speech, speech
Mainstream media, on both sides of the pond, has been in ‘free-speech’ hot-water with the powers-that-be during the last week. One dispute is extremely serious, the other merely very serious.
On our own terra-firma, IMHO, Mr Lineker, has been hard-done-by and only said what many were thinking. The subsequent faux-outrage from the tory right and the ‘dead cat’ positioning identifies it as the policy distraction it has become. The issue has morphed into one of a sport commentator’s opinion as opposed to a serious analysis of the actual proposed policy. Yes, the former ‘No 10’ shirt wearer certainly has previous (refugee dental tests, the endorsing of a second Brexit vote, calling out Ms Truss for hypocritical pronouncements on Russian donations, criticising the double-standard over Qatar’s LGBTQ+ stance and describing the US as “extraordinarily racist”) but he’s at least correct in highlighting that immigration battle-lines are being drawn wrt the next imminent general election. Being unable to fight it on either economic competence, low-tax or quirky personality, the Conservative Party has opted for the only option left, straight outta the populists’ playbook: division. Free movement bad, strong-arm immigration control good.
Of possibly greater worldwide concern though is that America’s most watched news network, Fox News, has finally been officially exposed as an institutionally fraudulent, systematic lying-machine. As part of its $1.6bn defamation lawsuit against Fox, voting-machine company, Dominion Voting Systems, has publically revealed internal communications highlighting the corporation knew full well that their, and The Donald’s, spurious claims of a stolen election was nothing more than an outright lie. It was completely made-up.
The now public correspondence details how all senior people at Fox knew the claim was entirely bogus and openly regarded Trump and his two attorneys, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, as “nuts, insane, demonic and f*cking lunatics”. Furthermore, not only did the news network continually air its baseless accusations, it even attempted to maliciously silence anyone who questioned them. So much for the ‘fake news’ claim made of more liberal and fact-based journalism.
However, the major fear should be the fact that not one single Fox viewer will probably change either their opinion or their viewing preferences. In a somewhat unbelievable defence, top-rated host, Sean Hannity, stated that Fox had to pretend to take the phoney stolen-election claims seriously as “we have to respect this audience whether we agree or not.” With this contemptuous approach to the truth it is clear that fake news will continue to play a major role within, not only the 2024 US election, but within global politics writ large. And most likely within our own general election. Be afraid, be very afraid…
