The Paul Ryanization of Fox News continued yesterday evening on the Fox Report.
Bret Baier and reporter Jennifer Griffin performed a heck of a hatchet job on President Trump last night. – On last night’s Fox Report, Baier and Griffin burnished their CNN/MSNBC cred by parroting the fake reporting of The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, and then having Griffin cite her own anonymous “sources” to support parts of Goldberg’s story.
Which raises the question, when you have anonymous “sources” confirming what anonymous “sources” have to say, what do you really have? Well, you have gossips confirming gossips, for one thing. Griffin’s “reporting” is akin to the old days when housewives would spread neighborhood gossip while hanging clothes outside on the clothesline to dry.
Then you also have cowards confirming cowards, and what good is that to anyone? You also very likely have the exact same cowards “confirming” to Griffin what they said to Goldberg, which is even more worthless.
Meanwhile, Baier and Griffin basically ignored the dozen or so actual, real people who actually witnessed the events Goldberg portrays in his hoax piece and who have the courage to let reporters use their names, all of whom have completely refuted every accusation Goldberg makes. That dozen or so people includes Trump-hater John Bolton, who told Baier that, if he had heard the President say the things Goldberg alleges while serving as National Security Advisor he would not only have made mention of it in his recent hit book, he’d have written entire chapters about it.
Later in the fake newscast, during the nightly panel discussion, the great Mollie Hemingway did point out the fact of those dozen or so on-the-record sources and lightly criticized Griffin for ignoring them in her reporting. Baier then sat back quietly while allowing the despicable #NeverTrump nitwit Stephen Hayes to launch into a minute-long diatribe at Hemingway, something he’d never allow were the tables reversed.
Before yesterday, both Baier and Griffin had been pretty reliable purveyors of actual news. You didn’t always like what they had to report because they were trying to give you the straight skinny and communicate both sides of a story. But you felt confident in their reporting because it was pretty much always properly sourced.
That all ended on Friday. Now we know that Baier and Griffin are in fact no different from the hacks at CNN and MSNBC, perfectly willing to spread rumors damaging to the President based on nothing but the gossip handed them by cowards who are afraid to be identified in public.
If it were limited to the hour-long Fox Report, Baier’s and Griffin’s dive into the depths of rank rumor-mongering wouldn’t be that big a deal. But since their shenanigans, Griffin’s “reporting” is now being used as a tool by every fake reporter in America to claim that Goldberg’s hit piece has now been confirmed to be true. In addition, you have every host on Fox since last night’s broadcast now being required to claim that “Our own Jennifer Griffin confirmed parts of The Atlantic’s story.”
But Jennifer Griffin didn’t confirm anything. She cited cowards who confirmed parts of what other cowards told Goldberg. Or maybe she was even quoting the very same cowards Goldberg quoted – there is no way to know.
What we do know beyond any doubt after last night is this: Baier and Griffin can no longer be trusted to convey actual news to their viewers, and those of us who have watched the Fox Report as our evening newscast for years now need to find something better to do at 5:00 CT on weekdays.
This is all so liberating.
That is all.
Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever. Whatfinger.com is my go-to source for keeping up with all the latest events in real time.
