Murdoch's Fox News Racism Revealed
Tucker Carlson Omits Key Facts of African American Deaths by Police
August 18, 2020 / NYC Neighborhoods / Rupert Murdoch & Fox Fake News Special Section / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC.
As far as I know, nobody has ever accused Rupert Murdoch of running an unbiased news operation. In fact, it's seems just the opposite, as countless people have found countless significant reporting errors by his mammoth news operation, which in the U.S. alone represents about half the large corporate branded news content viewed by Americans including Fox News, the Wall St Journal, the NY Post, Barron's, MarketWatch and increasingly ABC News where Murdoch is the largest shareholder.
What is most disturbing, is how the pinocchio propagandists on some Murdoch media outlets appear to omit key facts, in order to put forth narratives that are at odds with the truth, which are then imprinted on the minds of the millions upon millions of viewers who watch and believe what they see and hear on Fox News.
Manipulating what ends up in people's minds is exactly what Joseph Goebbels did as the Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany in the 1930's and 1940's. As in Nazi Germany, Herr Murdoch's propaganda ministry in the U.S., appears to use the media to favor some people or groups at the expense of other people and groups in its reporting. Oftentimes the groups Murdoch appears to favor break along race and economic class lines. We're going to look at how Tucker Carlson appears to have put forth a false Fascist narrative that further victimizes the African American victims of unnecessary violence at the hands of rogue policemen, whose errant behavior is defended far too often by the police unions.
To be sure, those who fall prey to such mass media manipulation, are also responsible for their own ignorance and subsequent behaviors, including their voting.
Thomas Jefferson said,
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can always be pretended.”
We saw this pretension of ignorance and denial of responsibility by many Germans following World War II, including from those operating in influential posts with access to top levels of the Nazi high command. They pretended their ignorance, but generally the truth wills out.
I'll make my case regarding Murdoch's Fox News and Tucker Carlson's reporting of African Americans appearing to be victimized by rogue policemen on Fox News Tucker Carlson's nationally televised show. I identified a couple of shows, which were broadcast over American airwaves using a high number of FCC licenses, reaching millions upon millions of Americans who appear to have been disinformed in what seems a systematic effort by Australian born billionaire Rupert Murdoch's media to provide distorted reporting with respect to incidents of police brutality vis a vis the African American community.
Fox News & Tucker Carlson Twist the Facts to Make a Trap for Fools?
The first incident we're going to review, is Tucker Carlson's Fox News coverage of the Rayshared Brooks shooting in Atlanta on Friday, June 12th, 2020. Rayshard Brooks was a 27 year old African American and father of three who was found misparked in a Wendy's parking lot, apparently sleeping. He was found to have a blood alcohol of nearly .11 which is above the legal limit for driving of .08. Brooks was not stopped while driving, but rather after he had misparked his car in a Wendy's drive thru queue.
- CLICK here to view our report on what appears to be Tucker Carlson's racist presentation of the news on Fox News - Is Fox a racist network?
Murdoch's Fox News Racism Revealed
Tucker Carlson Omits Key Facts of African American Deaths by Police
August 18, 2020 / NYC Neighborhoods / Rupert Murdoch & Fox Fake News Special Section / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC. Continued.
Tucker Omits Key Facts - Like Brooks was Shot in the Back While Fleeing
The Tucker Carlson report was posted less than a week after the shooting on Thursday, June 18th. In the report Tucker fails to tell the audience that Rayshard Brooks' was shot in the back twice by the officer as Brooks was running away. This would seem to be a huge and important factual omission. The audience that relies upon the Fox News Tuckers of the world, likely will remain ignorant of one of the most important facts in the Rayshard Brooks case. Is ignorance bliss or are racists willfully ignorant?
What's interesting about Tucker's presentation of this story, is how Tucker has managed to cut up and spin the video caught on the policemen's body cams and the Wendy's store video in an extemporaneous / kaleidoscope fashion, such that it seems more to confuse the audience, than it does to inform them. By not presenting the video in chronological order - the way an American journalism organization like NBC News did - Tucker is able to hide the reality of the shooting, and still claim that he showed his audience the shooting video.
Thus Carlson's video sleight of hand seems to serve more as a Fox Fake News coverup for the Atlanta policeman's likely wrongful shooting of Rayshard Brooks in the back, than it serves to inform the Tuckers Fox News audience. In fact multiple studies have shown that Fox Fake News viewers know less about the real world - meaning the facts - than people who don't watch any news at all. And this is just one of many examples of why this is the case. Fox News seem to do this sort of twisting of the narratives somewhere between all the time and way too often.
Tucker's First Big Lie - The Policeman's Life was Threatened
Another of Tucker's propagandistic twists, in what seems a litany of Tucker Carlson's broadcasts of racist distortions, is that he tells the audience that the officer's life was in danger. This also appears deceptive - if not an outright lie - and likely why Tucker fails to tell his audience that Brooks was shot in the back twice.
