I Never Truly Understood Fox News Until Now

[Daily Kos Morning Roundup]( A morning roundup of worthy pundit and news reads, brought to you by Daily Kos. [Click here to read the full web version.]( - [I Never Truly Understood Fox News Until Now]( I Never Truly Understood Fox News Until Now, Brian Stelter, The Atlantic On November 7, Fox had fallen in line with the other major networks and called the election for Biden. There were spontaneous celebrations in major cities and long faces across Fox’s airwaves. The consensus view both inside and outside the network was that Fox’s acknowledgment of reality—and specifically its early projection that Biden had won Arizona—had turned the audience against the network. I was working at CNN at the time, so I studied the ratings spreadsheets that arrived in the late afternoon. Newsmax, a tiny Fox wannabe, was suddenly surging by catering to MAGA viewers and refusing to call Biden the president-elect. On November 8, I interviewed Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy and aired clips of election deniers speaking on his network. “Your commentators are promoting bogus voter-fraud lies,” I said. He tried to turn the interview into a sales pitch. “Don’t believe you, don’t believe me, just watch Newsmax,” he said, “and make your own judgment about how fair we are.” Ruddy, in other words, was capitalizing on the business opportunity before him. He was welcoming viewers to Newsmax with a pledge to tell them what they wanted to hear. Fox’s top talent knew it—and freaked out. According to the Dominion filing, Carlson texted his producer that weekend and said, “Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience? We're playing with fire, for real....an alternative like newsmax could be devastating to us.” - [Ron DeSantis is weaponizing partisan media — and weakening independent sources of news]( Ron DeSantis is weaponizing partisan media — and weakening independent sources of news, Jason Garcia, NiemanLab Separate records show, for instance, that the DeSantis administration was directly involved in recent legislation that allowed cities, counties, and towns to stop publishing legal notices in local newspapers. Attorneys for the governor are arguing in courts that DeSantis does not always need to comply with Florida’s public-records laws. And DeSantis hinted last week that he wants to make it easier to sue news organizations for libel and defamation — an idea the governor has been quietly working on for at least a year. The governor’s efforts to prop up supplicant sources of news — while trying to destabilize and delegitimize independent ones — make for a dangerous combination, said Michael Barfield, the director of public access at the Florida Center for Government Accountability, a watchdog group that supports transparent government and investigative journalism. “This is what state-run media looks like,” Barfield said. “Russia, China, and Venezuela use it as a tool to control the message. The strategy has far-reaching and negative implications for freedom of the press and democracy. History is full of painful lessons when the government interferes with and manipulates a free and independent press.” - [Bad news: Daily Kos revenue is down, and we might not be able to do all we do. Good news: You are a big part of the solution, and small donors have never let us down. Donate $5 TODAY.]( - [Wonking Out: Why Growth Can Be Green]( Wonking Out: Why Growth Can Be Green, Paul Krugman, The New York Times As you may know (although a surprising number of people don’t), the Biden administration has taken a huge step forward in the fight against climate change. The strategically misleadingly named Inflation Reduction Act is mainly a climate bill, using subsidies and tax credits to promote green energy. Environmental experts I follow believe that it’s a very big deal, which, if successfully implemented, will greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It’s not quite as aggressive as the climate plans in Biden’s original Build Back Better legislation, but modelers estimate that it will accomplish about 80 percent of what B.B.B. was trying to do. The biggest factor making this kind of climate initiative possible, after so many years of inaction, is the spectacular technological progress in renewable energy that has taken place since 2009 or so. This means that we can greatly reduce emissions using carrots instead of sticks: giving people incentives to use low-emission technologies rather than trying to regulate or tax them into giving up high-emission activities. And the politics of carrots are obviously a lot easier than the politics of sticks. Strange to say, however, at this precise moment — the most hopeful moment for the environment, as far as I can tell, in decades — my inbox has been filling up with woeful claims that environmental protection is incompatible with economic growth. These claims are oddly bipartisan. Some of them come from people on the left who insist that the planet can’t be saved unless we give up on the notion of perpetual economic growth. Others come from people on the right who insist that we must give up on all this environmentalism if we want to preserve prosperity. - [US formally accuses Russia of crimes against humanity in Ukraine]( US formally accuses Russia of crimes against humanity in Ukraine, Alex Ward, POLITICO In a marquee address at the Munich Security Conference, Harris detailed that Russia is responsible for a “widespread and systematic attack” against Ukraine’s civilian population, citing evidence of execution-style