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Saswati Sarkar Profile picture
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24 Nov, 16 tweets, 4 min read
Interesting news in US TV. Fox News ratings on a free fall. For the uninitiated, Fox used to routinely beat MSNBC & CNN big time. What happened ? In one line, its base (mostly supporters of Pres Trump) feel betrayed. A thread below
Fox News hired several partisan Democrat journalists which the base hated. Foremost - Donna Brazil from DNC, who leaked town hall questions to Hillary Clinton politico.com/story/2017/03/…
Paul Ryan, GoP, anti Trump joined Fox News board which again supporters of Trump disliked businessinsider.com/paul-ryan-posi…
Christopher Wallace, another Fox News journalist, is a registered Democrat. He was the anchor of the first Presidential debate between Trump and Biden. GoP base felt that the questions that he asked the two were loaded against Trump
Fox News pre election polls in 2016 and 2020 showed the Republicans trailing the Democrats significantly. Republicans did much better at every level once the results came out - seats in the Congress and vote shares for Whitehouse. Biased polls were the conclusion.
Fox News was flooded with Biden ads leading to the 2020 elections. Possibly because the GOP had a much bigger war chest. But this would irk the GOP base.
Trump repeatedly tweeted about how Fox News was showing bias against him before and after the polls. Trump’s words carry a lot of weight among the GOP base which are also Fox News core viewers.
On Election Day, Fox News called the election for Biden in Arizona very early, far too early, much before other liberal media networks. They didn’t have to reverse the call, but the elections came whisker close, suggesting that the call was premature. The GOP base resented.
On Election Day, Fox News projected that Democrats would substantially increase their house majority. This projection had to be reversed, as on the contrary, Republicans significantly cut into the House majority of the Democrats. Demonstrable bias yet again.
Post election, Fox News called the election for Biden minutes after CNN-MSNBC did. While Trump was contesting those. Viewers felt betrayed yet again. Many of the smaller conservative outlets refuse to do so until cases are resolved.
Net result - viewers are leaving by the drove. Post election, supporters of Trump did a rally in DC demanding election integrity. There they chanted “Fox News Sucks”, earlier they used to chant “CNN sucks”.
And, the younger Murdoch son and his wife are Democrats. After 2020 elections, the wife tweeted in jubilation. They are still part owner of Fox News I believe.
Where are the Fox News viewers going ? Some are opting for a smaller conservative outlet, Newsmax. Most of the deserters are leaving cable tv altogether, they won’t go to CNN, MSNBC of course. They will get their news from internet
Moral of the story - if you do not respect your base’s political leanings, they would leave. Viewers wont follow TV channels, TV channels will have to follow viewers.
What’s Fox News doing about this loss ? Unclear. But columns are appearing in other conservative outlets pleading with viewers not to leave Fox. Here is one washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds…
And I forgot another bit in the fight between Fox and GOP base. Few days after election a Fox News anchor cut off the Whitehouse press secretary Kayleigh Mcenany while she was claiming election fraud. Another news anchor showed annoyance at a GoP supporter they were interviewing

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More from @sarkar_swati

Saswati Sarkar Profile picture
24 Nov
Big corporate oligarchies have enormous power on election outcomes everywhere. BJP-RSS has found an innovative way around - do everything that big corporates want them to. Hence you would not see them usually taking sides in India. They are happy with Modi, mostly.
Another reason for big corporates’ settling with Modi is that India has a very large rural and working class. There big corporates direct messaging, read big tech’s curation of newsfeed, search results, etc unlikely to have strong impact easily.
Anyway, Modi is not upsetting any one’s Apple cart. All he is asking for is some mega gatherings worldwide. He is promoting the “cool” social messaging, not changing age old laws that discriminate against some segments, or not implementing the changes.
Read 4 tweets
Saswati Sarkar Profile picture
24 Nov
Big tech (Google,FB+Utube,Twitter) know a lot about each of us,our politics,entertainment preferences, travels, health, daily schedule (calendars). Scary. Can it use this knowledge to manipulate our opinions, thoughts? Conceptually not hard, by curating search results, newsfeeds+
Does big tech manipulate opinions on a large scale to determine outcomes of geopolitical significance? Example, elections in major democracies? And without breaking any existing law? This issue is being covered by @TuckerCarlson tonight in some depth frequently.
One of the frequent visitors to Tucker Carlson has is Dr. Robert Epstein, an empirical psychologist, studying if & how Google influences elections. He did empirical studies in a small scale for 2016 US elections, did on a large scale in 2020. Summarized findings:
Read 13 tweets
Saswati Sarkar Profile picture
22 Nov
Reading Lakshmi Sehgal’s memoirs. Many talk of the Muslim soldiers of INA opting for Pakistan and fighting India on behalf of Pakistan. She gives the why. The exact quote follows in the next tweet:
a group of Muslim officers visited Pandit Nehru and asked him for his advice. They said they were quite prepared to come away with their families as they did not believe in the two nation theory. The only guarantee they wanted was of suitable employment and homes.
Pandit Nehru’s advice to them was to stay where they belonged and serve their state loyally. They all took his advice, with the exception of General Shah Nawaz Khan who joined Gandhiji’s Peace Mission; he was too committed a nationalist to opt for Pakistan p. 121.
Read 8 tweets
Saswati Sarkar Profile picture
4 Oct
Wish BJP-RSS appointed more competent individuals in charge of a library named after a genuine intellectual,Rammohan Roy. Identical “moves” been happening almost every year since 2008 or so. Details follow. PS: Original Netra Sen was never known for any intellectual prowess.
Tripartite meeting notice in 2008: hindustantimes.com/india/triparti…
Tripartite meeting in 2013: outlookindia.com/newswire/story…
Read 4 tweets
Saswati Sarkar Profile picture
19 Sep
Didn’t hear back 4m @_YogendraYadav after I shared 👇specific example he asked for a leftist abetting communal riots. Much more systemic one would be that of CPI ideologue & leader Gangadhar Adhikari ‘s Pakistan & National Unity (1943) supporting ML’s demand 2 partition India:
Support from the Congress Right Wing for Muslim League’s Pakistan demand came even earlier than 1943, Rajagopalachari (right after ML’s demand in 1940), G D Birla (Cong RW’s sponsor actively worked towards partition of India even before ML formally demanded it in March 1940)
They would all be guilty of abetting the massive communal riots that Muslim League was Party to on the Pakistan Demand. Ram Manohar Lohia’s book on shared responsibility for partition, The Guilty Men of India’s partition is a good read+
Read 4 tweets
Saswati Sarkar Profile picture
13 Aug
BJP-RSS had formed a committee to implement Clause 6 of the Assam accord. The committee was hugely cheered on by @swapan55 . The report of the committee has just been made public. It spells death knell for Bengalis of Assam. Thread+
Look at the composition of the committee.BJP-RSS got it headed by Justice Sharma whose judgment enabled the detention in detention camps. No Bengali is part of the committee. The committee has members from AASU.Read sringeribelur.wordpress.com/the-nrc-and-th… AASU is deeply antiBengali
A summary of the report of the committee can be found here. in.news.yahoo.com/aasu-releases-… Except the “indigenous”, “tribal”, only those who resided in Assam before 1951 will be considered Assamese+
Read 7 tweets

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