A June 17, 2020 report in the Daily Mail (Britain) quotes Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard saying,
"... Rolfe would have a hard time arguing self-defense, despite the fact that Brooks grabbed Brosnan's taser and turned to deploy the stun gun against Rolfe as he chased him..[because] a Taser is not a lethal weapon..."
Just to set the record straight, Tasers are can kill people, and in an August 22, 2017 Reuters report found that 153 people died because of use of tasers in the hands of U.S. police since the year 2000. Tasers are classified as a 'less lethal' weapon. But so is a solid two by four board or a big steel wrench - both lethal - but not necessarily. Tucker glosses over the taser definitions, ruling it a lethal weapon in Georgia, even though Murdoch's NY Post published a June 23, 2020 report exploring the legal grey areas with respect to clear definitions / guidance surrounding taser use. The opening line of the NY Post report was,
"DA's can't decide whether Tasers are deadly."
As will be shown below, it appeared that Brooks had already been tased in the leg by one of the Atlanta policemen.
** Tucker's Second Big Lie - Brooks Wouldn't Know Whether he had the Officer's Taser or his Gun
Tucker's audience deception continues when he suggests that Brooks wouldn't have known whether he had a Taser or not. In the video the policeman took out his taser and used it on Rayshard Brooks' leg. Both the policeman and Rayshard Brooks were arguing about the taser while fighting over it. The policeman's gun hadn't entered into the fray until the policeman drew it from his holster AFTER Rayshard Brooks had begun to flee, and the gun was used to shoot Brooks in the back TWICE.
Tucker's claim that Rayshard Brooks wouldn't have known whether he had grabbed the policeman's taser or the policeman's gun before running away, and then firing it at the policeman as he ran, is nearly impossible to believe. And this also seems to factor into why Tucker didn't provide a full chronological viewing of the video as NBC News did.
Tucker's reporting of the Rayshard Brooks shooting appears to be a dishonest and very misleading presentation of the facts because: 1) Brooks and the police were arguing and fighting over the taser, 2) the scuffle occurred in a well lit parking lot, before Brooks broke away with the taser, and 3) as you can see in the video / photo the taser is colored differently [yellow], shaped differently, and made of different materials than a gun.
How can the Tuckers in the Fox audience know the real facts? By getting their information from real news organizations, like NBC News in this case. NBC News covered this situation the way American news organizations used to cover the news before Australian born billionaire Rupert Murdoch arrived on our shores in the late 1970's. Murdoch appeared to begin corrupting American media by lobbying President Reagan for an exception in U.S. media ownership regulations which limited media control to American citizens only. After gaining an exception to this rule from Ronald Reagan, Murdoch began aquiring and controlling large American media brands / corporations and then 'corrupting' them.
Contextual Omissions by Fox Tucker's Report Regarding a Gestapo-like Extrajudicial Killing of an African American
Rayshard Brooks was shot in the back twice by an Atlanta policeman, while fleeing his "crime", which was that he had wrongly parked his car at a Wendy's, and then fell asleep, likely after having too much to drink. Brooks tested positively at 0.11 blood alcohol versus the legal limit of 0.08. In Brooks interactions with the police officer prior to the cuffing, Brooks seems to speak pretty clearly, and appears to behave pretty reasonably. After the cuffing begins, Brooks tries to break loose and make a getaway on foot, leaving behind his vehicle. Rayshard Brooks was the father to four children.
The reason for Brooks change in behavior at the time of the cuffing is that Brooks had a prior record, and likely reacted to the thought of being incarcerated again. In August 2014 Brooks was found guilty of and convicted on four counts - False Imprisonment [meaning depriving someone else of the ability to move around freely], Simple Battery/Family, Battery Simple and Felony Cruelty/Cruelty to Children. By August 2016 Brooks was out on probation. A June 17, 2020 report in the Daily Mail (Britain) reports that his wife Tomika Miller said that Brooks was,
" ... a devoted husband to her and loving father to their three daughters and his stepson."
So this is the crime for which Rayshard Brooks got an extrajudicial, Gestapo-like death sentence?
You will find little of the context above in Tucker Carlson's pinocchio propaganda report, because this information serves to provide a greater understanding of the situation / what's really going on here. And if Carlson's viewers begin to understand what's really going on - versus what Tucker tells them is going on - they may be far less inclined to vote for the people who Tucker and Fox News want them to support. And that would be bad for Murdoch's multi-billion dollar businesses.
Without the 'right' pols in power, Murdoch wouldn't have the influence he currently has with the Department of Justice [DOJ] in the prosecution of Murdoch competitors, the DOJ approval of Murdoch mega mergers and the rolling back of FCC TV regulations which Fox News heralds as the glory of the "free" market / deregulation. Something the Tucker's in the Fox News audience don't realize, is that the "free market" is good for billionaires like Rupert Murdoch, and generally bad for everyone else. As over time only a few competitors survive, eventually dominate and then rape the competition and the consumers aka the market. That seems to be how Murdoch became a billionaire.
