A Twitter user ignited all manner of indignation today when she tweeted the following:
“Ummm…. Fox just went into specific detail about what U.S. military units are readying for deployment to Germany to surge for this conflict. They stated two specific units, what the units specialize in, and who their commanding officer will be. Why would they do that?????”
Responses were immediate and overflowing with offense.
“This ought to be grounds to yank their FCC license,” read one.
“Please help us spread the word that what Fox News is doing… this is not okay and needs to be stopped,” said another.
One of my favorites read: “How did Fox get this information? Public knowledge? From a military personnel? From DOD leak? From Republican politician? From Flynn brothers?”
One bold user demanded: “It’s time to pull the plug on Fox Entertainment in the interests of national security.”
Back to the question of why Fox News would release such information, one user stated: “To let Putin know. But what I’d like to know is who gave FOX that news, if true. The DOJ needs to investigate.”
This user seems to think Fox is under Russian control: “Fox News needs to be taken down at all U.S. military installations. They are spewing Russian propaganda.”
Speaking of Russian propaganda, another user answered, “Because they are essentially Russian TV now.”
Immediately followed by: “Now? All conservative media has been for at least 15 years now.”
Finally, one user posted a meme declaring: “Helping the enemy used to be called treason. Now it’s just called being a Republican.”
Such breathless hyperbole.
There were a lot more, but you get the drift.
The only problem with all this focused anger was that Fox News was only reporting what the Department of Defense released in a statement — what numerous other news outlets also reported.
After all of this clucking indignation, I have just one question: Does anyone think before they post their outrage?
I know everyone hates everyone else these days — in a lot of cases it’s not totally undeserved. But when our hate becomes so automatic that we stop thinking because we just assume, we not only mis-focus our rage but also make ourselves look like idiots. Put another way, we are apparently so polarized that we’re willing to make ourselves look foolish in our rush to make our outrage known.
Evidently, our anger makes us forget we can Google stuff or cross-check information before we react. In recent months, I’ve used this characterization to describe people on the right side of the political spectrum but as our hatred for each other becomes more deeply entrenched, it will apply to the left, too.
I am not a big fan of Fox News. But really, is Fox all that different from CNN or MSNBC albeit with a rightward tilt, rather than left?
You can hate Fox News for any number of reasons. But treason isn’t one of them.
Photocomposite © 2022 Mike Philipp via Unsplash
No, Mi amigo Matthew, FOX News hasn’t yet crossed the line into outright treason. Even someone as rabidly right wing as Rupert Murdoch and his syncophantic clan aren’t egregious enough to make such a stupidly foolish mistake. But outright lying without a scintilla of concrete evidence to support their blatantly false, dangerously divisive and, yes, nationally detrimental on-air diatribes should be more than enough to get them permanently banned from the publicly-regulated broadcast arena. Those are all the alliteratively angry, non-curse ridden comments I can muster up for now, Keep up the good fight.