By Joseph Cairoli
Two Conservative commentators have quit Fox News following following the release of “Patriot Purge”, a documentary on the Capitol riot on January 6th of 2020 created my Tucker Carlson. Jonah Goldberg and Stephan Hayes, who have been with Fox News since 2009, felt the documentary was “irresponsible” and fed into conspiracy theories. The two wrote in a public resignation letter “The special—which ran on Fox’s subscription streaming service earlier this month and was promoted on Fox News—is presented in the style of an exposé, a hard-hitting piece of investigative journalism. In reality, it is a collection of incoherent conspiracy-mongering, riddled with factual inaccuracies, half-truths, deceptive imagery, and damning omissions. And its message is clear: The U.S. government is targeting patriotic Americans in the same manner —and with the same tools—that it used to target al Qaeda.”
Fox News has emphasized that the special was not aired on their channel, however Carlson was allowed to promote the documentary on the platform. Hayes and Goldberg fear for what happens should this message be allowed to be transmitted saying “If a person with such a platform shares such misinformation loud enough and long enough, there are Americans who will believe—and act upon—it.”
In their letter, the two also said their resignation was just the breaking point “Over the past five years, some of Fox’s top opinion hosts amplified the false claims and bizarre narratives of Donald Trump or offered up their own in his service. In this sense, the release of Patriot Purge wasn’t an isolated incident, it was merely the most egregious example of a longstanding trend. Patriot Purge creates an alternative history of January 6, contradicted not just by common sense, not just by the testimony and on-the-record statements of many participants, but by the reporting of the news division of Fox News itself.”
Fox News has not released a statement on the matter.
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