killings, rape, torture and forceful deportations — sometimes perpetrated against children. As a result, Russia has not only committed war crimes, as the administration formally concluded in March, but also illegal acts against non-combatants. “Their actions are an assault on our common values, an attack on our common humanity,” the vice president said, referencing images of bodies lying in the streets of Bucha and the sexual assault of a four-year-old girl by a Russian soldier. “Barbaric and inhumane.” [...] The declaration is among the most forceful yet from a Western power as allies grapple with how to punish Russians responsible for violations. And it escalates the judicial side of America’s support for Ukraine, which has long said Russia was guilty of these crimes and that Russian President Vladimir Putin was ultimately responsible. - [A massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake has devastated Turkey and Syria: Donate to humanitarian efforts assisting survivors that are in need during this horrific time.]( - [Can Britain ever rejoin the EU?]( Can Britain ever rejoin the EU?, Wolfgang Münchau, The New Statesman I’m hearing the first rumblings of a pro-EU campaign. My advice to Team EU – those in the UK who want Britain to one day rejoin the EU – would be this: use this time wisely. Do not pick up where you left off in 2019. In particular, do not think about the deal you can get, or even frame it in terms of a transactional relationship. Instead, think about what you want the EU to do, and how you want the UK to contribute. That didn’t happen last time, during the referendum campaign in 2016. Even if the UK were to reapply, in, say ten years, the EU would surely not offer it the same deal it had when it left. The UK had an opt-out from the euro and the Schengen passport-free travel zone. It also had opt-outs of sorts from the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the entire area of internal security and justice. The UK was not really a full member in the last 20 years of its membership. By the time the UK reapplied, the EU would have moved on in several policy areas. London would be unlikely to regain its status as the eurozone’s financial centre. Frankfurt and Paris have taken some of London’s business. Milan is coming up fast. I recall well that Mario Draghi, in his role as president of the European Central Bank (ECB), was focused on challenging London’s position as the eurozone’s financial centre. The ECB thought it was bizarre that the world’s second-largest currency zone was reliant on a financial centre outside its territory. The ECB can be relied upon to insist that the UK should join the euro if it were to rejoin the EU. Has Team EU even thought about that? France will almost certainly insist that the UK conforms to the EU’s policies on immigration and home affairs. Why would France want to accept an external EU border on its northern shores when it can outsource that problem to the UK? - [Who’s Afraid of Black History?]( Who’s Afraid of Black History?, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The New York Times Heated debates within the Black community, beginning as early as the first decades of the 19th century, have ranged from what names “the race” should publicly call itself (William Whipper vs. James McCune Smith) and whether or not enslaved men and women should rise in arms against their masters (Henry Highland Garnet vs. Frederick Douglass). Economic development vs. political rights? (Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. Du Bois). Should Black people return to Africa? (Marcus Garvey vs. W.E.B. Du Bois). Should we admit publicly the pivotal role of African elites in enslaving our ancestors? (Ali Mazrui vs. Wole Soyinka). Add to these repeated arguments over sexism, socialism and capitalism, reparations, antisemitism and homophobia. It is often surprising to students to learn that there has never been one way to “be Black” among Black Americans, nor have Black politicians, activists and scholars ever spoken with one voice or embraced one ideological or theoretical framework. Black America, that “nation in a nation,” as the Black abolitionist Martin R. Delany put it, has always been as varied and diverse as the complexions of the people who have identified, or been identified, as its members. [...] Why shouldn’t students be introduced to these debates? Any good class in Black studies seeks to explore the widest range of thought voiced by Black and white thinkers on race and racism over the long course of our ancestors’ fight for their rights in this country. In fact, in my experience, teaching our field through these debates is a rich and nuanced pedagogical strategy, affording our students ways to create empathy across differences of opinion, to understand “diversity within difference,” and to reflect on complex topics from more than one angle. It forces them to critique stereotypes and canards about who “we are” as a people and what it means to be “authentically Black.” I am not sure which of these ideas has landed one of my own essays on the list of pieces the state of Florida found objectionable, but there it is. ICYMI: Popular stories from the past week you won't want to miss: - [Guess who’s behind the ‘He Gets Us’ commercials that ran during the Super Bowl?]( - [Black rancher arrested after going public about being terrorized by white neighbors for years]( - [Book banner DeSantis pretends to be shocked after laws result in scrutiny of book about MLB legend]( Want even more Daily Kos? 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