By Ashique KhudaBukhsh,Mark Kamlet, and Tom Mitchell
Published 29 January 2021
In the immediate aftermath of the 6 January assault on the Capitol, in a Trump-inspired effort by his supporters to prevent Congress from ratifying the rightful winner of the election, Fox News was criticized for “whipping up the radicals.” A close comparative study of post-election news coverage, however, shows that Fox News was restraint, and largely accurate, in its coverage, while three right-wing fringe networks – Newsmax, One America News Network (OANN), and Blaze TV – had a far bigger role in amplifying Trump’s disinformation and conspiracy theories about the election. The hyper-partisan coverage of election integrity provided by the three fringe networks – combined with the almost perfectly sealed echo chamber they had created for their viewers – makes them the more likely culprit for having riled up loyal Trump supporters.
How Trump steered viewers from Fox News to rivals Newsmax, OANN ohiostandard.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ohiostandard.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
January 29, 2021
Twitter personality Jack Posobiec worked alongside other American far-right extremists in amplifying the fruits of an apparent Russian military intelligence (GRU) hack intended to disrupt the outcome of the French elections in May 2017.
The hack – waged to target Emmanuel Macron, then a candidate for president, and benefit his opponent, the far-right politician Marine Le Pen – spawned a series of criminal charges in 2020. On Oct. 19, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI charged six Russian military intelligence hackers from GRU with cybercrimes including “spearphishing campaigns and related hack-and-leak efforts targeting French President Macron [and his political party] … prior to the 2017 French elections.”
Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump did not succeed in overturning his election loss to Joe Biden. But he did succeed during his lame-duck period in knocking Fox News down a peg.
Over the past few months, Trump repeatedly derided Fox News while promoting upstart rivals like Newsmax and One America News Network (OAN), both of which more reliably pushed his conspiracy theories about the election being stolen. Fox News responded to this very public post-Election Day rift with Trump and the sagging ratings that came with it by purging its newsroom and doubling down on grievance-soaked punditry.