Between the 2020 election and just a few days ago when secrets seemed to be remaining secrets, a lot of people on the conservative right had strong things to say about patriotism, being real Americans, and how the “steal” must be stopped.
That ended recently when released text messages from Mark Meadows showed that beyond having an opinion on current events, many people had been secretly involved in controlling them.
Take Sean Hannity who since the election has been feeding into the conspiracy theories, presenting his opinions as fact based, and telling his audience who they should consider anti-American, spent a recent evening explaining his approach on is show and why no one should actually believe him because he is a talk show host, not a journalist. The time of this explanation was critical as CNN was about to reveal the contents of text messages that show Hannity was more involved in post-election conspiracies than just reporting them.
He explained that he was a “talk show host” who is clear about his political loyalties.
The Mark Meadows text dump shows Hannity was taking direction from him about Election Day get-out-the-vote initiatives to broadcast on his afternoon radio program, while after the election Hannity was having his “team digging into the numbers” to try to prove widespread voter fraud. He has even written a campaign ad for Trump’s re-election.
He does, however, have an explanation why a person on a cable news channel would be creating the news about which they report
“I go out of my way to explain what my job is, because a lot of people in the media mob do not understand what we do. Yes, I’m a member of the press…I’m on the Fox News Channel–which is a news channel–but I don’t claim to be a journalist. I claim to be a talk show host.”
With the Mark Meadows text dump, we do “understand what we do.” Use a news show to create news and bring about events upon which to report while having control over it.
Oh, he could report the news as it happens without his influence, but because of who he is, he claims his public statements and secret involvement in creating news stories to report on is “up-front” about who he is.
Bring involved in secret activities is not being “up front”.
“I am a registered conservative. Yes, I voted for Donald Trump. I make no apologies, I give my opinions straightforward. We even do culture, we do sports–I’m like the whole newspaper.”
But minus the facts.
And what would a conservative defense be if it lacked a What-aboutism” as Hannity could not take the criticism as his position is hard to defend. He claims that other networks have reporters with personal views on things, they just do not bring them into their reporting like Hannity does.
Hannity then reiterated what he claimed in the past: that those on other networks are duplicitous in that they too have a political bent, but don’t reveal it. “They’re talk show hosts just like me, except they’re not honest about it,” he insisted.
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