After terror attacks left at least seven people dead and dozens injured in London, right-wing media called for the internment of Muslims, replicating the unconstitutional measures that imprisoned thousands of innocent Japanese-Americans during World War II.
Pro-Trump media outlets attacked CNN by claiming the network was “staging fake Muslim demonstrations” in response to the June 3 London Bridge terror attack. The smear, which started with nativist, anti-Muslim Daily Mail columnist Katie Hopkins, was quickly called out by CNN as “nonsense.”
Right-wing media personalities launched Islamophobic attacks following the June 3 attack in London that left seven people dead and injured dozens, such as calling for the internment of Muslims in "World War II-style internment camps," suggesting the United States “close down the mosques” and claiming the U.K. “let in too many Muslim immigrants.”
Nugent previously claimed “I’ve never suggested anybody get hung except for one time after Benghazi”
Fox hosts let Ted Nugent call in and deny he had used violent rhetoric when inviting Obama to “suck on my machine gun” and also defend his prior claim that he would be “dead or in jail” if former President Obama was re-elected in 2012.
President Donald Trump defended his decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement with bogus and easily discredited talking points that have long been touted by right-wing media. Outlets covering Trump’s decision to shirk American climate commitments should avoid repeating the White House’s misinformation.
Fox host Kimberly Guilfoyle claimed that President Donald Trump called her for advice before announcing his decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord. Guilfoyle has been an outspoken critic of efforts to fight climate change, and has previously attacked public figures for speaking out about the threat of climate change, pushed false claims surrounding the science of climate change, and has even suggested that climate change is not real.
Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly debuts a new Sunday newsmagazine show on NBC on June 4. Kelly has promoted the show as an opportunity to show viewers “a range of emotion and personality” in a way that “wasn’t possible when I was in prime-time cable news." Media Matters has spent years chronicling what we did see from Kelly at Fox; here are the worst moments.
Business leaders and experts agree decision to pull out of agreement “would harm every American” and "devastate [America’s] international credibility"
Right-wing media figures cheered President Donald Trump’s decision to remove the United States from the Paris climate agreement, which sought to reduce international greenhouse gas emissions. But experts and business leaders condemned the decision, calling the move a “historic mistake” and “a gratuitous thumb in everyone’s eye.”
President Donald Trump has decided to exit the Paris climate agreement, according to Axios. The news site also reported that the Scott Pruitt-led Environmental Protection Agency has been “quietly working” with opponents of the agreement to help them place op-eds in newspapers. Media Matters identified a number of anti-Paris agreement op-eds that have been published in papers around the U.S. in recent weeks, spreading misinformation about the expected economic impacts of the agreement, the commitment of developing countries to cutting emissions, and climate science in general.
Fox News host Sean Hannity attracted widespread condemnation for pushing conspiracy theories about a murdered Democratic National Committee staffer, but it wasn’t his first time promoting or entertaining such wild claims on air. From claiming that the NFL’s Colin Kaepernick protested the national anthem because he “may have converted to Islam” to implying that former President Barack Obama is a terrorist sympathizer, here are some examples of Hannity embracing conspiracy theories.
After years of investigations into a culture of violence, abuse, and neglect for human life at Rikers Island prison complex, correction officials’ attempts to cover it up, and the failures of New York City’s elected officials to implement real reforms, Rikers prison is set to be closed in the next 10 years. Here, we document some of the crucial investigative journalism and storytelling by The Village Voice, The New Yorker, and The New York Times that helped expose the extent of the horrors at one of the worst prisons in America.
Former acting CIA director on Kushner’s “bizarre” conduct: “It’s a proposed secret channel through the government that is probably the most active government in the world in carrying out espionage against the United States”
While former national security and intelligence officials expressed alarm over reports that President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner proposed using Russian diplomatic facilities to set up a secret communications channel with the Kremlin during the presidential transition period, conservative media figures attempted to downplay the major news story by drawing inaccurate comparisons to back-channel situations from previous administrations.
He also has flouted ethical and employment guidelines
Volatile Fox News anchor and right-wing conspiracy theorist Sean Hannity has repeatedly pushed stories even after his network retracted or backed away from them and has on multiple occasions broken ethical and employment guidelines. Hannity has pushed polls that the network had previously said “do not meet our editorial standards,” hyped debunked Muslim “no-go zones” in France after the network had to apologize for reporting about them, engaged in political activity without Fox’s knowledge or approval, and has used his Fox platform to benefit a sponsor of his radio show.
CMP seemingly tried to avoid an injunction by circulating video footage to anti-choice and right-wing media outlets, rather than publishing it
On May 25, the discredited anti-choice group Center for Medical Progress (CMP) circulated an unlisted YouTube link to a new smear video against the National Abortion Federation (NAF) and Planned Parenthood. This footage was removed that evening because a district judge had “barred it from release.” Given this injunction, it seems notable that CMP didn’t publicly release or promote the video, and instead relied on anti-choice and right-wing media outlets to spread its claim.
President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 education budget calls for the creation of a new federal private school voucher program. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is a longtime proponent of vouchers. A recent series of NPR articles raises a number of questions about existing voucher programs and suggests that expanding vouchers is not likely to improve educational outcomes