Fox News has changed its prime-time lineup. Advertisers beware.

This week, Fox News announced a new prime-time schedule that will feature Jesse Watters taking over Tucker Carlson’s 8 p.m. timeslot and Greg Gutfeld’s show moving to 10 p.m. Both changes show Fox’s commitment to pursuing the same extremist viewpoints that led to a record-breaking defamation lawsuit.

• Like his white nationalist predecessor, Watters is a racist with a long documented history of spewing his vile hatred on Fox’s airwaves. Here are just a few examples:
  • In one infamous moment, Watters produced a widely condemned racist stereotype-driven segment in New York City’s Chinatown.
  • Watters blamed the plight of Native Americans on “alcoholism” and “government dependency.”
  • Watters said Black Americans should be more concerned with “absent fathers, education issues” than with white supremacist mass shooters.
• Watters’ bigotry isn’t confined just to his racism. He has spent a great deal of his time promoting hatred and bullying against other marginalized groups. Here are just a few examples:
  • In May 2016, it was made public that Watters harassed and stalked journalist Amanda Terkel while she was on vacation.
  • Watters’ creepily voiced support for teachers to spank their students, saying “Can you paddle female students?”
  • Watters said “grooming teachers” have taken children’s gender away.
  • Watters told an imam “There is a Muslim problem in the world.”
  • Watters pushed the infamous white supremacist “great replacement” theory.
• In addition to his hatred, Watters spreads conspiracy theories and misinformation. Here are some examples:
  • Watters said “You don’t fight climate change. If it’s getting warmer, you adapt to it.”
  • Watters said President Joe Biden “rigged the last election.”

Like Watters, Greg Gutfeld also has a long track-record of pushing hatred and misinformation.

• With regards to his racism, Gutfeld said that Democrats are lying about the threat of white supremacy to “keep Blacks angry.” Here are a few other examples:
  • Gutfeld said “The first run onto the ladder of capitalism often is drug dealing for Blacks.”
  • Gutfeld accused Democrats of “race warfare” which he said would lead “towards revolution.”
  • Gutfeld suggested shortening the Muslim holiday of Ramadan to decrease terrorism.
• Gutfeld applies his hateful mouth to other marginalized minorities. Here are some examples of his bigotry:
  • Gutfeld said he wouldn’t go to college now because he doesn’t find the students attractive enough.
  • Gutfeld compared living in America with increased immigration to living in a “rough neighborhood” without an alarm system.
  • Gutfeld said he uses the label “groomer” in retaliation for being called a racist.
• Gutfeld pushes conspiracy theories and misinformation with equal vigor to Watters. Here are some examples:
  • Gutfeld said climate change “improves people’s lives.”
  • Gutfeld falsely claimed that no person with a concealed carry permit has ever committed a mass shooting.
  • Gutfeld called for a “peaceful revolution” over mask mandates.

Advertisers and cable subscribers should be weary about putting their brand reputation to the test by financing Fox’s dangerous rhetoric. Read Media Matters’ President Angelo Carusone’s warning that Fox is “going back out to sea by leaning in on their most toxic personalities.”

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Sign up to NoFoxFee.com to get tips on how to send a polite message to your provider and say, “Don’t let Fox News raise my bill.”

Non-troversy of the week: No, New York City is not 'canceling' pizza

You may have heard that New York City liberals are trying to ban pizza. Of course, this is a patently absurd and false claim, but it’s something conservative media personalities have been claiming for much of this week. So, here’s what’s going on.

New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection issued a notice of public hearing on a proposed new rule which would require restaurants with wood or coal-fired ovens installed prior to May 2016 to consider adding devices that would reduce particulate emissions. Basically this rule would ensure that older ovens meet environmental regulations currently applied to newer ones. City officials say this rule would affect under 100 of New York’s pizzerias.

Yes, that’s it.

Never known for being subtle or confined to reality, conservative media flew into an uproar about this proposed rule change. It all started with misleading New York Post reporting which then jumped to right-wing podcasts, radio, Newsmax, and Fox News. Throughout conservative airwaves, the same fake claims that New York City was trying to cancel pizza in the name of climate change (this proposed rule has nothing to do with climate change — it’s about pollution) and will reduce pizza quality (no, it won’t; the same rule already applies to pizza ovens installed after May 2016) were beaten into their audience.

Media Matters’ Ilana Berger summed this case up well, writing, “The fabricated crisis is just the latest attempt to stoke culture war outrage over appliances and other products in an ongoing campaign to turn Americans against benign safety and energy efficiency updates.”

