Greg Gutfeld killed three Murdoch-propaganda birds with one stone Monday when he tried to blame the media for Australia’s devastating bushfires: He provided cover for Murdoch’s downplaying of the fires and dismissal of the role of climate change and he suggested the real villain was the rest of the media.
As we’ve reported, the climate denialism coming from the Murdoch media empire while Australia burns has angered scion James Murdoch and, reportedly, many News Corporation employees. But not Fox News host Gutfeld! He was a happy Murdoch brown-noser. Ditto for cohost Jesse Watters who introduced the segment by saying, “The climate hysteria gets even crazier” because a climate activist is “calling for the extinction of the human race.”
Of course, most climate activists, including James Murdoch and his wife, are calling for ways to mitigate global warming but acknowledging that fact wouldn’t give Fox the opportunity to sneer at climate activists and deflect from the Australian tragedy.
Following Watters’ introduction, Gutfeld once again put the “ass” in asinine. Aa a large graphic blared, “CLIMATE CRAZINESS” behind the cohosts’ table, Gutfeld opined:
GUTFELD: I hate people and I am pro-environment, so I -- but they have two major problems, these climate activists have to deal with. They don't tell the truth and then the media refuses to fact-check them. Instead, the media goes around chasing memes instead of actually fact-checking. If a meme upsets you more than the mayhem in Australia, you've got a problem.
Right now, you can look at Australia, you can hear people on Twitter say, blame it on climate change, while they arrest hundreds for arson, okay?
You’d think the arson story would be the lead story when it comes to climate change, it's not because then you can't blame it on climate skeptics. You should be questioning why there are so many arsonists. It's because it's due to spectacle, it's just like mass shootings, it's encouraged because of the news.
You can watch the hosts shill for climate denialism below, from the January 13, 2020 The Five, via Media Matters.
https://www.politifact.com/facebook-fact-checks/statements/2020/jan/10/facebook-posts/those-claims-about-nearly-200-arrested-arson-austr/