As I’ve been watching news coverage of the impeachment of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, one thought has come prominently to the forefront. It’s news … objective, straightforward, matter-of-fact news. And why might this be so striking to me? It’s striking because it runs so counter to the conservative narrative I spouted for decades. That narrative—declared and repeated, mantra-like by Trumpist conservatives nationwide—is that mainstream news outlets cannot be trusted; they are in cahoots with liberal politicians. To get the true news, they say, one must watch Fox News, Newsmax, and One America News (OAN).
I’ve never watched the Newsmax TV channel nor OAN, but on a few occasions I have watched Fox News, which is probably the least devoted to absolute Trumpism of those three networks. (Seems hard to believe, doesn't it?) And even that least Trumpist of the "conservative" networks can easily be identified as showing a clear, subjective bias toward Donald Trump, particularly as seen in its coverage of his two impeachment trials.
Examples of Fox News Bias
Here are three examples—among many more—of Fox News’ blatant pro-trump reporting during Trump’s second impeachment trial. All can be found at this Media Matters site:
Fox anchor Martha MacCallum claimed that “there was no outside voice” other than Schiff in the investigation of Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president, despite public congressional hearings with nonpartisan experts and more than a dozen depositions of witnesses taken by members of the House Intelligence Committee leading up to the Senate trial.
During a January 23 panel, anchor Shannon Bream repeated GOP talking points when discussing the impeachment trial, defending Trump for not going to the Department of Justice or FBI if he was concerned about corruption. She also went so far as to say there was no nefarious quid pro quo arrangement because when the president asked Ukraine for an investigation into the Bidens, he did not explicitly say it was “to hurt my political opponent.”
On January 27, MacCallum did back-to-back interviews with former Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA). She was much harder on Boxer than she was on Collins, pushing the same GOP talking point [that the impeachment scandal was meaningless because Trump eventually provided military aid to Ukraine] about military aid to Ukraine in her interview with Boxer that the Republican congressman later raised himself.
In stark contrast, in all the mainstream news about Democrat Cuomo’s impeachment proceedings, I’ve heard no attempts to defend the governor.
Mainstream News’ Objective Coverage of Cuomo’s Impeachment In stark contrast, in all the mainstream news about Democrat Cuomo’s impeachment proceedings, I’ve heard no attempts to defend the governor. Everything I’ve seen on ABC, NBC, and CBS has been objective news, simply reporting what’s happening in the proceedings.
Trumpists’ Willful Ignorance But most of the loyal Trumpist conservatives I know will never watch what they refer to as “lamestream news,” “liberal news,” and of course, “fake news.” Most of them simply repeat the biased monikers ascribed to mainstream news sources in a manner much like what one would hear from religious cultists describing anyone who is not a member of their cult. And that, of course, is because Trumpism is a cult; it fits all the definitions.
So, as we’ve seen in so many other areas of life, here too, objective reality is sacrificed on the altar of loyalty to the cult leader. But rejection of reality is especially frightening in this matter because fake news—and by objective standards, Fox, Newsmax, and OAN are the real fake news outlets—feeds the false narratives it thrives on. These pretend news networks understand and profit from this Mark Twain maxim: “It is easier to fool the people, than to convince them they have been fooled.”
Is There a Solution?
So, the crucial question is, how do people who value objective truth counter false narratives stubbornly held by people who refuse to be convinced that they’ve been fooled, and then fed by networks that profit from the intractable gullibility of those people?