EDITORIAL: Extremist organizations cosplaying as news media endanger America – By Las Vegas Sun Editorial Board (Las Vegas Sun) / January 10, 2021
Within the disinformation loop created by President Donald Trump and other GOP extremists, Benny Johnson is a media star with his own show on Newsmax TV.
Outside that loop — in the real world, where truth still matters — he’s a disgraced reporter who got fired from BuzzFeed and the conservative website Independent Journal Review for committing plagiarism dozens of times.
One America News Network reporter Chanel Rion asks a question of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington on May 22, 2020. President Donald Trump, who criticized Fox throughout the campaign, has driven the point home by suggesting his followers check out Newsmax or a smaller rival, One America News Network.
This is a man who wouldn’t be hired by any remotely credible news organization — his most noted skill is creating propagandistic internet memes. In an ideal world, he would be so far on the fringes of the media today that his audience would fit in a closet.
Yet disturbingly, his reach is expanding. In a Republican Party that is feeding its attack on democracy with an escalating campaign of misinformation, extremist media outlets like Newsmax and One America News Network are gaining strength.
According to The New York Times, Newsmax TV’s viewership leaped to more than 1 million after the election, after previously reaching no higher than 50,000 during the previous six years of its existence.
And experts worry that the upward trajectory is just beginning. With Trump criticizing Fox News for not being sycophantic enough to him, Newsmax and the like have happily moved in to pick off Fox News viewers and serve as Trump’s co-conspirators.
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