Is this a "Fox News debate?" Well, no, because it is live on EVERY big channel and website tonight. But in a broader sense, yes it is. #Thread time...
Tonight's moderator, Chris Wallace, stands alone at Fox. His Sunday program primarily airs on broadcast, not Fox News. He has his own producers. He has said that he doesn't regularly watch the right-wing talk shows that make Fox #1 in the cable ratings.
But here's the thing: Everyone at Fox is affected, in some way, by the Trump-Fox merger. Everyone "feels" it. The pressure from the audience, the pressure from management, the expectation that Fox will be "fair" to Trump – and I don't mean "fair" in the good faith definition.
In HoaxTheBook.com, I wrote that Wallace, Bret Baier and Shep Smith "felt they were working from the inside to preserve some space for news as Trump and Hannity gained power at Fox." There IS still space for news – but year by year Fox's news has turned Trumpier, too.
In February Wallace was asked "Do you ever think that Fox News is using the quality of your work to truth-wash prime time?" Wallace insisted there's a "firewall" between news and opinion. But I saw the wall come down brick by brick. So did the Fox insiders who told me about it 👇
Despite all we know about Trump, Fox's news leaders still largely treat him like any other GOP prez, giving him the benefit of the doubt, assuming the best, excusing the worst. This tilts the scales big time, treating lies and crazy talk like it is legit, aiding the propaganda.
So, with all this in mind, a few days ago I said to one of Wallace's friends, is this a "Fox debate?" They said "it's a Chris Wallace debate, and his esteemed masterful moderating record speaks for itself." Wallace DOES have an impressive moderating record. But...
This is a "Fox debate" because Fox has shaped the political and media environment in ways that help Trump – for example by letting the news-opinion wall come down. Watch tonight: Will Fox rigorously fact-check the candidates right after the debate? Let's see. /end
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George is right. Read what he said: "Until now, no American president had ever faced a criminal trial. No American president had ever faced a criminal indictment for retaining and concealing classified documents..."
"No American president had ever faced a federal indictment or a state indictment for trying to overturn an election, or been named an unindicted co-conspirator in two other states for the same crime..."
"No American president has faced hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for business fraud, defamation, and sexual abuse. Until now, no American presidential race had been more defined by what’s happening in courtrooms than by what’s happening on the campaign trail..."
"For shareholders like McLain, investing in Truth Social is less a business calculation than a statement of faith in the former president and the business traded under his initials, DJT." So far the plunging stock price "doesn’t seem to have shaken that faith." For example...
Jerry Dean McLain, who has put pretty much his “whole nest egg” into Truth Social, and has lost thousands of dollars already, says “I know good and well it’s in Trump’s hands, and he’s got plans. I have no doubt it’s going to explode sometime.”
When I began writing about TV news 20 years ago, NBC's news division cared about two rivals: ABC and CBS.
Info was still scarce and the internet was still slow.
But then came broadband and Facebook and YouTube and iPhones and chatbots. Where does NBC fit now?
That's what I wanted to explore: The present-day NBC... and the creation of the NBCUniversal News Group... led by Cesar Conde, who has been on a rocket ship-like trajectory — from Univision president to chair of Telemundo to head of all of NBC’s news assets.
Conde spoke with me for this profile in the forthcoming issue of @FastCompany.
After the interviews, the Ronna McDaniel mess happened, so I had to do some serious rewriting. But here are the broader takeaways... fastcompany.com/91077007/cesar…
LOTS of misinfo flying around this site today about International Transgender Day of Visibility, which is not a White House thing and not an Easter thing. Maybe this thread can clear it up >>>
As Reuters notes here, "International Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV) takes place annually on March 31 to celebrate transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. It was not designed intentionally to fall on Easter Sunday" as some are claiming. reuters.com/fact-check/tra…
The annual celebration started 15 years ago. The organizer "chose the springtime date because she wanted some distance from Transgender Day of Remembrance as well as Pride Month, which is in June." NPR interviewed her here npr.org/2024/03/30/124…
>> @Maddow: Ronna McDaniel was part of a project to reject U.S. elections. "It didn't work to overthrow the government the last time, but as long as you can build on that first effort... you are priming the American public to not accept the results of the NEXT election, either."
"I want to associate myself with all my colleagues both at MSNBC and at NBC News who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company putting on the payroll someone who hasn't just attacked us as journalists, but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government. Someone who still is trying to convince Americans that this election stuff, it doesn't really work. That this last election, it wasn't a real result. That American elections are fraudulent." –@Maddow
Maddow continued: "Difficult times make for difficult decisions. We are contending with something we have never had to contend with before. In the news business, yes, we are covering an election, which we do all the time. But we're also covering bad actors trying to use the rights and privileges of the democracy to END democracy. The chief threat among them now is not the rioters and kooks, but the slick political professionals who are turning their considerable talents to laundering violently revolutionary claims that America's elections aren't real; that election results aren't real; and that they shouldn't be respected..."
"This will be a NEWS interview," @kwelkernbc says before her Ronna McDaniel sit-down – McDaniel's first since stepping down as RNC chair.
"In full disclosure... this interview was scheduled weeks before it was announced that McDaniel had become a paid NBC News contributor."
Q: "Is it appropriate for Donald Trump to ask donors to pay for his legal bills?"
A: "As long as the donors know that that's what they're doing."
"One RNC member told Politico you were a 'failed chair.' Another said 'we lost the House, the Senate AND the White House while she was chair.' Did you deserve to stay on with that track record, Ronna?" --@kwelkernbc