Showing posts with label Jim Hoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jim Hoft. Show all posts

Monday, February 20, 2023

Gateway Pundit: The right wing king of misinformation and grift.

 


Gateway Pundit is a irresponsible web site that pulls news out of reality and makes it their own by rewriting whatever the real story was and making it a right-wing talking point.  Case in point they (they, by the way, is Jim Hoft) reported that "Dominion Voting Systems sued FOX News for $1.6 billion in a defamation lawsuit in March 2021.  ". 

      As near as I can tell that one sentence is all Hoft got right. 
     He then added: "The AP reported on the suit in a very nasty and biased report" and then Hoft added as a garnishment: "The AP included numerous falsities and biases in its report, so much so that it looked like it was written by Dominion." Hoft went on to say that Fox has filed a suit against Dominion now.....which they did not. Fox did filed a response to the Dimonion claim which stated that  “Dominion is fundamentally mistaken. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press would be illusory if the prevailing side in a public controversy could sue the press for giving a forum to the losing side.”
     It is, of course, the old "First Amendment" argument the right wing likes to lean on which is supposed to allow them to say whatever they want. Not true, of course. Lying is not a First Amendment right.
    The only out Fox News could have might be that they would want to post a disclaimer on every report saying "This might not be true" but it's a good story. Or maybe rebrand their "News Corporation" as a satire site. Right wingers, of course, would still pick out the stories they want to push as true. As a former right-winger I understand clearly that they are motivated by one thing: Affirmation." It does not matter if what they are spouting is true...just that some of their fellow right wingers give them affirmation.
  One other note: Hoft reported that "Mark Beckstrand, a Dominion Sales Manager, confirmed that other parties “have gotten ahold of [Dominion’s] equipment illicitly” in the past. There is no information to back that comment up. But if you punch it into google you will find several website reporting the same thing. But...they are ALL right wing nutjob sites. Sometimes it's hard to tell who created the story but they all post the same things and right winger seat it up like candy.