Fox News “straight news” reports can’t let the viewers think they’ve gone woke!
As you may know, today is the 60th anniversary since Martin Luther King’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington. As NPR reported, “On Saturday, tens of thousands of people gathered in that same spot to declare that dream was in jeopardy — that America had slid backwards in its fight against hatred and bigotry.”
But in Fox’s “straight news” report, the only thing in jeopardy is Black support for President Joe Biden.
Correspondent Kevin Corke began by suggesting that MLK’s dream has been achieved and racism is over. It’s a long-time Fox/MAGA trope that the only real racism going on is against whites, never mind that on that very day three people were shot and murdered in Jacksonville, Florida, in what authorities called a racially motivated attack.
CORKE: It was the sweet serenade of progress. For the thousands of marchers who this weekend marked the 60th Anniversary of the historic 1963 March on Washington, remembered for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, an indictment of America's unkept promise, witnessed by a quarter million people and delivered in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln.
By contrast, Saturday's commemoration was more of a reflection of just how far the nation’s come along its journey toward a more perfect union and the fulfillment of Dr. King's dream.
Corke played a clip of a 1963 march participant saying that the dream “did come true in many, many ways. However, of course, you know, we are still in the struggle.”
That was it for Blacks’ struggle. Corke immediately pivoted to Bidens’ and Democrats’ struggle.
CORKE: A struggle that has Democrats facing increasing political pressure from Black voters, whose disillusionment with the Biden administration is growing. And for the White House, that's worrisome.
With the latest Quinnipiac survey showing 35% of Black voters disapproving of the way Mr. Biden's is handling the economy. Worse, Black voter turnout dropped by nearly 10 percentage points to 42% during the 2022 midterm elections, a pattern that experts suggest could spell ruin for Biden's reelection hopes.
Then Corke suggested that Biden administration efforts toward racial and ethnic diversity is nothing more than an electoral ploy to pander to Blacks.
CORKE: Perhaps then, not coincidentally, the administration is reigniting its focus on affirmative action, issuing informal guidance to colleges and universities that there are still legal ways for them to pursue racial and ethnic diversity in their student enrollments.
Corke closed with a clip of MLK’s daughter-in-law, Arndrea Waters King, saying, “We are here for a rededication to the fight for a future where at long last America's practice will be as good as his promise.” Once again suggesting the fight is over, Corke added, “A promise 60 years in the making.”
In the studio, anchor Shannon Bream hosted a discussion in which Black liberal Juan Williams got a few moments to speak some poignant truth about the progress that’s been made, the progress that’s been undone and the racial animosity being stoked by the right. He did not mention how much of it is stoked on his own network.
WILLIAMS: This is an era in which we have a monument to Dr. King on the Mall. But we also have efforts to strip Black history out of some schoolbooks. This is an era in which, you know, the Supreme Court is undone much. I think hollowed out much of the Voting Rights Act and we ended affirmative action. So you have people who are saying, gosh, there's still so much to be done and looking for answers.
…
And, you know, I think they're especially in the Republican Party, there's a base there that is very anxious about the changes in American demographics, the rise in the number, the percentage of minorities in the population, the voice of minorities, the presence of minorities. And I think people -- some people on the Republican side take advantage of that anxiety and it exacerbates our racial tensions.
White Republican Josh Holmes not only disagreed, he suggested Williams’ view is the one exacerbating racial tensions.
HOLMES: I think part of the issue that we've had with Republicans and how they see race relations in this country is there's a political effort by institutions across this country to try to equate the background of what we were seeing to that incredible speech 60 years ago and the fight over voting rights with like a Georgia voting law, which they called Jim Crow 2.0, which obviously wasn't, right?
And there's just a massive disconnect between recognizing the progress, but also not fanning of flames of resentment and ensuring that we get to a point where we're actually trying to work through divisions rather than trying to pull things apart. And too often it feels like what we're covering and what we're talking about is exacerbating things that do not need to be exacerbated because largely we're moving in the right direction.
Apparently championing a vigilante killer of Black Lives Matter demonstrators, as Fox News' then top host did repeatedly, has nothing to do with the situation.
Next, it was back to Biden’s problems with Blacks – with an aside that Trump improved Black support and “you could see more of that in the next election,” via USA Today reporter Francesca Chambers.
Penny Nance, of the conservative Concerned Women For America group, of all people, went back to the MLK speech, saying, “it was beautiful” and “we also need to recognize that racism is real.… I think the shooting in Jacksonville reminded us of that.”
But she moved on to urge Republicans to “speak more about the issue of school choice” as a way of winning Blacks and elections.
You can watch Fox’s “news” coverage of MLK’s I Have A Dream speech anniversary below, from the August 27, 2023 Fox News Sunday.