ in Spanish”.It’s Trump’s time to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth | Lloyd GreenRead more“Once again,” Ocasio-Cortez added, “the existence of a wife or daughters doesn’t make a man good. And this one is basura.”Basura is Spanish for “trash”.She also accused Carlson of sexual harassment.Ocasio-Cortez’s mother is from Puerto Rico, her father from the Bronx. She has described herself as a woman of colour.Carlson said: “No one ever dares to challenge that description, but every honest person knows it is hilariously absurd.“There is no place on Earth outside of American colleges and newsrooms where Sandy Cortez” – Carlson’s derisory nickname for the New York congresswoman – “would be recognized as a quote, woman of color, because she’s not!“She’s a rich entitled white lady. She’s the pampered obnoxious ski bunny in the matching snowsuit who tells you to pull up your mask while you’re standing in the lift line at Jackson Hole. They’re all the same. It doesn’t matter what shade they are.”The leading provocateur in Fox News’ evening line-up was discussing a book about Ocasio-Cortez, Take Up Space: The Unprecedented AOC, written by Lisa Miller, a reporter at New York magazine.Carlson said Miller’s book was “like a box of Fig Newtons. You know it’s wrong to open it, but the temptation is strong, and so we did.”As the media watchdog Mediate put it, several of the passages Carlson read were “fawning in nature and weave mundane videos AOC has posted online – such as her assembling Ikea furniture – into a grand narrative about her life”.In one passage, Carlson said, the congresswoman is described as “pointedly” saying into a camera, “I’m alone today”.“Is it just us or does that sound like an invitation to a booty call?” Carlson said.“Maybe one step from ‘What are you wearing?’ Either way it’s a little strange. It’s definitely over-sharing and yet, according to the book, over-sharing is the key to Sandy Cortez’s success.”Ocasio-Cortez wrote: “Remember when the right wing had a meltdown when I suggested they exhibit obsessive impulses around young women? Well now Tucker Carlson is wishing for … this on national TV.“You’re a creep, bro. If you’re this easy with sexual harassment on air, how are you treating your staff?”TopicsAlexandria Ocasio-CortezFox NewsRaceUS politicsDemocratsNew YorkPuerto RiconewsReuse this content More

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      Tucker Carlson viewers calling me to say US should back Russia, Democrat says

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      Tucker Carlson viewers calling me to say US should back Russia, Democrat saysNew Jersey congressman says viewers are calling to express distress that Biden is ‘not siding with Russia’ in Ukraine crisis A congressman from New Jersey has disclosed that he is receiving calls from viewers of Tucker Carlson’s primetime Fox News show, expressing distress at the Biden administration’s backing of Ukraine in the tense military stand-off with Russia.UK warns of ‘unprecedented sanctions’ against Russia as Biden says west is united on UkraineRead moreDemocratic representative Tom Malinowski said in a tweet his office was fielding calls from Carlson viewers “upset that we’re not siding with Russia in its threats to invade Ukraine”.The callers, he said, “want me to support Russia’s ‘reasonable’ positions”.News of the effect of Carlson’s broadcasts doubting support for Ukraine came as the Pentagon placed 8,500 troops on high alert ready to deploy to Europe, amid fears that a Russian invasion could be imminent.Nato allies have been struggling to project unity in opposition to the Russian president Vladimir Putin’s belligerent amassing of more than 100,000 troops on the Ukraine border.Carlson, the top-rated host on Rupert Murdoch’s rightwing news channel, has been using his nightly bully pulpit to question the merits of Washington’s backing through Nato of Ukraine in the face of Putin’s expansionist threat.On Monday night, his show screened an image of the White House with the words “War Machine” stamped over it.The host accused “neocons” in the Biden administration of “betraying our country’s interests” and said a massive lobbying campaign by Ukrainian politicians and American defense contractors was behind the strategy.Ukraine was “strategically irrelevant” to the US, Carlson said.In his analysis of the crisis Carlson made no mention of Putin or his ambition to push back Nato from eastern and central Europe, nor of Ukraine’s standing as a sovereign nation which achieved independence 30 years ago.Ukraine is a country bigger in land mass than France, with a similar population to Spain, now facing an unprovoked invasion from the neighbouring power.Carlson has used his show to express contentious views on Europe before. For a week in August, he relocated Tucker Carlson Tonight to Budapest, from where he broadcast glowing reports on the authoritarian leadership of Viktor Orbán.This week he indicated that he plans to return to Hungary soon for more broadcasts praising the government’s tough stance on immigration.Speaking to the Hill, Malinowski said: “People get their opinions by watching the news, that’s nothing new. What is new is we have at least one talkshow host with a huge captive audience that is not exposed to any counter-programming elsewhere.“I find that very concerning.”TopicsRussiaUS politicsEuropeUkraineRepublicansFox NewsUS television industrynewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Joe Biden appears to mock Fox News reporter in hot mic moment – video

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      Joe Biden has been caught on a hot mic apparently referring to a Fox News reporter as a ‘stupid son of a bitch’. As journalists left a meeting, the Fox News White House reporter Peter Doocy asked whether Biden thought inflation was a political liability ahead of the midterms. ‘No, it’s a great asset – more inflation,’ Biden appeared to respond sarcastically over a din of reporters shouting questions, apparently not realizing his microphone was still on. ‘What a stupid son of a bitch,’ he added

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