Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/10/19/fox-news-passed-on-hunter-biden-story.html
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Questions:
Who owns Fox News?
Who owns the New York Post?
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Giuliani declares there’s an even chance that he’s a useful idiot (the alternative is he isn’t useful)
Rudy: Only ‘50/50’ Chance I Worked With a ‘Russian Spy’ to Dig Dirt on Bidens and Ukraine
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When the story first appeared, the one thing I found curious was that the FBI supposedly seized the hard drive.
That sounded made up (along with everything else, of course): “Ah HA, the FBI is investigating Hunter Biden!” A conservative wet dream.
But then we hear the FBI did seize it, because they suspected it was part of a Russian disinifo campaign.
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Now Fox News hosts can JAQ off over the “story”, though, which is one of the features of News Corp’s “synergy” between its outlets.
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But in print and on air, it didn’t even get to Fox News, whose hosts were generally very cold on it.
FN Legal department must have had to work some serious overtime to convince FN management of this one
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I keep trying to come up with the best possible description.
The worst person to ever come out of Australia?
The oldest hacker in the world?
The worst thing to happen to modern journalism?
Someone whose disruptive and damaging impact on the world will be the subject of academic study, as they ask; how did everyone let this man gain so much untrammelled power?
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Frankly, the actions of one’s relatives should not be a factor in an election, unless ALL of them are selfish grifters like the current President’s.
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All of the above.
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Murdoch the Magician?
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Giuliani did one thing correctly. As the story is unraveling into a clumsy attempt to smear Biden, there are enough holes in the chain of custody of the laptop that it will be difficult if not impossible to pin down the perpetrators.
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Question:
Who accepts copies of a hard drive that contains child pron? Someone says to me “Al, I’m giving you a copy of this drive to keep safe in case something happens to me. It’s got CP on it.” You would normally say no, correct?
It just seems that part of the story, and how freely the info gets passed around and copied… maybe best you give the original to your lawyer and they handle the chain of custody issues.
The whole “We made copies because of the Deep State” is an interesting defense when you get charged with CP possession and copying personal data…
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I honestly don’t care that Trump’s family are grifters. That itself isn’t a good reason. The fact that he has been world famous for being a selfish grifter since long before being elected is the part I have a problem with.
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Even worse than Rolf Harris; and that is extremely bad.
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As the kids[*] say nowadays, ‘big oof’.
[*] that’s tuppence hapenny looking down on tuppence.
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In his case “50% chance of being a useful idiot” just means he’s 0% useful and 100% idiot.
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I think Newscorp just picked the publication that would take the smallest hit to it’s credibility with a story like that. It’s not like the NY Post has ever billed itself as a serious publication.
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There’s violence on the television
And letter bombs in the mail
But things can’t be all that bad
'Cause Derryn Hinch went to jail
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It sounds like the issue was that none of the anchors wanted to associate themselves with the story. If any had then I bet the network would have gone with it.
The Post was able to put the story on the front page even though none of their senior reporters would allow their names to appear in the byline. But it’s not quite as simple to make something into a primetime news story on TV if none of the famous talking heads will play along.
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Fox And Friends will still talk about it ad nauseum, so the legitimacy of the whole thing hardly matters. They’ll “just ask questions” about Biden something something FBI and all the newspapers are talking about it, you know. The official “Fox News” team never need mention it and it will still reach all Fox viewers loud and clear.
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