Fox Tucker Carlson's Factual Omissions - the Atlanta Officer had a Prior Record of Complaints
And lastly, Tucker fails to mention that the officer in question has been named in prior complaints. Murdoch's Editorial Board at the NY Post had also failed to mention that Daniel Pantaleo had prior complaints. Daniel Pantaleo is the officer who had the chokehold on Eric Garner when Garner died in a death rule a homicide. And like Tucker's reporting, that wasn't the only key fact the NY Post Editorial Board had left out of their OpEd advocating - along with NYPBA police union boss Patrick Lynch's - to keep Daniel Pantaleo on the force. See our report on the NY Post OpEd and their omitting and twisting of the facts surrounding Daniel Pantaleo's involvement in the death of Eric Garner. At some point, repeated Fox Fake News reporting transgressions vis a vis communities of color, can no longer be forgiven as mistakes as they represent pattern of racism by Murdoch controlled media outlets.
Opposites: Tucker's Masterful Goebbels Like Twisting of the Truth
The last piece of Tucker's show is a masterful twisting of perceived reality. Tucker twists what was an unnecessary rogue policeman shooting of an unarmed African American - into an onstage Nazi like performance of outrage over the taxes we pay for police protection. Tucker's outrageous teleprompter performance had nothing to do with the fact that there was a huge miscarriage of justice, when an Atlanta police officer [with a prior record of complaints] shot and killed an unarmed African American father of two or three [the accounts differ]. No, that wouldn't serve Rupert Murdoch's propaganda for profit business practices.
But rather Tucker shows his outrage at the government [aka the urban Democrats] because there were two 911 calls by restaurant owners who were - according to the Fox Tucker - victimized by damage attributed to Black Lives Matter protesters responding to Rayshard Brooks murder. Tucker then twists the cry to "Taxation without Police Protection is Theft". This is a play on the early American Boston Tea Party rallying cry 'Taxation without Representation' and is as disgraceful a perversion of America's philosophy as it is a perversion of the truth. But that seems to be what the Tucker so highly paid to do. Deceive, distract, and spin the facts into a Murdoch narrative that can be used in the coming election to promote Murdoch's favored pols and cast fear and doubt into the voters minds regarding those who will oppose the media Fuhrer.
** The Great Divider - Murdoch's Massive Share of Branded U.S. Media Seems Used to Cultivate Divergent Realities - A Demagogic One Based on Fox News Tuckers and the Truth Based on Facts
If you want to know why America, Britain and Australia all seem so divided, you need look no further than Rupert Murdoch's share of media / audience. Murdoch's media audiences are taken into a putrid, shock jock, depravity knows no limits universe which appears to be operated by a sociopath whose only interest in life is acquiring more money and more power no matter what the cost. This is not unlike two sociopaths or psychopaths of nearly a century ago, Adolph Hitler and Joseph Goebbels. But Murdoch has modernized the repertoire with methods updated for the 21st century and identified new victims / targets to attack adjusted to the prejudices of multiple locations in the English speaking world.
Rudyard Kipling warned us such people in his poem entitled "If" when he wrote,
"If you can bear to 'hear the truth you’ve spoken' [see realistic events], Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools."
The people who watch and believe the pinocchio propagandists on Murdoch's Fox News run the risk of being made fools. And like the Nazis in Germany in the 1930's and 1940's, risk betraying not just their own nation, but all of humanity. And like the Nazis after the war - like propaganda film maker Leni Riefenstahl - who told everyone "they didn't know", the world will learn that the truth is that not that "they didn't know" - but rather that they "didn't want to know". These people were willfully ignorant, which as Thomas Jefferson noted above, is not acceptable. The 18th century Irish English Parliamentarian Edmund Burke said that "All it takes for evil to succeed, is for enough good men to do nothing". And that is exactly what happened in Nazi Germany.
Google Won't Show the Video - so Here are the Links
I put together a video which Google isn't showing, the reasons for which remain unknown to me as of this post. I had shown a video by NBC News which approaches the reporting chronologically [aka the truth], and then showed Tucker Carlson's dishonest, distorted, masterful propagandistic presentation of the same event which completely turns around the truth - from the story of an unarmed African American who was gunned down by an Atlanta policeman for what seems no good reason - into outrage that the Black Lives Matter protesters are distracting the police from protecting their businesses in the area.
See our report series on Murdoch and Fox Fake News by clicking this link. Click this link for the NBC News report on Rayshard Brooks shooting in Atlanta and click this link for Tucker Carlson's racist propagandistic treatments of the Rayshard Brooks shooting in Atlanta on Fox Fake News. Note that Fox frequently changes things after they get caught / called out. This is why I had put together a video which I posted to Youtube [which Google won't show], so you could see for yourself.
Updated 8/25/20 - I challenged Google regarding their pulling down this video and apparently Google changed their minds and reinstated the video - see below. Then they withdrew the video again, and I challenged their reasoning again, and they reinstated it again. You can watch it on this site and / or can enlarge it by clicking the box in the lower right corner of the screen.
If you watch it on the Youtube site, Google asks users sign in to confirm their age. The NBC video of the same shooting is pretty graphic and yet Google / Youtube doesn't require viewers to sign into see their video. The Tucker's video obfuscates the reality of the shooting [this is the point of the analysis].
