Sounds to me like ole Bill O'Reilly wants the media to report more on the #AlternativeFacts. Faux Noise really is living up to its slogan: We decide, you comply.
Yes, that is the country in which we live now: Democrats/liberal believe the reality and facts and conservatives/Republicans believe that any news that makes them look bad is fake news/left-wing liberal media bias, so therefore the "free press" is Fox News/Drudge/Breitbart/InfoWars.
This whole "fake news" trend is deeply disturbing to me. Trump knows that his cult members will support him no matter what he says, so naturally it's going to be easy for him to cry foul anytime the media investigates and says "bad things" about him. This really sounds similar to the brainwashing propaganda that is distributed throughout North Korea.
The Republican base has been primed for this for quite a while; for many years, in fact. These accusations of media bias, liberal media, and brainwashing by academic ideologies is nothing new. The groundwork had been laid for Trump and slowly cultivated year after year. Bush II would frequently accuse the media of bias whenever it reported critically about him. Under Obama they claimed the media were working on his behalf. The same thing occurred under Clinton, they made the same accusations about unsubstantiated media bias. As more and more evidence mounted to discredit the increasingly reactionary policies and ideas of the right wing, the more they'd scream "bias!"
I don't deny that there is bias in much of the media, but how can the media represent both sides when one peddles easily disprovable falsehoods and lies? Are they supposed to report on nonexistent terrorist attacks in Sweden? Or make fake videos of Muslims cheering on 9/11? Or maybe pretend like a 97% consensus in the scientific community about global warming means the 3% should be given equal representation? Then, add in constant bating and scapegoating of their entire occupation, and the right wing wonders why reputable journalists would find any association with them unacceptable.
My point is simply that the more reactionary and unsubstantiated their lies become, the more they scream "media bias" and "fake news" when professionals refuse to embrace their distorted view of reality. This didn't happen for no reason, the right wing has been cultivating it for decades because it's the only way they can get away with the horrible policies, ridiculous wars, and total ownership by special interests and the rich that have defined their party since Reagan. Trump doesn't exist outside of the history of the modern conservative movement or Republican Party; he ran a campaign reminiscent of Bush in 2000, who also talked like a populist and isolationist. Then, also like Bush II, Trump stuffed his cabinet full of the super rich and well connected as soon as he got in office. To cover that up, he goes on rampages against the media and throws red meat to the base with bigoted EOs. Trump is merely a more vulgar version of Bush II and will be as successful as Bush II with many people at the end of Trump's Presidency wondering how they got suckered into the same bs.
