This is quite a pathetic fix we’re in when Fox News is all we’ve got so far as anything resembling “fair and balanced” news and commentary.
As for the rest of Big Media, President Trump knows it, correctly, as Fake News. Nobody said it better except maybe Newton Minow, FCC chairman under JFK, who characterized it…notably television… “a vast wasteland” That was back in the early 1960s, and rather than getting better, it got worse.
Then along came Fox News to save us from CNN and the rest of them that serve up daily portions of radical leftist pabulums.
It was…and is…the only network to cover Israel without Hanan Ashrawi. So Israel gets half a chance, and so does Trump.
In this book we wondered, and predicted, what would happen once Murdoch’s sons grew up and took over, and now we know.
Now we know Juan Williams (he’s everywhere) and Marie Harf and even Donna Brazile who was too far left even for CNN.
Too hot to handle for them, but a perfect fit for Fox News, once Roger Ailes left the building.
It’s as if to tell us…Listen, if you love Trump Bashing, you don’t have to go to NBC, ABC,CBS or PBS…we can give it to you, too.
Tune in, America, and let Jessica Tarlov ruin your day.
Which brings us to Tuesday, and the debate that was supposed to be between Trump and Biden. But then Mike Wallace showed up.
Oops. That’s the father. I meant Chris Wallace, of course. In many ways…the aggressive style…like father, like son.
Yes, Mike Wallace, was the famous “60 Minutes” reporter known for his abrasive shock journalism.
I remember but one segment. It happened in Israel. Trailed by a complement of producers, directors, cameramen and CBS-TV technicians, plus a family said to be Palestinian Arabs…lights bright for action…Mike Wallace knocks on the door that features a mezuzah…a woman, smiling, friendly, but bewildered, answers.
Mike Wallace tells her that she doesn’t deserve to live here anymore. The house belongs to the Palestinian Arab family.
There’s more, but that’s mostly what I remember, and mostly what I need to remember about Mike Wallace, who was not, this reporter assures us, a self-hating Jew.
Have it your way. I only know what I saw, and not favorably.
I know. I know. It’s got nothing to do with Chris Wallace, except that bias is bias, and there it was, Tuesday, smack in President Trump’s face.
Biden got away with everything, Trump with nothing, Chris Wallace acting as moderator, but serving as Biden’s nurse and defensive shield.
Trump was overly aggressive? Maybe that’s because he knew what’s coming from Chris Wallace.
Whose reputation preceded him as a registered Democrat. (Says it’s compelled, living in DC. He has no mind of his own?)
Maybe it’s because all media are alike, so Trump knows what’s up.
Chris Wallace let it slide, even when Biden barked, “Shut up, man.” Thus we speak to the President of the United States.
Maybe it’s because Chris Wallace argued with Trump on practically every point Trump tried to make.
Maybe it’s because Chris Wallace gave Biden all the time in the world to make speeches…while Trump got no such time or consideration.
Instead, Chris Wallace sat mum and compliant when Biden felt comfortable enough to call Trump a liar, stupid, a racist, and a clown.
Chris Wallace let it slide, even when Biden barked, “Shut up, man.” Thus we speak to the President of the United States.
Can Chris Wallace ever be trusted again?
Some may recall Megyn Kelly’s folly. She was tops at Fox News. For good reason. She was good.
Then at the GOP debate August, 2015, she ripped into Candidate Trump, for his alleged verbal mistreatment of women. This went over terribly…against her. I should know. I was writing a novel at the time about what it means to be someone like Megyn Kelly…famous, successful…but then if the husband is a flop, what happens to the marriage?
The book failed to sell, and for the oddest reason…women were furious at Megyn Kelly for the liberties she took against Trump.
My mistake.
Megyn Kelly’s career was never the same thereafter, through her own choosing…vaulting to NBC for a bigger slice of the American Pie… or through Karma.
Over there, at NBC, she was tripped up and disgraced again over a false charge of insensitivity to racism, and let go. She is no racist.
She remains a savvy and topnotch observer of the American scene. She is starting all over again though her own podcast, and she appears to be a supporter of President Trump.
Will she ever be forgiven?
Let’s hope…well, I hope she succeeds, and that she’s done with the bad vibes. She has no history of bias, nor such lineage.
I cannot say the same for Chris Wallace.
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.
He wrote the worldwide book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal,” the authoritative newsroom epic, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” followed by his coming-of-age classics, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” and, the Holocaust-to-Montreal memoir, “Escape from Mount Moriah.” For that and his 1960s epic “The Days of the Bitter End,” contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.” Website: www.jackengelhard.com