The rabid right has had quite a week. First, we had the story, breathlessly quoted on Fox News and by various reactionary luminaries, that Biden had a plan to limit our meat intake. Second, the NY Post apparently directed a reporter to write a bogus story to the effect that the government was handing out copies of the Kamala Harris book at the border. Once again, the right-wing outrage machine went into overdrive. The problem, of course, is that both stories were demonstrably false.
That doesn’t appear to present a moral issue for the Murdochs, who clearly want to be taken seriously, but not literally. For them, the narrative is set; it is just a question of supplying the supporting facts, as with Hearst and the Spanish-American War. Whether those “facts” are literally true is not particularly relevant; the only thing that really matters is the narrative. Anything that doesn’t fit the narrative is by definition either false or meaningless.
When Trump lied, as he did over 20,000 times while in office, at least everyone knew his history and reacted accordingly. For other GOP politicians and media outlets to lend their better reputations to lies is a different matter altogether. One can only hope that the Murdochs can, at some point, be persuaded that it is ultimately in their best interests to maintain some reasonable degree of journalistic ethics and objectivity. Right now, I don’t see it.