It all started, oddly enough, with a reporter for Fox 26, a Houston affiliate station, being introduced so she could report on the upcoming Texas heat wave and possible power outages that could potentially endanger the lives of thousands of Texans.
But by the time reporter Ivory Hecker had finished what she had to say (and it had nothing to do with the weather), Twitter had exploded with comments and hashtags that all had right-wing Fox News heading for some very choppy waters in the days ahead.
According to Hecker, she has damaging recordings of Fox News officials and is about to make them public, Newsweek reports, and she broadcast her intentions on live TV, telling viewers:
“I want to let you, the viewers, know that Fox Corp has been muzzling me to keep certain information from you, the viewers.
“From what I’m gathering I am not the only reporter being subjected to this. I am going to be releasing some recordings about what goes on behind the scenes at Fox because it applies to you, the viewers.
“I found a non-profit journalism group called Project Veritas who’s going to help put that out tomorrow. So, tune into them.”
You’ve probably heard of Project Veritas, and what you’ve heard should indeed make you skeptical of any “news” they disseminate. They’re the clowns who tried to entrap doctors into discussing the sale of “body parts” taken from aborted fetuses, as Think Progress noted in 2017:
“The videos themselves were strongly influenced by conservative activist James O’Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas. That organization has been linked to recent efforts to market a false sexual assault allegation targeting Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, seemingly in an effort to discredit the numerous allegations made by other women. The videos made by CMP have had a long-lasting impact themselves, inspiring a wave of legislative efforts around the country, in addition to a deadly attack on a Planned Parenthood in Colorado.”
Hecker’s remarks and the pending release of tapes from her set tongues wagging among right-wingers and conspiracy theorists on social media:
So this local reporter and Project Veritas are going to “crush the Murdochs”? As much as many of us would love to see Fox News deposited into the nearest trash receptacle, it seems unlikely that this will be what brings about their demise.