CNN’s Abby Phillips made a supercut of Fox New’s destruction of consensus reality, including disinformation about vaccines and climate, and the deep damage to democracy that is his evil life’s legacy.
I was unable to find the original piece, but this Meidastouch summary is pretty good.
Nice to see some plain talk about the toxicity of Fox News from a serious journalist, as opposed to the normal both-sides tiptoeing.
Surprised, but not really, by this revelation from Thom Hartmann about what Rupert’s Father was doing during World War 2:
There was even a hint of propaganda being used against America in WWII, sometimes — like today — coming from sources that are supposedly “on our side” of the conflict.
American soldiers were even the victims of propaganda in WWII in Australia, a story that gives us insights into rightwing media today. Over a million American GIs were stationed in that country at one time or another during the war, and at first they were warmly welcomed.
As historian John C. McManus writes in his definitive book Fire and Fortitude: The US Army in the Pacific War, 1941-1943:
“As American soldiers began arriving in numbers during the early months of 1942, they were greeted with tremendous enthusiasm by the Australians, many of whom couldn’t hide their immense relief at the soothing presence of the GIs. … Appreciative crowds gathered at piers and station platforms to greet incoming ships and troop trains. Waving and cheering, they studied the newcomers with great curiosity.”
But a major newspaper owner in that country thought he could make a pile of money by turning Australians against Americans. Inflaming nationalist and xenophobic sentiments would sell papers, goose advertising, and make the publisher rich.
Thus, as McManus documents:
“A chain of newspapers owned by Sir Keith Murdoch, father of latter-year media magnate Rupert Murdoch, earned a reputation among the yanks as relentlessly anti-American. Truth, a particularly brassy Melbourne tabloid, often published lurid tales of GI rapes of innocent Australian girls and seduction of married women.
“On occasion, Australian soldiers vented their frustration over such tales with violence. Small groups of Diggers roamed around some of the cities, beating up any American soldiers whom they saw dating local girls. … An American soldier was even shot and killed one morning as he emerged from the house of a married woman.”
Eventually, the hate against Americans that Murdoch had stirred up blossomed into full-fledged riots in multiple Australian cities, creating a real problem for the war effort but boosting Murdoch’s newspaper sales (and, presumably, profits) into the stratosphere.
The very old term for sensationalist press is “yellow journalism”. Back when I was in school (in the Pleistocene) the prime example of yellow journalism was newspaperman William Randolph Hearst drumming up support for the Spanish-American War (e.g., “Remember the Maine!”).