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Ralph Peters: Why I left Fox News

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Via: larry-hampton • 4 years ago • 7 comments

This wasn’t a case of the rats leaving a sinking ship. The best sailors were driven overboard by the rodents

S E E D E D C O N T E N T

You could measure the decline of Fox News by the drop in the quality of guests waiting in the green room. A year and a half ago, you might have heard George Will discussing policy with a senator while a former Cabinet member listened in. Today, you would meet a Republican commissar with a steakhouse waistline and an eager young woman wearing too little fabric and too much makeup, immersed in memorizing her talking points.

This wasn’t a case of the rats leaving a sinking ship. The best sailors were driven overboard by the rodents.

As I wrote in an internal Fox memo, leaked and widely disseminated, I declined to renew my contract as Fox News’s strategic analyst because of the network’s propagandizing for the Trump administration. Today’s Fox prime-time lineup preaches paranoia, attacking processes and institutions vital to our republic and challenging the rule of law.

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Professor Quiet

1 seeder Larry Hampton 4 years ago

Four decades ago, as a U.S. Army second lieutenant, I took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution.” In moral and ethical terms, that oath never expires. As Fox’s assault on our constitutional order intensified, spearheaded by its after-dinner demagogues, I had no choice but to leave.

Professor Quiet

2 seeder Larry Hampton 4 years ago

My error was waiting so long to walk away. The chance to speak to millions of Americans is seductive, and, with the infinite human capacity for self-delusion, I rationalized that I could make a difference by remaining at Fox and speaking honestly.
I was wrong.

As early as the fall of 2016, and especially as doubts mounted about the new Trump administration’s national security vulnerabilities, I increasingly was blocked from speaking on the issues about which I could offer real expertise: Russian affairs and our intelligence community. I did not hide my views at Fox and, as word spread that I would not unswervingly support President Donald Trump and, worse, that I believed an investigation into Russian interference was essential to our national security, I was excluded from segments that touched on Vladimir Putin’s possible influence on an American president, his campaign or his administration.

I was the one person on the Fox payroll who, trained in Russian studies and the Russian language, had been face to face with Russian intelligence officers in the Kremlin and in far-flung provinces. I have traveled widely in and written extensively about the region. Yet I could only rarely and briefly comment on the paramount security question of our time: whether Putin and his security services ensnared the man who would become our president. Trump’s behavior patterns and evident weaknesses (financial entanglements, lack of self-control and sense of sexual entitlement) would have made him an ideal blackmail target – and the Russian security apparatus plays a long game.

As indictments piled up, though, I could not even discuss the mechanics of how the Russians work on either Fox News or Fox Business. (Asked by a Washington Post editor for a comment, Fox’s public relations department sent this statement: “There is no truth to the notion that Ralph Peters was ‘blocked’ from appearing on the network to talk about the major headlines, including discussing Russia, North Korea and even gun control recently. In fact, he appeared across both networks multiple times in just the past three weeks.”)

Professor Quiet

3 Dean Moriarty 4 years ago

Someone beat you to this story Larry, about two years ago.

Professor Quiet

3.1 seeder Larry Hampton replied to Dean Moriarty @3 4 years ago

Yup, thanks Dean. The article attached to AH’s seed has been taken down...I thought this could hang in it’s stead.

Professor Principal

4 JohnRussell 4 years ago

Ralph Peters gives himself too much credit. Fox News has been lying to the American public from the beginning, which includes all the time Peters was a commentator there.

Fox and Friends has been on the air since 1998 and it is widely considered to be one of the most dishonest and inaccurate news programs on television.

Professor Quiet

4.1 seeder Larry Hampton replied to JohnRussell @4 4 years ago

All true. Think about this though; how low is too low before fox news analysts start fleeing?

It has to be something, that eventually reaches folks like Peters or Shepard Smith, in a personal way. Carl Cameron, Megyn Kelly, Catherine Herridge, Elizabeth Hasselbaeck, all called it quits there for a reason. That is interesting, and I think should be paid attention to.

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