Executives who helped create Fox News say network has become ‘disinformation machine’

Isn't that exactly what said executives wanted? Wasn't fox news created to prevent a second Nixon not by making sure no crimes were committed by future republican presidents, but by making sure they could mislead the public into thinking they weren't crimes in the first place? I'm sorry but now that it's clear to the entire world what you built and why you built it you don't get to sit here and go "oh my how could we ever have known it would turn into this!" Like bitch you wanted this.

- It's just not Faux News either, MSNBC, CNN almost all the newspapers and political sites.
They can do that, and they will. Why wouldn't they? You even said yourself that the network exists to lie to its viewers. So it makes sense that they'd lie to their viewers about this too.

Propagandists say propaganda network creates propaganda!

Next up: Water did you know it makes you wet?

Stay tuned after for our coverage of the sun! It went down this evening, what will happen tomorrow morning?

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- Sounds a lot like the sarcasm that I often post, actually. Though I'm deeply cynical about the world, which is a banal reason for it.
- What?
  
  I'm literally some dumb dude just making a joke...
  
  Fox was created to control what Republicans think about their elected officials. It's propaganda. The executives being all "omg it's a disinformation machine" is absurd given they know what they intended to create which is why I made the joke about "obvious thing is obvious."
  
  If you didn't know that's what they did then you learned it from the article, if you already knew then hopefully you just chuckle at a dumb joke. My comment doesn't affect anyone in a negative way, all I aim to do is make someone laugh it's not nefarious...
Yes, but what direction will it rise in?
- Not on the Left!
I appreciate your modified accurate version of this!

Hold on, this whole operation was your idea

Either this is their way of saying "mission accomplished" or they're trying to play innocent.
- Por que no los dos?
The time they refer to with "become" is back when they designed it.

That seems disingenuous because according to multiple accounts I’ve read about the founding of Fox News, it was specifically designed as a disinformation machine.

The author of the blog post is being sincere; he speaks on behalf of three key executives that helped found the Fox Broadcast Network, in the early 1990s, not the spinoff channel Fox News. They are repentant about how the actions they took to breathe life into Fox eventually led to the creation of a disinformation machine that’s been at the jugular of American Democracy for the better part of the past decade.

I will say, it’s easy to excoriate these guys for having their lame mea culpa this late in the game. Their original motivations for creating the Fox network are unclear at best, and they were all almost certainly more concerned with making money over anything else moralistic. But if you think about it, in the early 90s it was kinda easy to underestimate Rupert Murdoch’s amorality and tenacity when it came to pursuing a right-wing audience. Yes he had a bias in his media empire at that point, but Fox News very quickly became a platform for petty name calling, denialism, and outright hate beyond anything we’d seen before in a television network with significant reach.
🌍🔫👩‍🚀

This is what they wanted. They pushed false information, especially during the Trump years. Can't take it back now.

They pushed false, sensational and dubious information immediately upon launch during the Clinton years.

I predict that the moment Rupert Murdoch passes away, his media empire is going to crumble along with it. Really don't think James Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch or Rebekah Brooks are going to be competent enough to keep the Evil Empire running. It won't be an immediate collapse, but would probably take 5 years to a decade.

We're already seeing the cracks with phone hacking scandals, the decline of British Sky Broadcasting, the flop of GB News and now Fox News being hammered with electoral fraud disinformation.

Rupert got away with so much crap because of his ruthlessness as a businessman and due to all the connections he had in high places. His children and senior associates lack this ruthlessness.

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- Can you name any other right-wing media moguls who have had anywhere near as much global influence as Murdoch?
I hope so when that happens but idk, with how things are. a bigger, more evil, more powerful boss may take his place. Bill OReilly was replaced by Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson has caused a lot of dishevel. United States, Russians, Australia, Canada and I'm sure others.
GB News isn’t a Murdoch project, the Murdoch channel in the UK is TalkTV.

It’s arguably been a bigger flop than GB News. Neither have achieved anything like the influence Fox News has, but GB News has attracted more publicity.

