News is by definition uncovering and presenting the truth. Any operation that purports to be a news service that is not guided by and fully beholden to truth is merely a propaganda outfit. The crisis in any society is defined by the degree such organizations penetrate the cognitions of its populace and the resources available to enhance such influence. Under this criteria, America’s situation is dire and worsening by the day.
The evolution of Fox/AM’s omnipresence in the US has directly mirrored the decline of our governance and the social chasms in our culture. What started as a niche project the GOP figured it could use effectively to turn out its base, has morphed into an army of white walkers, a mass of ugly resentment we presumed enlightenment had slain, resuscitated by technology’s ability to constantly deliver increasingly dark and regressive messaging. What began as a servant to the will of the Republican Party has consolidated its fringes and consumed the middle, creating a nihilist wrecking ball bent on obviating all the hard fought lessons our mistakes have taught us.
The destructive synergy now on display each hour between the President and Fox/AM seems to have caught our vaunted checks and balances paradigm unawares and currently has it by the short hairs. More than 20 Democratic Presidential hopefuls appear content to tip toe around perhaps the gravest threat ever to confront American pluralism – and world peace and security for that matter – as if walking into some strange dark house, searching for a light switch.
Perhaps nobody personifies the progression of Fox/AM’s regression better than Maria Bartiromo. Over a 25- year career, which started at CNN and flourished at CNBC, Bartiromo meticulously developed a brand that gradually eclipsed the early sexist emphasis on her good looks. Cool and confident, Bartiromo paid her dues to become much more than “money honey” as she delivered the Dow’s shifting fortunes on her daily “Closing Bell” segment. Staunch dedication to no-nonsense reporting, and a direct interview style, eventually earned her Emmy award-winning credibility and near eminence gris status among business broadcast journalists. From eye candy to business news fixture accurately summed her career arc until 2013 when Roger Ailes offered her the big bucks to enter his Fox fold.
At the time, Bartiromo was at the top of her game at CNBC, but appeared enamored by Fox’s larger viewership. Ailes made it clear she could write her own ticket and cross over to hard news if she wished. Whether Bartiromo deluded herself into believing she would be permitted distance between Fox’s shit river and her own reporting, or if she ever much cared is unclear, but the indisputable results were on display yesterday at the southern border near El Paso, the site of her latest iteration of “live reporting,” as well as a “call in” interview with the President.
Trump, as with all of his Fox interviews, was confident enough in its tone and tenor to herald it with a tweet inviting the wretched core to “enjoy.” Bartiromo didn’t disappoint him once he got through, breathlessly reporting she had seen three groups illegally cross and get apprehended that very morning! Trump took her entre and began to ramble. They’re coming because the economy is so great, Trump cackled. Previous immigration policies are “disasters” which everyone before him was fine with, Bartiromo nodding furiously in agreement. Then the President returned to where wishful thinkers on both sides of the aisle hoped he had left for good….family separation.
A particular Trump skill is an innate understanding of the American public’s short attention span and its fervent desire to soften the edges of anything morally abhorrent to lessen collective shame; the family separation outrages fit perfectly into that unfortunate tendency. False equivalence is key to this tactic, and neither Fox/AM or the President ever hesitate to lie when creating it. With Bartiromo providing free rein, he revised facts on the ground that so outraged most of America just months ago. Close to incoherent, Trump falsely implied that both the Bush and Obama administrations pursued the policy, while making clear how effective a deterrent he thought it was:
“When they used to separate the children, which was done during the Obama administration, with Bush, with us, with everybody, far fewer people would come…. And we’ve been on a humane basis it was pretty bad…. we go out and stop the separations. The problem is you have ten times as many people coming up with their families. It’s like Disneyland now.”
Parsing Trump gibberish is almost always a fool’s errand. But here it produces telling insights into where he and Stephen Miller, the White House’s de facto head of immigration policy, want to return. They were actually reformers when they stopped tearing children away from their parents in response to an outpouring of public disgust. Sure it was the “humane” thing to do, but look where it got us. We gave it a shot, but it may be time to get tough again! Who can blame us?!
Any vestiges of past newsroom gravitas from hard hitting interviews with business titans like Jack Welch or Warren Buffet were but a faded twinkle as Bartiromo near constantly tried to sneak a gratuitous affirmation somewhere into Trump’s non-stop diatribe. She couldn’t agree enough with everything the President dispensed, whether it was the outrageous contention Central American immigrants are making the journey to get “50 years worth” of welfare and other freebies, or ICE agents are the real victims of any persecution. Bartiromo was no longer anything resembling a journalist; she was just another incarnation of Lou Dobbs . Everything she presumably had spent more than two decades building was gone, lost in the incoherent droning of our first Fox/AM Chief Executive. In fact, the whole exercise seemed like nothing more than a staged Trump 2020 production, an increasingly common trait of Fox coverage. Whatever one wanted to call the farce, it wasn’t journalism.
It’s very clear from real news reporting from the West Wing, and Trump’s own ramblings, another round of family separation is coming soon. Bartiromo’s complete cooperation Sunday made clear Fox/AM will devote all its resources to removing any fuzzy sentimentality the wretched core may have toward children’s petulant desires to stay with their families. As for the rest of America? They’ll get the fallback narrative, the outright lie that past administrations carried out the same policy and the mainstream media simply didn’t care then; they only do now because they hate Trump.
How will Americans with consciences digest the new round of moral disgrace? Trump et al are betting time and other distractions – and the strident propaganda of Maria Bartiromo – will dilute the bitter taste of national shame this time around. If they are right, it will be yet another wrung in the ladder of our ruin. Pray they aren’t. BC