March 18, 2019

The Baltimore Sun's media critic David Zurawik can be spot on with his criticism of our corporate media and the Trump administration at times, but on this Sunday's Reliable Sources on CNN, Zurawik made it obvious that he's still suffering from a bad case of Keith Olbermann derangement syndrome his tendency to play the false equivalency game, comparing other networks, or even Jon Stewart to Fox, where he himself has been a frequent guest.

During a panel discussion about Fox's recent problems with hosts Jeanine Pirro and Tucker Carlson, both of whom are coming off of a rough week to say the least, Zurawik rightfully laid into Carlson for his horrid anti-immigrant rhetoric and dangerous racist talk, but not before playing the false equivalency game, comparing Tucker Carlson's back and forth with Media Matters' President Angelo Carusone to the feud between Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck.

After saying he was fine with the boycott of Fox's advertisers if it gets the likes of Tucker Carlson off the air, host Brian Stelter then asked Zurwik about Carlson's claim that critics just want to have Fox shut down. Zurwik then proceeded to make this patently ridiculous claim about Fox:

ZURAWIK: Listen, when President Obama went after Fox, you can look it up, Jake Tapper and I were the two who said the executive branch does not get to say what is and what is not a legitimate news organization. I defended Fox. I thought it was good to have voices from the right.

They went to a different place when they threw themselves in totally as part of propaganda arm of the Trump right wing machine. And by the way, a great point about what's going on with these tweets. I wonder if it shows, and this is something I've been writing about a little, is that Trump's plan for this great right wing messaging machine with Fox and Sinclair and Breitbart and all the rest, it's cracking up.

He's really lecturing Fox, saying hey, you guys have to do what I say. Judge Pirro is upset about this. I'm telling you put her back on. If they stand their ground on this, I'm sure it's Fox trying to say, hey, we're not totally under his control. We're not a propaganda arm, and they might need to do that for their own financial reasons right now.

Fox has never been anything other than a propaganda arm for the right since their inception. They've never been "news." And people like Zurawik need to quit legitimizing them.

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