Either could gain traction though, the media regulator in the UK has been fairly toothless in keeping them in line so they will both keep pushing boundaries to see what sticks.
- Didn't know GBN wasn't Murdoch-owned. I think I made the assumption because it was touted as the British attempt at bringing a network like Fox News to our shores. Angelos Frangopoulos (the CEO) did work for Sky News Australia for many years, which is owned by News Corp.
  
  TalkTV didn't really register on my radar because I only know it for Piers Morgan Uncensored, and I honestly only watched his interviews with Donald Trump and Andrew Tate.
  
  When a journalist who is most famous for walking off of Good Morning Britain, and being punched in the face by Jeremy Clarkson is their biggest presenter, you know the channel is fucked.

They wanted to profit off this business as long as they could, now that they're out they want in to the center-left crowd.

💀
- Yeah its crazy how far the overton window has shifted over there. I honestly don't know if I could live long-term in a place with that kind of environment.
Oh God I hope you're right.

Idk how people don't remember this, but there was a time when Fox News was basically the same thing as CNN, just with more (educated) Conservatives providing commentary.

This was back when like, Hardball was the big political talk show, before the whole doom-spiral.

These are the executives bemoaning what Fox has become. That shit mostly started in the aftermath of 9/11.

It was designed to be a mouthpiece for the GOP.

Propaganda wasn't an afterthought; it's the reason for the network's existence.
- Yes and the GOP at the time was considerably more "normal," which, again, is the entire reason for the disconnect these former execs feel. People you and I don't like also have preferences.
  
  I've been arguing against Fox News takes since like '98 man, I'm well aware of what Fox News was and what it turned into.
  
  It's night and day.
Crossfire played a huge part in popularizing the dogmatic Fox Anchor personality.
- Crossfire was a CNN show.

The morons I know that watch it are looking for that.

“We never envisioned, and would not knowingly have enabled, the disinformation machine that, in our opinion, Fox has become,” the [group of men who helped establish Fox News] wrote.

What in the wild blue FUCK did you think was going to happen, then? Did it really seem like an honest effort back when it was launched?

What in the wild blue FUCK did you think was going to happen, then? Did it really seem like an honest effort back when it was launched?

Back when it was launched, they didn't have Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingram, and the rest of that group of ultra-morons that clearly have no clue what the hell they're talking about and only engage in conspiracy theories, open racism, and performative outrage.

The original group were a bunch of people who were trying to spread a legitimate conservative message, but were willing to quietly engage in shady tactics to do it.

The ones who are there now are a bunch of people trying to spread racism and conspiracy theories, and openly admit to engaging in shady tactics to do it.

I'm not saying either group is good. But there is a difference, and one is exponentially worse than the other.

did someone just open a time capsule from 1998 and find this message inside, along with a miniDisc player and an AOL CD?

I had a mini disc player that shit was amazing
- i had one, too. that thing was magical. i loved it!
Exactly. It became a misinformation machine decades ago, that's nothing new. And anyone saying (especially recently) that they're stunned by that is being disingenuous.

Lol no shit

Become???

Frankenstein shocked his monster turned out to be a monster.

It has been one for a long time.

I don't understand the timing on this message and what they hope to accomplish by saying this.

I can understand the idea of a more Right-leaning network to counter CNN but Fox News ain't it. Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity have been involved since the beginning. Don't know when, but at some point it just became straight up lies and they themselves have admitted as much in court. In court defending Tucker Carlson show "We are entertainment, and not news therefore you can't blame us for misinformation."

Misinfotainment

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Oh my lanta, say it ain’t so!

It was always a propaganda machine of the right. It's literally part of their stated purpose. This is the equivalent of an alcoholic abruptly announcing that bars facilitate the consumption and popularity of alcohol.

Is it just me, or is the font in that article really weird?

I don't know you so I really can't say how weird you are.

I would have gone with dumdum choo-choo train

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We have a meme over at lemmygrad with the subs "Wait, why am I surrounded by nazis?", the subject of the meme has the word "liberal" written over his character.