October 30, 2017

Look at How Fox News Covered Manafort Monday

“Meanwhile on Fox News” leaps to new heights of absurdity.

On Monday morning, the federal investigation into possible collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Russian government reached its most explosive point to date with the indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. Shortly afterward, and separate from the two indictments, special counsel Robert Mueller announced that former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about conversations he had with Russian officials offering “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.

Major networks scrambled to deliver full-blown coverage of the unfolding drama. But the folks at Fox News showed up with a wholly different approach—one that arguably took the network’s pro-Trump slant to new levels of absurdity.

Here’s an abbreviated version of the network’s journey on what’s widely been dubbed Manafort Monday:

7:30 a.m. EST: With federal charges about to be unsealed, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway tries to dismiss the prospect of an indictment as mere speculation. She also echoes Trump’s claim that the Russia investigation is a “hoax,” while insisting the focus should be on Hillary Clinton and the Trump-Russia memos paid for, in part, by the DNC, known as the Steele dossier.

8:00 a.m. EST: Speculation evolves into reality. While images of Manafort being driven to surrender himself over to federal authorities surface in a slew of news outlets, Fox News eschews Russia coverage in favor of Halloween candy and the uproar over Google’s hamburger emoji placing cheese underneath the meat patty.

12 p.m. EST: No longer able to hide behind candy and cheese, Fox News puts on its serious face to discuss what else: Hillary Clinton.

https://twitter.com/jnsanchez/status/925038580577329152

12:45 p.m. EST: The network’s coverage finally pivots to the Trump-Russia investigation, but only to question special counsel Robert Mueller’s credibility.

1:30 p.m. EST: The White House-Fox News hand-holding continues, as press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders asserts during an afternoon press briefing that the only true collusion took place between Clinton and Russia.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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