This week in stupid

• Fox’s Greg Gutfeld said “There’s substances in the water that reduce testosterone.”

This week in scary

• The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles called for banning “that evil Pride flag from every public space forever.” In the same episode, he went on to say trans people don’t have the right to a job.
• A Rumble podcaster threatened the LGBTQ community, saying, “If you come for their kids, they’re probably going to exercise their Second Amendment rights.”
• Fox's Jesse Watters said government officials need to “extinguish” homeless encampments. 

Excuse me?

• Fox’s Jesse Watters said, “I know Joe Biden is an intelligence op.”
• BlazeTV’s Steve Deace asked if transgender “madness is really just a psyop to grease the skids for Michelle Obama running for president.”
• A Newsmax guest said, “I didn’t like it when we tried to pray away the gay. Now we’re trying to trans away the gay.”
• Fox's Mark Levin said the Congressional Black Caucus wants to “resegregate the country.”

In case you missed it

• This week, CNN published leaked audio of former President Donald Trump bragging about possessing classified documents. Right-wing media promptly had a meltdown, desperately trying to defend Trump.
  • Fox host Brian Kilmeade said the audio was given to CNN to distract from reporting on Hunter Biden.
  • Fox’s Sean Hannity said the recordings “don’t prove a thing.”
  • In possibly the strangest example, Newsmax’s Greg Kelly said, “When you’re talking about, let’s have a few Diet Cokes, you don’t think you’re in the middle of a crime.”
• After the Supreme Court ended affirmative action in higher education on Thursday, right-wing media poured praise on the conservative justices. Conservative media figures also gloated with offensive rebukes to affirmative action. 
  • Benny Johnson called affirmative action “Nazi-level thinking.”
  • Fox's Will Cain reacted by saying “I find it affirming today that the Supreme Court of the United States rejected critical race theory.”
  • Fox's Jesse Watters lectured Black Americans by saying “A white person who's more qualified was discriminated against.”
  • A Newsmax host said ending affirmative action “fulfilled Dr. King's dream.” 
• On June 27, Breitbart published an expose of private messages of right-wing influencer Pedro Ganzalez, detailing his past racist and anti-semitic messages. BlazeTV’s Steve Deace rushed to defend Gonzalez.
• Fox’s Mark Levin said Chief Justice John Roberts “is a worthless fraud and phony. He has surrendered all his principles.”
• Fox’s Laura Ingraham attacked the Supreme Court for its independent state legislature ruling.
• The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles claimed that LGBTQ people are “groomers” who “have an interest in children because their ideology demands it.”

Read more

• Last week we told you that Moms for Liberty had been caught using not one, but two quotes from Adolf Hitler. It turns out that Moms for Liberty’s upcoming national summit will feature a member of the anti-government Oath Keepers militia.
• Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has spent nearly two years promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. As Media Matters’ John Knefel writes, this is a “mutually beneficial relationship that could have disastrous public health consequences for the country and the world.”
• A year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, right-wing media has increasingly demonized surrogacy.
• Right-wing media are becoming more outspoken against no-fault divorce. This week, the head of an anti-trans organization Terry Schilling appeared on YouTube and compared no-fault divorce to “the dissolution of marriage and the abolition of family in the Soviet Union.”
• Fox News is weaponizing the news that President Joe Biden has recently begun using a CPAP machine for sleep apnea to fearmonger over his physical and mental health. 
• Actor Jim Caviezel has spread a host of QAnon-related conspiracy theories while promoting his new anti-trafficking movie in right-wing media, including bizarre accusations about Ukrainian biolabs and mass organ harvesting. 
• After the Russian mercenary army the Wagner Group staged an attempted revolt, right-wing media spun some outlandish conspiracy theories.
• YouTube is profiting from former reality TV star Dr. Drew’s COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation. YouTube claims to prohibit content on vaccines and COVID-19 which contradict guidance from local health authorities or the World Health Organization.
• Spanish-language right-wing media has joined the crusade against Pride Month, fearmongering about a “globalist agenda” to “indoctrinate” children and celebrating boycotts of corporations honoring Pride.
• Right-wing media have spent years normalizing the conservative Supreme Court justices' possible decision to gut the Fourteenth Amendment.
• Right-wing media figures have popularized and defended the Trump team’s last-ditch effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election through a scheme to nullify the election results. This scheme is now under investigation by a special counsel.
• Election denying Joe Oltmann has been collaborating with hosts of a Rumble-based QAnon channel.