Former Fox Execs Regret Creating the Fox "disinformation machine"

[BeaverFever]

Three Former Fox Execs Publicly Regret Their Role In Creating the Fox "disinformation machine"

 

Preston Padden, Ken Solomon and Bill Reyner may not be familiar names to you, but their creation certainly is. Back in the 1990’s they helped get Fox News launched. Well now the trio appear to be suffering some “Frankenstein’s Regret” in an essay collectively published titled, “How Our Efforts to Bring Competition To Television Unknowingly Helped Create the Fox Disinformation Machine”.

The first few paragraphs explain their respective roles in bringing about the channel, often brimming with pride at their accomplishment. Then it turns sullen pretty quick:

We never envisioned, and would not knowingly have enabled, the disinformation machine that, in our opinion, Fox has become.

…

In our opinion, the Fox News Channel has had many negative impacts on our society.

…

Many other veterans of the historic effort in the 1990’s … share our resentment that the reputation of the Fox brand we helped to build has been ruined by false news.

They’ll have to excuse me for being underwhelmed at their “historic effort” after having to live in a country that’s been, and is still being, torn apart by their creation.

There are those of us who were watching in horror, even in the 90’s, at the intellectual dishonesty, fallacious logic and bald-faced partisanship on display by this so-called “fair and balanced” news organization. We saw that they had taken the platform of Murrow, Cronkite and Rather, and twisted it into a 24/7 GOP infomercial. We watched as they manufactured consent; convincing the American electorate time and time again to vote against their own consciences and interests. We watched as they fed our now-estranged friends and family fantasies day after day until, finally, their viewers would grow to actively refuse real facts when they called the election for Biden in 2020. And some of those viewers believed those fantasies hard enough to travel to Washington DC on January 6th.

While it’s great to hear their honesty and remorse, the rest of us have had to live with the consequences of their creation over these past 25 years, and now have the 2024 election to look fearfully forward to as well. So unless these men are willing to make another “historic effort” and take steps to repair some of the “negative impacts on our society”, they can just lie in a nice meadow with their platitudes and rot.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/15/2181003/-Three-Former-Fox-Execs-Publicly-Regret-Their-Role-In-Creating-the-Fox-disinformation-machine