Wiktionary defines Pravda both as the official newspaper of the old Soviet Union’s Communist Party and as any other newspaper or other media channel seen as untrustworthy and biased towards its owners or the establishment.
Last night in the midst of Rachel Maddow’s show while she was discussing Bill Taylor’s amazing 15 page opening statement my friend who checks in of Fox News regularly texted me to say that Tucker Carlson was spending his time talking about Ronan Farrow’s book Catch and Kill. You can watch it here.
It is about time Fox was called out far more effectively as a purvey of fact free propaganda mislabeled as news. Between ignoring news that makes Trump look like the criminally incompetent and mentally unbalanced person he is and filling hours of airtime with distractions when they can, and spouting and outright lies and conspiracy theories made up from whole clothe on fringe websites which only a delusional person could characterize as merely distortions.
If the verbiage of the most wacky personalities, Tucker and Sean, was presented in a college term paper it would be flunked if only because the sourcing was so bad it would be laughable if people didn't believe it..
Chauncey DegVega interviewed an expert who says he thinks that those who are brainwashed by Fox News and Trump’s persona. Steven Hassan is an expert on mind control and cults. Hassan is the author of several bestselling books, including "Combating Cult Mind Control" and "Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs." His new book is “The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control.”
In “Can members of the Trump cult be deprogrammed after the leader falls? Steven Hassan says yes.” (Salon, Chauncey DeVega)
Hassan writes:
To get your loved ones or friends out of Trump’s cult, you need to reach out to them strategically. Don’t start with saying how stupid you think the Trump cultists are. And I would also appeal to people who are Trumpists to stop being so hostile to people who do not support Donald Trump. To try to get people out of Trump’s cult we should first try to engage them in an intelligent conversation about the psychology of influence. We should also talk to Trumpists about how to better discern facts from opinions and beliefs.
However while Hassan likens ardent supporters of Trump to members of a cult, and describes ways cult members can successfully deprogrammed, not once in his interview is Fox News mentioned.
Trump tells his followers not to listen to his critics or former members of the group — meaning people who have left his administration or otherwise no longer support this presidency and movement. Trump also tells his followers not to listen to other information if it is critical of him. Outside information is essential for reality-testing and how we as human beings make our own decisions and practice free will. Donald Trump also tells his followers that if you don't follow him, terrible things are going to happen to you, the country and the world.
Trump tells his followers that the world will be overrun by evil people if they don’t support him.
Trump has created a boogyman of the factual reporting media. He has convinced his cult members that criticism of him is fake news, a witch hunt, and most recently a lynching. The two main mechanisms he uses for this is Twitter and Fox News which plays his press gaggles followed by commenters who swallow every lie he tells hook, line and sinker while panels on MSNBC and I assume CNN (which I don’t watch) will call out his lies.
I believe that as long as members of “the Trump cult” watch Fox News frequently they will believe most of their propaganda. Fox personalities like those on Fox and Friends, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and OMG Jeanine Pirro are like members of the family for many viewers. Outside interventions while perhaps not doomed to failure will have a low success rate unless the cultists can be weened from the teat of Fox News.
The first thing deprogrammers do to begin their intervention is to get the brainwashed cultist away from the cult. If I were to design a program I would require abducting the Trump cultist in addition to family therapy and other cognitive therapy I’d make sure that any television they were allow to see could only get MSNBC.
Wednesday, Oct 23, 2019 · 10:09:10 PM +00:00 · HalBrown
Fox News’s propaganda isn’t just unethical — research shows it’s enormously influential — Vox, Mar. 2019
A stunning new study shows that Fox News is more powerful than we ever imagined Vox, 2017
Yes, Fox News matters. A lot. Erik Wemple (Wash. Post)
April 11, 2019 at 7:15 a.m. PDT
Not so fast, says Michael J. Socolow, a professor at the University of Maine in The Conversation. The influence of Fox News is exaggerated, he argues — and Politico media critic Jack Shafer agrees. The myth, notes Socolow, starts with the network’s founder: “Like the Wizard of Oz, Roger Ailes inflated the image of his own potency and his network’s power. Recent events, such as the election of Donald Trump, apparently confirm the network’s influence. Yet when we pull back the curtain, the evidence that Fox News, and Rupert Murdoch, created and sustained our current political moment, appears far more circumstantial.”
Bottom line
Sean Hannity cannot snap his fingers and generate a federal indictment of Peter Strzok, nor can Steve Doocy snap his fingers and stifle President Trump’s most embittered critics. Media personalities aren’t omnipotent. Sure, Barack Obama secured two terms as president despite Fox News. Certain favored politicians of Fox nation may not have made it as far as they would have liked. These benchmarks, however, miss the bane of Fox News, which lies in its central mission of misinforming its Trumpite audience. The network is influential because it has banished a common set of facts for American political discussions.