5 false theories of the US elections 2:43
(CNN Business) -
Throughout Monday, Newsmax viewers received a brief, but remarkable, revelation from the network's hosts: that Newsmax has no evidence that Dominion or Smartmatic manipulated the votes in the 2020 elections. That Newsmax has no evidence that Dominion or Smartmatic have any relationship to George Soros.
That Newsmax has no evidence that Dominion uses the Smartmatic software or vice versa;
and that Smartmatic is a US company, which is not owned by the Venezuelan government.
Newsmax made the disclosure as a "clarification," although the network maintained that it had never sold conspiracy theories about the companies itself.
NewsMax's extraordinary sea change came after Smartmatic sent a devastating legal threat to Newsmax and other right-wing outlets earlier this month.
Ben Rhodes summed up Monday's messages succinctly: "So we're going to spread massive amounts of total misinformation like metastasizing cancer through American democracy, but we don't want to be sued either, so we're offering this clarification." Rhodes tweeted.
And while Fox News also ran a similar news package in recent days debunking some of the claims its own hosts and guests had sold, it felt a lot more surreal coming from Newsmax.
QAnon conspiracy theory takes over the name of a real children's organization
How QAnon got hold of the name of an NGO?
4:51
It could also have more business implications for the small network.
Newsmax, after all, has chosen Fox viewers by positioning itself as the home of electoral rejection.
While Fox hadn't gone far enough for some people, Newsmax was willing to do so, refusing, for example, to recognize Joe Biden as president-elect until the Electoral College had officially cast their votes.
Will this have an impact on some of the achievements the network has made?
Time will tell …
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"Imagine how confusing and infuriating this must be for viewers"
Aside from telling viewers that Newsmax had no evidence to back up some of the wild conspiracies that have been spread around the net, it appears that the hosts may have been warned to be more careful about the claims made on their shows.
When Sebastian Gorka replaced Greg Kelly on the 7 PM show, MyPillow CEO Michael Lindell started talking about Dominion.
Gorka cut him off immediately.
"Enough is enough," Gorka intervened.
"I don't want to argue - Mike, Mike, we're not going to get into the minutiae of the details."
Justin Baragona from The Daily Beast made a great comment on the sequence of events.
Baragona tweeted: "Imagine how confusing and infuriating this must be for viewers who flocked to Newsmax specifically because the channel was telling them that the election was stolen from Trump by corrupt voting software and Hugo Chávez."
I asked Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy on Monday night what he would say to puzzled viewers.
I did not receive an answer ...
Fact check: conspiracy theories pushed by Trump 2:42
To Newsmax credit ...
At least the network had its hosts deliver the "clarifications" to their viewers.
As Jeremy Barr of WaPo tweeted, “It feels a little different when it comes directly from a Newsmax personality, rather than what Fox News did, which was to use an industry expert who had no idea what it was going for. use your interview ».
OAN continues to fuel viewers' fantasy
Fox and Newsmax could have released these packages acknowledging the reality of the situation, but it should be noted that One America News continues to feed its viewers pure fantasy about the elections.
A Monday report from one of his personalities, for example, had a graphic that read: "'DOMINATING THE VOTE."
Another piece read: "THE ART OF THEFT."
For the record
- Will Fox News and Newsmax back down to conspiracy theories with a lawsuit?
Attorney Ken White said, "I think they're in big trouble."
(Law & Crime)
- Ben Collins notes that Newsmax's "clarifications" were a "tremendous recap of the massive amount of crazy nonsense this network has been broadcasting over the past few months.
If someone shouted these things naked in a subway, it would not be out of place and yet people are incorporating these things as if they were real news.
(Twitter)
- Charlotte Klein notes that "a list of Republican officials has used [Newsmax] as a place to let their unsubstantiated claims run wild."
(Vanity Fair)
- Mona Charen offers an excellent look at the difference between how NYT corrected its "Caliphate" mistake versus how Fox News corrected the multitude of electoral falsehoods and conspiracy theories sold on its various shows.
(The Bulwark).
Geraldo Rivera again rejected Trump's electoral denial, saying Monday that the "whining" would only make him look like a "sore loser."
(Mediaite)
- Matt Gertz, senior fellow at Media Matters, is quoted in this USA Today article on Newsmax and other right-wing challengers: "Fox News is forced to compete for its audience for the first time in years."
(USA Today)
- Entire line in this story from The Washinton Post: "Trump's unofficial election advisory council now includes a pardoned felon, conspiracy theory supporters QAnon, a White House business adviser, and a former agent lover. Russian".
(WaPo)
NewsMax